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 (nobody)...and 146 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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Members 8025Messages 2614154 Today 6 Topics 127544 |
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ok, after the artist completes his work.. adjusts the levels and all that post shit.. he sends it to be mastered... now this is just something some studio technician does to make sure all the levels (volume, phasing, bass/mid/treble) are all ready to be pressed to vinyl/cd correct? what else is involved in the mastering process and what is different about the SOUND of a mastered and unmastered record.. what does the masterer do that the artist leaves out? |
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Mastering is partially the levels Also compression, limiting, reverb, etc... many things. I master all my pieces fairly heavily and never can get the levels just the way I want them... my songs sound much better in an enclosed listening environment, like headphones, than anything else. When I listen to my tracks in the car, or even on regular speakers, there is a lot of muddiness and other things I really wasn't expecting. What mastering does is (hopefully) reduces this effect of it sounding different on different speakers, with the goal of the piece sounding good on anything from a Mackie monitoring lab to 10$ refurb car stereo speakers. Plus, probably more important, the masterer has an ear he has honed for doing that sort of thing. When you've listened to a piece a lot, you get a feel for what it's doing and can very easily make the levels sound wrong, I overtweak songs a lot and then end up falling back to an older version when I take a break from listening to it. It's basically getting a fresh, professional ear to listen to it, and then change it subtlely to make it sound better all around. |
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I have a question, what software do people use for mastering? |
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I sometimes use Steinberg Nuendo, not sure what pros use... |
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Depends I use Cubase for mastering because I have all the tracks seperate and I am not good enough with subtle EQ/compression/verb yet to do anything Any good plugins for those things master very well, it's more the effects than the software I -THINK- I really haven't talked to professional masterers much... so I'm not sure, but this is what I'm fairly confident on... Protools is the mastering mecha. Very expensive plugins to their specific TDM system make it the choice of studios The Waves plugin set also got good reviews, and also expensive, especially when DirectX was more popular than VSTs. Now, there are tons of reviews for specific plugins for specific things Honestly? I think it's way, way, way, way, way, way more important to have a good ear and feel for the music than the best plugins. My 2 cents |
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I'll have a look at that, But i just use sound forge 6 and maybe cool edit but they are not good enough imo. |
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Again, in my opinion... They are good enough, but mastering can only do so much... you have to worry about levels closely when making the track and eliminate the major problems with whatever you used to creat the track. Mastering follows and makes it sound more "polished" |
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right.. this is what I suspected. sometimes I'm way too close to something that I need a different perspective on things.. but I wouldnt want someone fucking w/ my music by adding reverb and shit when that's not what I wanted for it.. I wonder if there is some sort of universal formula or notion of what makes a track good for all systems/headphones/speakers/stereos... I noticed something I did recently didnt sound right on a bigger stereo system.. but it all came together and sounded great on the computer and on headphones |
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It's not like i spend a huge amount of time mastering, the only thing i want to acheive is that every track is at the same level so when i burn it on to cd i don't have to keep fucking around with the volume control. |
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It's good to listen to it on lots of different stereos/systems when mastering and making sure it's okay on all of them. Last year I used to listen to stuff on about 3 sound systems other than my own, but this year I've just used speakers linked to my pc, my headphones and a hi-fi. Skink- yep, the main thing that I aim to get out of it is a decent overall volume- it's gash having to turn the volume up or down all the time when listening... |
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Very good advice from Ceri... to add to that, final mastering MUST be done on monitoring speakers. The reason for this is they don't add artificial bass. The theory is, if it sounds good on monitor speakers, it will sound good on most anything. |
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mastering/compressing a track always makes me nervous.. I always feel like something is going to be lost in the process |
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ceri are u signed? or have u released anything independently/through an independent label? |
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Nope, sent out demos recently, heard a couple of rejections, but a second batch was only sent out 2 weeks ago so something may still come of them. I'm considering releasing an EP of 4 versions of my track Silo and perhaps a 12" of a more commercial dancey type track on white label in the not too distant future. |
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ive had a few tracks put on compilations, and i was asked by the master studio to make sure the dat i sent them was mixed at or below -10db. apparently this gives them more room to work with. not sure exactly what the process is but damn, it makes a difference! |
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I think the best advice is to make sure you have something worth releasing first. We all like our own tracks but what's to say that other people will. Get a general opinion of your tracks. If the majority say no then try again. That's more important than mastering. Plus I wouldn't send it away to be mastered. I'd do that myself. Screw someone else adding to it. You may want the bass flat in it or the treble a bit tinny. How will they know. You need to be there and do it yourself. |
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I know I've heard Dykehouse complain before about what Mike Paradinas did to his sound before he released it on Planet-Mu. I honestly wish I was a little better at it. |
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in terms of specific software to use: the waves gold bundle comes highly, highly recommended from me. it's quite expensive (over $1000.00 US), but you can get a fully functional demo that works for two weeks. you can try to grab this then do your mastering in that two week span. the L1 ultramaximizer is the mastering plug-in of the gods. a completely non-destructive volume tool that gets your sound to same levels of the IDM big boys without having to deal with normalizing. |
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i use t-racks and soundforge. t-racks mostly is good for giving a warm lo-fi analogue sound to your tracks and for spreading the stereo a bit. i also do a lot of mastering on some semi-lo quality speakers. if i can get it sounding good on those, it usually sounds good in the car and on heaphones as well. i find if i master soley on my studio headphones, the tracks tend to sound good only on those headphones. |
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can widening the stereo field fuck anything up in your track |
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Ne1 here ever notice CDs from the late 80's earily 90's arent as loud as current cds? (ALso the side part with the cd's title is upside down). Some of the stuff on ICBYD and the RDJ Album really dont sound very mastered. |
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