DIY 'Mastering' examples?

[paravrais]

Right, so recently i've been realising that I need to step up my game mastering wise. My mixdowns arn't perfect and I know a lot of people will want to post things like 'don't worry about the mastering right now, make sure your mixdown is the shit and the mastering will sort itself out' but i'm sick of my tunes sounding so quiet compared to not only professional tunes but other peoples on this forum too. I've read all the mixing and mastering threads on here, even used the google custom search to dig up some old threads and read through them too as well as looking around various other places. I think i'm slowly bit by bit starting to grasp the concepts of mixing and mastering more and more but they still baffle me in a lot of ways too as when I read things and try to put them into practice they never quite work out right..

I know i'm no mastering engineer and i'm not looking to become one but what I do want is to be able to do a good enough job of it so as to make my tracks more presentable. I don't have anything signed to any labels so it doesn't look like i'm gonna have anyone else mastering any of my tracks anytime soon so this is definitely something important for me to learn.

But yeah, down to business, the reason I started this thread is that I was wondering if anyone on this forum who considers themselves fairly adapt at sprucing up their tracks could show me two renders of the same track they made, one mastered by them and one unmastered but fully mixed down so I can compare and see better what sort of sound I should be getting at the end of the mixdown stage and exactly what needs to be done during mastering (cos at the moment i'm just sticking a multiband compressor on and selecting mastering preset..)

Not trying to sneakily scav peoples tunes here, if your uncomfortable with uploading your songs somewhere either put them somewhere undownloadable or only export short clips, anything that's enough to hear a comparison is good enough!

(Sorry this is such a self serving thread but I guess there *must* be others around here that would benefit from this too??)

EDIT: 420 posts? saweeeet

[lowpass]

I would still try to get the mixdown as close as possible to a referenced mastered tune.

No matter how close it gets there will still be more that can be done at the mastering stage,and the odds of hitting it on the nail with your monitoring is unlikely (although not impossible )

What I'm trying to say is when you want to know what level you should get your mixdown, just keep aiming for the top man!

Think that was your question, don't have any examples I can post up though fraid

[paravrais]

I would still try to get the mixdown as close as possible to a referenced mastered tune.

No matter how close it gets there will still be more that can be done at the mastering stage,and the odds of hitting it on the nail with your monitoring is unlikely (although not impossible )

What I'm trying to say is when you want to know what level you should get your mixdown, just keep aiming for the top man!

Think that was your question, don't have any examples I can post up though fraid

Well obviously i'm still gonna keep striving to do the best mixdown I possibly can each time and I know that it's the most important thing but if i'm mixing to between -6 to -4 db headroom then rendering I have a damn quiet track! When I whack a compressor onto the rendered file and bring it up to 0db though it still sounds more subtle and subdued than other tracks that I listen to, is this due to cock ups i've made earliar on in the mixdown then? cos I assumed it was more to do with the simple way I was treating the wav post render but I guess maybe that's just wishful thinking.

[lowpass]

show me two renders of the same track they made, one mastered by them and one unmastered but fully mixed down so I can compare and see better what sort of sound I should be getting at the end of the mixdown stage

Sorry, this bit threw me off a bit

Are you just on about volume?

[paravrais]

show me two renders of the same track they made, one mastered by them and one unmastered but fully mixed down so I can compare and see better what sort of sound I should be getting at the end of the mixdown stage

Sorry, this bit threw me off a bit

Are you just on about volume?

Well yeah, mostly, but I wanna see like which bits have been boosted and which have been cut. When I put a 3 band compressor on my audio file I dunno what I'm meant to be doing to each bit if you get me? and some things i've read have talked about putting and eq onto the master to boost and cut certain freqs which I don't really understand..I would have figured you wouldn't want to put an eq on when mastering cos it would ruin the mix..

aah I think i'm just being an r-tard and i'm blatantly not ready to try and understand this yet :\

[Sirius]

3 things i think of....
- get yourself a copy of golden ears-cd & book, then start training those ears of yours!
WARNING!!!!! music will never sound the same again!!

