Mixdowns affecting the Mastering Process

[CuriousKontrol]

Basically I've been struggling to get my tracks to a volume that I'm happy with to match other tracks out there, it's a right pain in the arse for me, but my friend sent me his track to master for him, so I thought I'd give it a go. I done what I usually do with my tracks when mastering them and it was suddenly as loud as all the other tracks - no distortion and a good amount of volume so this means he's obviously mixed his track down better than mine for mastering. I'm quite happy with my mixdowns at the moment, it just really frustrates me when I go to master it and it starts to sound really bad if I'm getting it anywhere near as loud as commercial tracks. Im obviously doing something right with my mastering techniques as its worked on other peoples tracks but why won't it work on mine?

Any tips you guys could give me to get 'better' mixdowns for mastering?

[ketamine]

I can't work this out either.

Pro engineers use a tiny bit at a time, al along the way...

a *little* compression here,
two or three limiters there...
one on the channel,
one on the buss
etc..

by the time it hits stereo out, its nice & loud.

I tried this method last night, and although my track was louder than any in my past, once I put it on Soundcloud it STILL didn't match up.

I could drive up the gain, but like you said, its distorted.

I'm with you, I'd like to see how the h3ll get my mixdowns up to industry standard volumes.

[mthrfnk]

Define exactly what you're doing during "mastering".

[CuriousKontrol]

This is the wierd part, I literally popped it into Ozone 5 and popped the maximizer on it with a low threshold and a fast release and it was done

[mthrfnk]

This is the wierd part, I literally popped it into Ozone 5 and popped the maximizer on it with a low threshold and a fast release and it was done

So you're just limiting it?

In that case, perhaps work on your mixdowns, taking into account compression on channels, stereo imaging and also the "fullness" of the track in terms of frequencies.

[Triphosphate]

Because I master my own tracks, I've been trying something new with my mix downs lately. I'm a firm believer that anything you feel like doing to the track in self-mastering you should have done in mixdown, and this technique forces me to respect that.

I use a very gentle compressor on the 2bus and mix into it, and aim for as close as I can get to 0db, instead of my usual -3db. Then (after I'm happy with the mix) I slap an L2 on it and have it attenuate very little (between 1 and 2 db). I'm not sure my songs are as loud as the competition, but I'd like to think I'm getting close without sacrificing depth or clarity.

[gen_]

Quality of tools, quality of tools.

Real masters will have been through analogue hardware, or at the very least Analogue emulation. Tape Machines, saturation summing, mixing desks, even acetate (yes, the vinyl variety). every single one of these can add several audible dB of saturation to the master without raising the peak level on your mixer at all. To get at least some of the way, you'll want something like Ozone/T-Racks/PSP HR or Waves to do your EQ and edits, and something like PSP MixSaturator or Dadalife Sausage Fattener to do your saturation. The former (MixSat) has been my bread and butter for ages and latter is awesome but very very limited (it's a one knob saturation effect that is VERY strong and does it own kinda EQ/compression job along the way so you want to avoid using it on your master too much, but a little makes quite a difference).

As for the Mastering suites, i prefer Ozone, but you'd be better speaking to an engineer about which one is really best for you and you tools atm. I don't know what you have at home so you could find that half of what you are getting is covered by your inventory and you really only need a limiter for the T-Racks or Waves range.

Much more importantly, you need your Mix to be clean as f**k, as the more you push your level with saturation the more obvious your mixes flaws will be. Lots of people who get distortion early get it because there a bunch of frequencies that don't need to be there adding unwanted level to their mix. There's a maximum of 3 peaks in any sound. Those are the parts you want to hear. Listen to your sound in the mix and work out what parts of the sound you actually hear. Get an EQ, use up to three curves that dont overlap to turn those peaks up, then turn the channel strip level down until the level sounds about the same as originally. If it sounds the same when slipped back into the mix, you've just cleaned the shit out of it AND taken another step towards learning what parts of a sound need to stay and don't.