I’ve seen the same type of post as this on other music forums and you usually get the ‘mastering is an arcane art that takes years of practice’ type answer. It’s good to see people here saying something a bit more straight foreward. What I’ve noticed is that whan I mix up my own tunes on my mp3 player with commercially done stuff I notice the commercial stuff has a ‘polished sheen’ to it. I can’t work out how this is done? I use Ozone and the PSP vintage warmer for instance but I’ve no idea which one should be in front of the other.
I’ve got a dog; she usually walks out of the room if the higher frequencies get too much, that’s my EQuing done anyway!
Hey Foo?, can you recommend any good mastering vst’s?
Or just tell me what you do when you master… if you have a routine that is.
EDIT: While we’re at it, I came across this at a review of Ozone on the web:
SIDEBAR: Mastering is an advanced aspect of audio recording. Whether or not you try the Ozone3 plug-in, do yourself a favor and visit their site for a free Ozone Mastering Guide. It’s probably one of the best introductions to mastering I have ever read.
Back in the day they used to tell me you would never be able to make music on a computer. I had to go pay some guy with a 100 thousand dollar hybrid digital/analog console and 100 faders, and his room of toys. Everyone thought it was preposterous that a computer could replace their gear and studios that cost more than a house, and took as much room as one in real-estate space. No way any of this could ever be done on a laptop and a few boxes.
SUPRISE!
Obviously, someone trained to master is going to be better than someone who isn’t. If you have the resources, a professional will save you time and gain you some credibility. But supporting the established way because of the mysterious wizard hierarchy of mystical mixing alchemists because, hey, all these people have vested interests in preserving their jobs, so you can’t do it yourself, so just don’t. F****ing bullshit.
DO IT YOURSELF.
There’s no shame in trying. So what if you fail?
But yeah, now I remember why I hate music communities, egos and assholes answering questions with indignant rants as if what they do is pandora’s box, all wanting to get paid.
But yeah, try to DIY approach if you want. I use Izotope Ozone and I wouldn’t call myself good at mastering at all, but it gets the job done well enough to where I like doing it myself.
…And I’m currently involved with some experiments of mastering digital audio directly to high definition 2-track mastering tape using a TASCAM BR-20T. The results off tape are absolutely astounding, and much better than worrying about jitter with downsampling.
Digital Audio can only be so good. Truck loads of bedroom producers are doing ace stuff with it. It just has a limit to it. If anyone wants the ‘best of the best’ from audio it has to be done from start to finish COMPLETELY analogue - and probably using good tube gear too. If that seems odd to anyone reading that, do your own research and make up your own mind.
I’ve been doing semi-professional mastering from my own studio for a little bit now. Every client is different. Some want it done for no money, so want this or that done. Some mixes are what I’d call terrible. But most of the time I keep that to myself - I’m trying to be professional, and it’s a provided service, not a lecture. Some people like sludge, so give it to them
There are so many other issues that come into it other than plugins. 33% mix quality + 33% gear/studio quality (including speakers/acoustics) + 33% engineer quality.
Conner has a great point about doing things yourself. You learn a lot and it gets your head deep into fascinating places with audio. I’d only go down the path of seeking professional help if your MUSICAL IDEAS (i.e. songs) are worth it. If you’ve written some amazing alt pop that’s going to move a lot of people - then yes get it treated like it’s precious material. But you’ve just gone and done some sludgey breakcore the better to have fun with yourself.
Hmm, I don’t want to seem pretentious at all about it and I’m really keen to help people. Just ask. I tend to be quite geeky about the subject area, and would much rather talk to someone about downsampling jitter for 4 hours than talk about football or some shit.
Hey Gul, try out endorphin. A relatively simple, yet very nice sounding freebie. I can recommend all the plugins on that site. I use BLOCKFISH all the time.
I don’t care about mastering anymore. The music is just mixed up with EQing and then pumped through Izotope. I don’t make money with my tracks and NO ONE dissed me because of the bad soundquality but because of the weak melody or whatever.
Mastering comes to my mind, if I really try to publish my songs for a commercial reason and then I know I have to get a studio-engineer to do it for me. Guess what? Bands need studio-places, too
Don’t raise mixer levels when mastering. Drop everything else down. This will maintain dynamics, generally. Maximizer shouldn’t have outrageous settings on it.
