polish up my song, Smithers!

[ArrMatey]

under a lousy attempt at making simpsons innuendos, I wanted to raise/ask/debate the issue of mastering.

I know that mastering is the final polishing on a recording but how important is it?

Can you guys give me examples of modern recordings with little or no proper mastering?

 

Do you think the mixing alone can already give a decent, radio ready song or not?

 

I am just trying to understand what mastering is really. It's still a bit of a big to me...

 

If we have any mastering experts, please let me know as I have a few questions about that art.

 

Thanks

[Kiwiburger]

There are many among us who believe that modern 'mastering' has descended into little more than smashing the life out of a good mix with Waves L2 to appease the greedy record companies desire to have the loudest CD.

 

Basically what it should be about is processing your mix into the format ready for pressing the record/CD.

 

There are normal ranges of loudness, spectral balance and stereo width that are associated with different genres of music. The actual order of songs, and gaps between are all important too.

 

Sometimes the overall 'flavor' of the material can be enhanced by running it through certain hardware or software.

 

Ultimately, the files have to be re-sampled to 16 bit 44.1kHz stereo interleaved files (CD) or whatever format required.

 

In order to master properly - you need good ears, lots of experience and superb full range monitors in a superb acoustically designed room. The equipment used is often extremely high end expensive stuff. Effects like eq & compression are damaging - so don't use your crappy eq & compressors if you know your mastering engineer has the good stuff. You don't want him using that good stuff to try to undo some damage you've done.

 

It's a mistake to master your own material, because your mix room and monitors will have anomalies that will affect how you mix. If you then master in the same room with the same speakers, you will only compound that problem.

 

A fresh set of ears from a non-biased expert with good gear and a good reputation is a good idea. Especially if he/she has a reputation that helps to get your product heard by the important people.

 

DIY mastering - happens all the time. My personal theory on this subject is this (expect some alternative opinions here):

 

Try to make your mix sound like a commercial mastered mix in the first place. Constantly compare your work with commercial mastered mixes (i.e. CD's). IMPORTANT: forget volume level - only compare spectral balance and stereo width, not volume.

 

Make it your goal that your mix will not require mastering - other than loudness maximising.

 

Do not apply any effect or eq over the master bus. Nadda. Zip. Zero. Nothing over the master bus at all.

 

I use a spectrum analyser as a second opinion. If I identify a problem frequency band (too much or to little, compared with commercial mixes of that genre) I tweak this in the mix.

 

While you have the mix in front of you, you have far more control over each element than a mastering engineer could ever have. If you are going to 'master' yourself - knowing the problems of your room and monitors - it makes no sense to Not fix it in the mix.

 

If - for example - you identify a weakness at 80Hz - instead of whacking an eq over the whole mix, you have the opportunity to do any of these:

1 - raise the bass fader

2 - raise the kick fader

3 - apply an eq to the bass

4 - apply an eq to the kick

5 - apply a sub-bass processor to the bass

6 - apply a sub bass process to the kick

7 - change the bass sample (if appropriate)

8 - change the kick sample (if appropriate)

9 - or layer in some other stuff, you get my point.

 

When the mix sounds good, in comparison to commercial stuff, and is peaking at no higher than -6dB in the master buss:

Burn the 24/96 wave file (or whatever project format is).

Keep this file in case you get a pro to master it.

Reimport this into your DAW and now apply your volume maximising effects - maybe a multiband compressor, or just a single band. Final limiting and dithering and resample down to 16/44.1 stereo interleaved.

Burn your audio CD.

Test on as many different systems as you have.

If a problem is identified - go back to the mix.

 

Probably omitted several important things there - but that's basically what I do now for unimportant stuff that doesn't get professionally mastered. It's not what I used to do, and it may not be what i'm doing in 6 months time. But its working for me now.

[ArrMatey]

that was one of the most informative post I've seen in a while. I've learned quite some good ideas.

 

Thank you so much, at least I get an idea of what mastering in itself is now.