Because I can see the waveform as a whole, and skip about the track easily to make sure that the effect I’m applying is right everywhere. I like to use my eyes as much as my ears when it comes to production, my speakers and headphones are cheap crap heh … in fact I use my eyes so much that I can tell how a lot of things sound just by looking at them haha (really!).
I use a compressor (and sometimes Ozone) on the master track to occasionally “preview” the final sound as I’m building it. But I always render out and do it elsewhere. I like Audition’s average-EQ scan and its phase analyser. Plus renoise’s EQ rack sucks ass compared to Auditions.
Here’s another good reason why; the last track I finished was using a VSTi that had some kinda weird DC-offset problem which you can’t really hear but it was screamingly obvious after loading the waveform into Audition. The whole track’s DC offset looked like it was following along some kinda LFO. Strange bug in the VSTi I guess.
I use Voxengo’s GlissEQ these days… it kicks so much ass
that’s why I always put a <20hz hipass on most bassy tracks, and on the master… kills all inaudible subfrequencies, preserves the audible sub-bass and kills DC offset completely.
Doesn’t really matter… I say <20hz because it’s lower than most people can sense. between 20hz and 30hz might still be audible perhaps? Or at least sensable through vibration… shrug
I just use an arbitrary value below 20hz really… whatever the lowest setting on the highpass filter freq is. With individual instrument tracks, I may use as high as 300hz or more, if the instrument isn’t supposed to be bassy. I’m sure there are times too where I’d be tempted to just chop out all bass below 100-150hz in a track just to keep things sounding crisp. I know there are alot of breakcore tracks that have such high limits, mainly because there’s so much going on in the high end that you need to remove as much mud as possible to keep clarity.
I really like using Izotope Ozone, it has a decent multiband compressor and a great spectrum analyser. Other then that I use a Kjaurhus Golden Compressor and Sonitus EQ, which has a lovely warm sound to it.
It’s a dynamic EQ, or is it a 4-band compressor? Or is it both? I don’t know, but i’ve been using it on all my tracks lately. And it’s giving me lots of love, even with limited knowledge. You can even sidechain EQ bands
And here’s one of the best free compressors i’ve used lately, pumps poo-loads of dynamics into drums:
Check out the “archive” on the left, and download the top two new VST’s. Impressive stuff, right up there with the digitalfishphones stuff in the freeware department.
so you do the mastering of your tracks whit crappy speakers and headphones?
