Post You Mastering Techniques

[Guest welcome to the machine]

Sup guys.

 

I know mastering has been discussed in other threads but they seem to be about a specific problem.

 

I wanted to start a thread where anyone could post their knowledge or methods for mastering tracks and post production. This has always been one of my week points, and I'm sure some other heads around here could use some tips also.

 

Personally:

I use reason to program my tracks. I try to get the different instruments/noises sounding as good as possible, then I export each track separately (Track1=drums; Track2=bass; Track3=lead synth etc, etc). Next I import my tracks into cool edit and do my finishing touches, which are all by ear. I use a fairly good pair of headphones when mastering. I'm rather poor at the moment and have no extra money for a nice set of monitors.

 

I really don't know much about which frequencies are good for bass, or how to set my levels correctly so that the track will sound good really loud on a nice system, its all by ear.

 

 

So ya, If you have a link to a tutorial that you think is worthwhile, or any advice of your own, or you just wanna share your method post it here

 

plus, don't do any of this. fuck all that saving each track seperately shit. what's the point of that? the only point in doing that is if you're bouncing the tracks to a seperate (and I mean, not part of your computer) piece of kit. if you're using Reason, the Combinator also has a good mastering suite in it that is perfectly OK.

 

Anyway, just fucking make sure you can hear all the seperate elements and save the whole song as one file. Don't bother with that seperate tracks bollocks - you'll just end up making your tracks sound all muddy - everything's taking place inside one computer that will colour the sound to it's own liking anyway, so no point in messing about exporting seperate tracks etc....

 

Main points are: Listening to your song - can you hear the hit hats? Is the main synth muddying the kick drums etc etc... listen and adjust levels as necessary.

 

Listen a lot.

 

Save at a nice high bit rate and resolution.

 

Run the saved wav through a mastering suite - like I said - I recommend T-Racks.

 

Over and out.

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

The reason I separate out the tracks like that is because reason is fairly limited when it comes to effects. Even tho cool edit doesn't have VSTs I do have some other stuff I use in there. I also like to double up some sounds sometimes and reason seems to be a resource hog. I'm not sure cool edit is the right program for what I'm doing but it was what I had, someone else told me to look into cubase.

 

yeah, its a good idea to get out of reason if you want to mix properly.

 

cool edit pro is fine for what you are doing, and remember it DOES support Dxi's so you can either install the dxi version of your vst's or get a dxi wrapper, which effectively turns your vst's to dxi's for use in cooledit etc.

 

cubase is a step up (or two) from cooledit for what you are doing. even if you will only use it for mixing you will have a better mixer and allot more options to play around with (cubase has pretty good routing facilities too, so you can have tracks doubled, tripled, whatever and seperately effected without actually having to physically double them up).

 

you can also wire reason directly into cubase, so you dont have to worry about mixing down any wavs. you use the cubase mixer and vst's but with the sounds coming directly from reason.

 

but aside from mixing, with cubase you can also sequence reason's instruments with a nicer key editor, you can bounce things to audio as you go to save cpu (which sounds like it may be an issue for you) and you can do allot of interesting creative things with audio you cannot do with midi.

 

or you could just go with cubase 100% and leave reason, but if you already know it well I would probably stay unless using it is annoying you.

 

heres a few starter hints that I often find myself telling students, they may seem obviouse and if they do i apologise!

 

- you need to mix your drums seperatly, kick, snare, hats on seperate tracks and so on.

 

- dont overdo compression, it may sound good at first but it will soon become fatiguing.

 

- you only have 1 range of frequencies to fit everything into, decide what you want where, and make space for it with eq's if neccessary.

 

- you can get away with hipassing almost everything apart from the kick and the bass. just like chords on a piano the lower you go the more space sounds need to breathe. too much going on in the low end will make your track a muddy mess. let that the kick and basses territory only.

 

- push things back in the mix with reverb, ie keep important sounds THERE but not too upfront and present

 

- pan. its the easiest way to seperate sounds

 

- tiny amounts of distortion mixed in with things like drums can give them sparkle and presence. but the key is tiny amounts, and this only works with certain tracks.

 

- learn, i mean PROPERLY learn to use a compressor, not just so you can hear it working but learn how to use them well in all there uses. attack and release are vital to making a compressor do what you want it to do, but are often overlooked to start with

 

hope some of that helps.

o

[Guest JW Modestburns]

Sup guys.

