Mastering

Inofaith · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:55 am

I read somewhere that some engineers give the artists 2 versions of the tracks.

One that is loud and squashed like hell, and another that has large dynamic range. And the artists who play their tracks or dupplates out live all love the 2nd with the dynamic range.. because the track breathes on the sound system.

Much like in a feature film, scores have great dynamic range.. and the quiet moments are used to clean out the sound palette of your ears.
This is true for interludes/breaks/bridges

Now I now compose and mix it with the maximum dynamic range. During mastering I compress those tracks that need to bang, but the real ambient, glitchy idm like artworks I leave spacey.

tobias schuch · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 12:01 pm

I could see that.
I do similar things for my tracks (but i wont give away every secret i have.. haha)

Mixing for film/television is VERY different to mixing CD's/music.
Mixing/mastering for film is very much like mixing/mastering classical music

Superchibisan · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:02 pm

There are other ways to gain loudness without squishing kicks. Limiting is a nono and is not meant for compressing whole kick drums. Compression is your friend with trying to gain loudness...

Good mastering gear in the digital realm needs to be transparent, because it is very rare when a digital mastering device actually sounds good. If i was speaking of hardware units, it would be a whole 'nother topic and unfortunately, not one I am familiar with.

5db of dynamic range on a PEAK meter while everything going, this is during peak sections of the song and there will be parts that get down to -35db and what not, if you want to get specific, this would be 35db of dynamic range technically.

I wouldn't say its the loudness race range, I would say you've perhaps been mastering incorrectly. With squishing kick drums and what not, I can see how this amount wouldn't work. With preserved transients and proper compression, you can easily achieve this.

tobias schuch · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:46 pm

I dont think you interpreted what i said correctly..
Yes, of course compression is your friend, and of course there are ways to gain perceived loudness without harsh limiting..
What i was saying is that a LOT of mixes that people are making these days have kicks that are sometimes 6db too loud. As this is obviously a problem that should be fixed in the mix but that isnt always a possibility, limiting the kick is just fine. If you have good gear that can do it without sounding like shit, i see nothing wrong with that (and neither have any of my clients, so hey!)

You should have stated that then!
As this thread is meant to give less experienced people useful advice, just saying that mastering to 5db of range might give people the wrong impression..

Superchibisan · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:49 pm

Roger.

I would never use a limiter to squash down a kick, maybe some heavy compression, but a limiter does just that, limits... (yes I know they are the same thing)

I agree, if the gear can handle it, by all means, fix it...

Superchibisan · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:50 pm

I would probably go about fixing a too loud kick by bringing up the volume of everything around it instead of squishing the kick...

tobias schuch · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:51 pm

tough one to really talk about considering it would be done differently depending on source material

Superchibisan · **Posted:** Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:38 pm

agreed, just trying to put it out there that limiting is a bad idea

Inofaith · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 8:21 pm

For real beginners: Reading the ableton manual on the limiting, EQ, compressor isn't such a bad idea either...

I'm no ME but 5 or 6 db dynamic range seems a bit too little imo.

I also don't get why shit has to sound louder and louder, and then a bit louder. If a DJ has a good mixer (NOT pioneer) with lots of headroom and good components. I feel its better to boost the signal in an analogue way while mixing (that is, if you don't have analogue gear to master the track) And just leave it to the sound system to make everybodies stomach rattling with bass.

I use compressors creatively on drums sometimes for sucking fx etc. or as a bit of a blend-together on the master.

It's always fun to see waveforms (also on soundcloud) that look like 3 lines and 2 blocks in between hem XD -——■■■■——■■■■—–··

Superchibisan · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 2:55 pm

FUCK pioneer mixers...

Tokyo Dawn Records · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2010 7:37 am

I saw many good points about compression and limiting in this thread. Let me add another technique of dynamics manipulation I love to use:

Just use the gain envelopes and compress manually. Work wonders on loops if you're searching for an insanely pumping effect, but is also suited for conservative mastering and mixing applications, for example gating and limiting or fixing the long term dynamics (for example making the chorus 1-2dB louder than all the other elements, riding down an excessive peak, ect).

This is basically my best compressor. Might also be ours - with a little practice.

tobias schuch · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2010 11:40 am

what do you mean gain envelopes?
changing the gain of different sections?

Disco Nutter · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2010 12:15 pm

He probably means going old-school - rocking the volume faders, but with the digital world's possibilities - automation. :roll:

Jason

tobias schuch · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2010 12:48 pm

if you need to ride the faders, do it in mixing, not mastering.

Disco Nutter · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2010 1:56 pm

tobias schuch wrote:

if you need to ride the faders, do it in mixing, not mastering.