- use a really good spectrum analyser, play all your favorite tunes, & watch those spikes.
find out which freqs are doing what!

- stereo imaging is extremely important! make sure you spread out your sounds, put them where they should be,
& let them sit "right" in the mix!


is your studio sound treated? do you have quality monitors? are your monitors EQd for your studio?
read as many sound engineering books as you can handle...

!!chea

[paravrais]

3 things i think of....
- get yourself a copy of golden ears-cd & book, then start training those ears of yours!
WARNING!!!!! music will never sound the same again!!

- use a really good spectrum analyser, play all your favorite tunes, & watch those spikes.
find out which freqs are doing what!

- stereo imaging is extremely important! make sure you spread out your sounds, put them where they should be,
& let them sit "right" in the mix!


is your studio sound treated? do you have quality monitors? are your monitors EQd for your studio?
read as many sound engineering books as you can handle...

!!chea

Cheers for the advice on the book there.

One thing that frustrates me is how much i've already read about all this type of stuff vs how shite my mixes still sound. I know all about which sounds should sit in which frequencies and using compression and resampling and using slight reverb to put space into a mix and panning things left/right and leaving space for headroom etc etc etc I've spent countless hours over the last year and a half trying to understand this and my mixes still only sound fractionally better than months and months ago

I don't think I have any spectrum analysers (unless theres one inbuilt with ableton I havn't discovered) so I have never listened to another tune and taken note like you said, might look into that, I have put an 8band eq onto another track and dragged it down listening to where each of the different sounds come in and fade out etc but it just made me more confused lol

My studio isn't treated at all but I do have some fairly nice monitors (samson rubicon 6a) unfortunately I can't really set up a proper studio till I leave home but that aint gonna be happening any time soon as I'm poor as fuck!

I think maybe I put too many sounds far down in the mix rather than letting lots of things be loud? If that makes sense? I normally have the kick/snare set the peak then put the sub slightly below them then maybe one or two other instruments will get even close to that. Recently i've been letting my hats come up higher in the mix and I think it sounds better for it but I get scared that bringing things up will make things cluttered...I also think I might be taking too much out when I eq some sounds :\ so hard to tell though.

Is the general consensus here that if I can actually learn to mixdown/make a track properly then shoving a dodgy mastering eq unit on the master when I'm finished will bring it up enough to share on here/play out. Not as an alternative to mastering but as a way of making it playable before it's mastered??

[Sirius]

download blue cat audio- freqanalyst.......
its free & it does a mean job

[paravrais]

download blue cat audio- freqanalyst.......
its free & it does a mean job

Thanks man, pon de download now.

[macc]

One thing that frustrates me is how much i've already read about all this type of stuff vs how shite my mixes still sound. .... I've spent countless hours over the last year and a half trying to understand this and my mixes still only sound fractionally better than months and months ago

Reading books isn't experience. You need experience to put the things you have learned from reading into action. This takes a lot longer than a few months. Stick with it and keep working!

With regard to your mixing, don't try to second guess yourself. If you put soemthing at a certain level cos it sounds right there, then that's where it needs to be. Be careful of thinking 'well it might mean xyz' - just get cracking and enjoy making your tune sound how you like. Chances are that will give you the best mix

Is the general consensus here that if I can actually learn to mixdown/make a track properly then shoving a dodgy mastering eq unit on the master when I'm finished will bring it up enough to share on here/play out. Not as an alternative to mastering but as a way of making it playable before it's mastered??

If you get the mix right you won't need any eq. Just some limiting to bring the level up. Depending on which limiter you use, be careful to do the limiting using the feature that keeps the perceived output level the same as you do more and more limiting. Then you can hear when you're really messing your tune up, and back off. Then you can set the output ceiling to -0.4dBFS or whatever and you're done. Let us know what limiter you're using and hopefully we can explain this a bit better

I'd 100% stay away from using a multiband on your master. See how far you can get using JUST a limiter, and concentrating on doing the work in the mix.

