forums : Producing

techniques for Mastering your tune?

Anyone got any good techniques for mastering your tunes they would like to share.


Over the years I have never really finished tunes and mastered them or shared them for that matter.

In the next couple days I will finish 2 tunes that I have never been so happy about and wanted to get some tips on mastering or just a general idea on how you guys go about it.

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

the secret to mastering is not to "master"

if you get your tune sounding hot there is not need for processing afterwards (i have found). mix and eq/process as you make the tune. when you are done check your levels but that's it!

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

Very nice thanks. Thats what I try to do so I hope it sounds right when all said and done.

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According to djcalculon ...

the secret to mastering is not to "master"

if you get your tune sounding hot there is not need for processing afterwards (i have found). mix and eq/process as you make the tune. when you are done check your levels but that's it!
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Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

reasons got a really powerful "mixdown" & "master" section on the back panels of the mixer. super useful, and gives it that radio ready sound.

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

at the same time, even though that is my technique there are lots of different ways to do it. see if some more ppl post about compression techniques and limiting.. waves maximizer programs and so on

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

bryan mean on the back panel?

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

press the "master" button.....

lol or, sidechain, eq, layer, and compress as you produce.
As Calculon said, it should be enough by the end if you have a good ear. You mos def. want to at least run ur tunes as a whole through compression/limiter to give it some punch and beefy quality, as well as to moderate the levels.

If your levels and signal quality are s**t coming from your tracks, a mastering sesh is not going to do much; But an easy//effective way is after a mix down to open a master track on your mixer and bus your whole mix to it, and give it proper compression(mulitband), and eq's.

If your levels and signal quality are s**t coming from your tracks, a mastering sesh is not going to do much so work hard on your mixdowns! Also having good plugins helps. Waves, T-racks, and most of the Logic plugs, get you where you need to be. You can do ALOT with a LITTLE. Good luck.

pz!

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

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According to metaphase ...

press the "master" button

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:script:

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

try adding to your signal by layering stuff to expand and augment frequency content before you get too eq-crazy. a good engineer can usually get optimal results with subtle manipulation, and a good composer should try to set up an engineer to do so. since you're both, help yourself out and fatten as much as possible before trimming. this will help with phase as well as tone.

keep key elements in mono: most drum elements (crash, kick, snare, breaks), subs, channels hosting bass and mid elements. stereo effects are okay, but keep the field narrow to limit phasing.

don't overcompress or overdistort. distort like channels together (i.e. send all drums to a bus and use camelcrusher / camelphatt / good qual compression plugs etc., same with bass, etc.). don't overdo it, it's meant to add commonality to specific elements and help make layers sound like one instrument.

and don't solo too much. try to get a feel for what needs work by looping the main groove of the track and adjusting based on the stereo mix, because you have to mix stuff relative to other stuff sometimes. find a tune like yours you want to emulate tonally and balance-wise, load it up as an audio file, and a/b it.

good luck and don't think harder than you listen.

Re: techniques for Mastering your tune?

First and foremost I must say that if you are going to release your tune, never underestimate the power of a professional mastering engineer! They will do about a million times better job mastering your tune than you will haha. As long as your mix is good to go, they can do wonders!

With that said...
I used to use a 'mastering' limiter over the whole mix to beef up the sound. But I found that this usually destroys the dynamics of the tune and makes the tune sound worse...even though it is louder!

Recently, I've just been reeealllly careful as I mix and make sure I have no channels overloading or vst outputs overloading and try to get as balanced of a mix as I can. Use subtractive eq!

Like Calculon said, just try and mix as carefully as you can. Then at the end you'll find you usually can turn the master bus up and get it louder than you normally would, plus you still have dynamics left!.

Another thing that I'll do sometimes is to add a veeerrry slight amount of reverb over the entire mix (as a send effect). This gives the effect of making the tune sound like it was played by the same band in the same room, and it gives a bit of 'air' to the mix.

One last thing you might try is after you export the entire file, go over the wav form by hand and increase or decrease levels of certain parts to your liking to level out parts of the song. This is basically 'manual' compression and is a lot of work, but is really beneficial in the end to a more even sound for the track.