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Rendall
Contributing Member
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 246
Location: Hertfordshire
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 Posted: Fri, 21 May, 2004 18:01 Post subject: Mastering : The Basics |
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Most amature producers seem to think that mastering their track, will give it the treatment it needs to sound like the next Ram Raiders ep, or Defected groove. In fact, in can quite be the opposite. Firstly you need to ask yourself what you expect from the mastering process. Also, what the hell do you think it is?! US and UK definitions are quite different. Well, the main difference you will notice, from something you have produced yourself, and a professional bit of vinyl/cd is the difference in velocity. Even when you've pushed your volume to 0db so its barely clipping, why is they're track so much louder? Well, its due to clever compression & limiting. So subtle that the dynamics of the music still remain intact.
Before you can even think about mastering, you need a high quality monitoring system. Why? Crappy speakers won't let you hear the very subtle differences you will need to make. Also, studio monitors have a flat eq response so your mix will be much more acurate.
Secondly, try and get someone else to do it. There's nothing better than getting in a fresh pair of ears. If you made the track, you've heard the same loops etc.. thousands of times. The overall mix won't be as aparent to you as it is to someone else.
Technically, mastering needs to be done in a professional audio suite. Mastering hardware is extremely expensive (most spent on a massive monitoring system) but of course most of you dont have that access! The main reason being, is that the actual mastering processing, you simply wont be able to hear on standard monitors. In consideration of the target crowd, most of you wont have a £100,000 studio so baring that in mind, my advice to you is this;
Spend as much as you can on monitors (Preferable with a sub woofer)
-your mix is only as good as your monitors-
Even if you're well into software, some hardware dynamics will give you a more 'hands on' feel. Look into hardware compressors, limiters and de-essers.
-there is a huge argument on soft/hard but for mastering (even amature) there simply is no challenge-
Don't over do it. If you can hear changes in your mix, your processing too much. Mastering is definatelly an art, perfect it. Less is more. Subtle changes in your mix will make a huge difference to the end result
_________________
Less is More
Last edited by Rendall on Wed, 07 Jul, 2004 15:48; edited 6 times in total |
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frankysun
Just popping in
Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 3
Location: Vienna, Austria.
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