Practice practice practice practice practice practice practice. And do a lot of (critical) listening on the same speakers, turning down pro tracks to the same level as yours.

Lots of listening and practice (and listening practice, hehe), with a bit of reading = winner.

[paravrais]

If you get the mix right you won't need any eq. Just some limiting to bring the level up. Depending on which limiter you use, be careful to do the limiting using the feature that keeps the perceived output level the same as you do more and more limiting. Then you can hear when you're really messing your tune up, and back off. Then you can set the output ceiling to -0.4dBFS or whatever and you're done. Let us know what limiter you're using and hopefully we can explain this a bit better

I'd 100% stay away from using a multiband on your master. See how far you can get using JUST a limiter, and concentrating on doing the work in the mix.

Practice practice practice practice practice practice practice. And do a lot of (critical) listening on the same speakers, turning down pro tracks to the same level as yours.

Lots of listening and practice (and listening practice, hehe), with a bit of reading = winner.

Oops I meant to say put a compressor on my master not eq XD but you reckon a limiter is better? I'm gonna sound like such an idiot now I know, i've wondered this for ages and never had the balls to say it on here for fear of being flamed but whats the difference between a compressor and a limiter? I always figured they were the same thing untill people started referring to use one over the other for certain things on here and as it happens i'm not sure I actually *have* a limiter :s

[SunkLo]

Limiter's a compressor with a ratio between 10 and infinity, with no attack time. Used to catch fast transients, useful for situations like this where you want to increase the average volume and reduce transient spikes so things can be turned up louder.

[Depone]

One thing that frustrates me is how much i've already read about all this type of stuff vs how shite my mixes still sound. .... I've spent countless hours over the last year and a half trying to understand this and my mixes still only sound fractionally better than months and months ago

Reading books isn't experience. You need experience to put the things you have learned from reading into action. This takes a lot longer than a few months. Stick with it and keep working!

With regard to your mixing, don't try to second guess yourself. If you put soemthing at a certain level cos it sounds right there, then that's where it needs to be. Be careful of thinking 'well it might mean xyz' - just get cracking and enjoy making your tune sound how you like. Chances are that will give you the best mix

Is the general consensus here that if I can actually learn to mixdown/make a track properly then shoving a dodgy mastering eq unit on the master when I'm finished will bring it up enough to share on here/play out. Not as an alternative to mastering but as a way of making it playable before it's mastered??

If you get the mix right you won't need any eq. Just some limiting to bring the level up. Depending on which limiter you use, be careful to do the limiting using the feature that keeps the perceived output level the same as you do more and more limiting. Then you can hear when you're really messing your tune up, and back off. Then you can set the output ceiling to -0.4dBFS or whatever and you're done. Let us know what limiter you're using and hopefully we can explain this a bit better

I'd 100% stay away from using a multiband on your master. See how far you can get using JUST a limiter, and concentrating on doing the work in the mix.

Practice practice practice practice practice practice practice. And do a lot of (critical) listening on the same speakers, turning down pro tracks to the same level as yours.

Lots of listening and practice (and listening practice, hehe), with a bit of reading = winner.

Tip tip advice!

If you want to hear some examples, heres some from my 'leg up audio service' (http://www.dubstepforum.com/depones-leg ... 47964.html) sorry not trying to plug it, but i will put the examples here too.

Each one was treated differently with approx 4 stages of treatment.

Example 1
Artist: 3rd Eye
Track: Lifeline
Forthcoming on the "The Road to Awe" EP on 20/Twelve Recordings ©
Soundcloud

Example 2
Artist: The Phantom banger
Track: To the Future
Soundcloud

Example 3
Artist: Grayscale
Track: Are you scared yet?
Soundcloud

[deadly_habit]

One thing that frustrates me is how much i've already read about all this type of stuff vs how shite my mixes still sound. .... I've spent countless hours over the last year and a half trying to understand this and my mixes still only sound fractionally better than months and months ago

Reading books isn't experience. You need experience to put the things you have learned from reading into action. This takes a lot longer than a few months. Stick with it and keep working!