 

I know mastering has been discussed in other threads but they seem to be about a specific problem.

 

I wanted to start a thread where anyone could post their knowledge or methods for mastering tracks and post production. This has always been one of my week points, and I'm sure some other heads around here could use some tips also.

 

Personally:

I use reason to program my tracks. I try to get the different instruments/noises sounding as good as possible, then I export each track separately (Track1=drums; Track2=bass; Track3=lead synth etc, etc). Next I import my tracks into cool edit and do my finishing touches, which are all by ear. I use a fairly good pair of headphones when mastering. I'm rather poor at the moment and have no extra money for a nice set of monitors.

 

I really don't know much about which frequencies are good for bass, or how to set my levels correctly so that the track will sound good really loud on a nice system, its all by ear.

 

 

So ya, If you have a link to a tutorial that you think is worthwhile, or any advice of your own, or you just wanna share your method post it here

 

plus, don't do any of this. fuck all that saving each track seperately shit. what's the point of that? the only point in doing that is if you're bouncing the tracks to a seperate (and I mean, not part of your computer) piece of kit. if you're using Reason, the Combinator also has a good mastering suite in it that is perfectly OK.

 

Anyway, just fucking make sure you can hear all the seperate elements and save the whole song as one file. Don't bother with that seperate tracks bollocks - you'll just end up making your tracks sound all muddy - everything's taking place inside one computer that will colour the sound to it's own liking anyway, so no point in messing about exporting seperate tracks etc....

 

Main points are: Listening to your song - can you hear the hit hats? Is the main synth muddying the kick drums etc etc... listen and adjust levels as necessary.

 

Listen a lot.

 

Save at a nice high bit rate and resolution.

 

Run the saved wav through a mastering suite - like I said - I recommend T-Racks.

 

Over and out.

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

The reason I separate out the tracks like that is because reason is fairly limited when it comes to effects. Even tho cool edit doesn't have VSTs I do have some other stuff I use in there. I also like to double up some sounds sometimes and reason seems to be a resource hog. I'm not sure cool edit is the right program for what I'm doing but it was what I had, someone else told me to look into cubase.

 

yeah, its a good idea to get out of reason if you want to mix properly.

 

cool edit pro is fine for what you are doing, and remember it DOES support Dxi's so you can either install the dxi version of your vst's or get a dxi wrapper, which effectively turns your vst's to dxi's for use in cooledit etc.

 

cubase is a step up (or two) from cooledit for what you are doing. even if you will only use it for mixing you will have a better mixer and allot more options to play around with (cubase has pretty good routing facilities too, so you can have tracks doubled, tripled, whatever and seperately effected without actually having to physically double them up).

 

you can also wire reason directly into cubase, so you dont have to worry about mixing down any wavs. you use the cubase mixer and vst's but with the sounds coming directly from reason.

 

but aside from mixing, with cubase you can also sequence reason's instruments with a nicer key editor, you can bounce things to audio as you go to save cpu (which sounds like it may be an issue for you) and you can do allot of interesting creative things with audio you cannot do with midi.

 

or you could just go with cubase 100% and leave reason, but if you already know it well I would probably stay unless using it is annoying you.

 

heres a few starter hints that I often find myself telling students, they may seem obviouse and if they do i apologise!

 

- you need to mix your drums seperatly, kick, snare, hats on seperate tracks and so on.

 

- dont overdo compression, it may sound good at first but it will soon become fatiguing.

 

- you only have 1 range of frequencies to fit everything into, decide what you want where, and make space for it with eq's if neccessary.

 

- you can get away with hipassing almost everything apart from the kick and the bass. just like chords on a piano the lower you go the more space sounds need to breathe. too much going on in the low end will make your track a muddy mess. let that the kick and basses territory only.

 

- push things back in the mix with reverb, ie keep important sounds THERE but not too upfront and present

 

- pan. its the easiest way to seperate sounds

 

- tiny amounts of distortion mixed in with things like drums can give them sparkle and presence. but the key is tiny amounts, and this only works with certain tracks.

 

- learn, i mean PROPERLY learn to use a compressor, not just so you can hear it working but learn how to use them well in all there uses. attack and release are vital to making a compressor do what you want it to do, but are often overlooked to start with

 

hope some of that helps.

o

:beer: I'll be giving some of those suggestions a shot.