True, but he mentioned mixing as well.

Jason

Tokyo Dawn Records · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2010 3:11 pm

tobias schuch wrote:

what do you mean gain envelopes?
changing the gain of different sections?

Yes exactly, "riding the gain" with the modern possibilities of drawing envelopes visually.

Gates, Expanders, Compressor, ect do basically the same thing in an automated, often very predictive and wrong or at least compromised way. So, why not do it manually here and there?

I also find it useful in mastering applications. Of course, it makes sense to do whatever possible already in the mix. But (not limited) mixdowns often only have 2-3 really significant peaks. In my opinion, these are better tamed by hand, so that the final limiter works with a more consistent input (means less distortion and more control).

Also, I often receive horribly squashed, loop-oriented mixdowns lacking any kind of dynamic contrast. I found it useful to manually "turn" down some parts of the track to let the chorus better kick in (just an example). Of course, all parts will still peak around 0dB after the final limiting, but only the chorus will be squashed like crazy for a few seconds, the parts in-between will relax the ear until the next chorus.

It's just an idea, a proper mix will not ask for such a band-aid of course.

Ben Disarmonix · **Posted:** Sat Jun 19, 2010 1:47 am

Thanks for this i've just started using ozone recently and i must say it is one awesome plugin. This post answered any question i would have had about it cheers Eprom

sixth sense · **Posted:** Wed Jul 07, 2010 6:45 pm

I really wish my computer could handle ozone

tetrabyte · **Posted:** Tue Jul 13, 2010 10:45 pm

anomalous code wrote:

Anodyne wrote:

A good mix will probably sound better than shitty mixing and clueless/noob mastering.

thats the main thing you can take away from reading that thread,...... if the mixing is spot on, then mastering is nothing more than a formality. if the mixing is shit, however, then mastering wont do shit for you, you'll just get a louder piece of crap ( see metallica death magnetic).

the one constant you'll find in that thread is that if theres a problem that needs a compressor or eq or superduperwhateverthefuck, then you should go back to the mix and fix it there.

i read that thread a while ago, and i honestly couldnt believe that something as simple as gain structure would have such a dramatic effect,..... so i put it to the test on a short loop, with no compressors, and my god if it didnt shit all over every other mix i slaved away on for days.

if you can pick sounds that go well together, and you follow the fundamentals of that thread, then all you need to do at the end is slap a limiter on to it, and it'll come out sounding as loud and more importantly, as fat as you hear it on your daw, good enough to be played out.

the only downside is that it'll make you want to go back and remix all your old stuff,......

so basically instead of compressing the shit out of every idividual element move the faders until everything is as loud as it should be then mixdown and apply compression/limiting over the whole to get a better sound? do you really not use compression for loudness at all before the final mastering stage?

RobAnomaly · **Posted:** Sat Jul 17, 2010 11:38 pm

Much Appreciated. I just got Ozone 4 and still in the process of experimenting with it. Has anyone messed around with any of the BBE Sonic Sweet plugins?

4bstr4ck3r · **Posted:** Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:55 am

Thanks a lot people ! I was learning mastering by myself for a few monthes now, and couldn't have the result i wanted. I was sceptical about the -6db headroom trick and didn't try it. Now i can see and feel the change: my tunes are solid as hell and are louder than before without impacting their clarity. I'm so glad ! :joint:

GHF people keep rockin' !

chraosdub · **Posted:** Tue Jul 27, 2010 7:10 pm

off topic, but EPROM, i saw you perform in knoxville, tn a few months ago....sick shit man

Isturite · **Posted:** Wed Aug 04, 2010 11:41 am

ya and to add to that... thanks for killing it at emrgnsee in oregon... it was epic

ShifteQ · **Posted:** Sun Aug 22, 2010 9:44 pm

Something i think is worth a read no matter you level or what you use...

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/o ... gGuide.PDF

Its very well explained, and whether you use Ozone or not, it can be applied...

Thanks to everyone else for their tips and Eprom for putting this one up here...

Nobuseri · **Posted:** Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:58 pm

Thank you eprom, I just bookmarked this page. thanks for sharing your experience with this sort of thing. Though it was specific to Ozone, it is still relative to any software that I could use. Now all of thse big scary words like Multiband Dynamics, and Harmonic Exciter mean something.

I think that mastering is the most unknown part of creating tracks. At least for producers like myself, who are just starting out, just reaching that level, where you start thinking: Hey, thats 5 minutes long, and I think people might dance to this.
then someone says Mastering and you think (Is that a compressor or something?)

Thank you for elaborating your technique for us Glitch Junkies. Very clear and informative.
Makes me wanna Load up Ableton and do some work.

Thx again

Mastering

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