With regard to your mixing, don't try to second guess yourself. If you put soemthing at a certain level cos it sounds right there, then that's where it needs to be. Be careful of thinking 'well it might mean xyz' - just get cracking and enjoy making your tune sound how you like. Chances are that will give you the best mix

Is the general consensus here that if I can actually learn to mixdown/make a track properly then shoving a dodgy mastering eq unit on the master when I'm finished will bring it up enough to share on here/play out. Not as an alternative to mastering but as a way of making it playable before it's mastered??

If you get the mix right you won't need any eq. Just some limiting to bring the level up. Depending on which limiter you use, be careful to do the limiting using the feature that keeps the perceived output level the same as you do more and more limiting. Then you can hear when you're really messing your tune up, and back off. Then you can set the output ceiling to -0.4dBFS or whatever and you're done. Let us know what limiter you're using and hopefully we can explain this a bit better

I'd 100% stay away from using a multiband on your master. See how far you can get using JUST a limiter, and concentrating on doing the work in the mix.

Practice practice practice practice practice practice practice. And do a lot of (critical) listening on the same speakers, turning down pro tracks to the same level as yours.

Lots of listening and practice (and listening practice, hehe), with a bit of reading = winner.

Tip tip advice!

If you want to hear some examples, heres some from my 'leg up audio service' (http://www.dubstepforum.com/depones-leg ... 47964.html) sorry not trying to plug it, but i will put the examples here too.

Each one was treated differently with approx 4 stages of treatment.

Example 1
Artist: 3rd Eye
Track: Lifeline
Forthcoming on the "The Road to Awe" EP on 20/Twelve Recordings ©
Soundcloud

Example 2
Artist: The Phantom banger
Track: To the Future
Soundcloud

Example 3
Artist: Grayscale
Track: Are you scared yet?
Soundcloud

do u have voucher codez?

[narcissus]

(cos at the moment i'm just sticking a multiband compressor on and selecting mastering preset..)

i can guarantee that's not helping your mix in any way.. better to leave it off

[SunkLo]

Yeah "mastering preset" is an oxymoron.
If you want some cheap gain get a decent limiter and pull down the threshold until you get the amount of reduction you're looking for. A few dBs should do it, if you're whacking like 12 off it then you're doing it wrong.

Forget who makes it, but the W1 limiter is supposed to be a really good clone of the Waves L1. Always liked the L2 the best out of Waves' limiters but the L1/W1 will probably suit you quite well.

[paravrais]

Cheers for all the great advice everyone and the examples depone, havn't got access to proper speakers right now but will check them out tommorow.

Obviously I knew that the mastering presets on multiband compressors wern't gonna actually master my tunes for me but they did give them a massive boost in loudness and warmth which I figured was better than leaving them all quiet. Will be sure to never do it again though XD downloaded 3 or 4 freeware limiters to try out so will experiment a load tomorrow and try and get my head round this whole thing a bit more.

EDIT: realised I had my DJ headphones on me, another big thanks to depone for those examples, really given me food for thought there. Now I know a bit more what I'm aiming for.

[Ongelegen]

quick question out of curiosity, normaly when sending a track to a ME dithering should be left alone. Now lets say i've done my own 'mastering' just by putting a limiter on the master to boost it a couple of dB, is it better to export the wav with or without dithering? Or doesn't it matter much? The wav would be then converted to mp3 with adobe audition.

[SunkLo]

If you're bouncing from 24 to 16 bit, dither that mother, but like you said, only if you're not sending it to mastering.

[Ongelegen]

ok thanks!

and if i mastered it in the project file itself right after the mixdown and didn't bounce and import the 24bit?