Mastering a Track

[serox]

Word just stick an eq to roll off the lows(36hz) and ear-piercing highs, crank a limiter on it, make 300hz and below mono (If you wanna cut to vinyl), add a little bit of stereo width, some harmonic excitement, and Presto!

Just be sure to take that crap off when sending it to be mastered.

Below 300hz should be mono? I never knew that but luckily I keep most stuff in mono anyway.

[serox]

Macc, could you confirm if we should cut low/hi freqs out on a master if we plan to just use a limiter to play it out? I work with 808s mostly and never thought about removing low end tbh. I am making bass music why would I want to do that...

[macc]

If it has too much bass, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

If it has too much high end, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

The difference a high-pass filter makes to stuff above the cutoff cannot be overestimated. You really need an excellent monitoring system to hear and make that judgement. Similarly with a LPF.

FWIW I don't always HPF everything. When I do it's for good reason. It's not always the same filter slope and it's certainly not always at 36Hz or whatever. It depends. What sounds best?

I do tend to HPF more than I LPF, but that's partly because the MLA-3 can handle that super-high stuff in a more transparent way, keeping more 'air' but controlling the very very top when needed. Also, the most painful/harsh/irritating stuff tends to be anywhere between 5 and 11.5kHz, which an LPF won't do anything to fix.

In any case, if you're doing it yourself; why didn't you do it in the mix you bloody nana? That's so important I'll ask it twice - why didn't you do it in the mix?


Everything below 300Hz doesn't have to be mono for vinyl by the way, that's tosh. You are much much more likely to find bandlimiting (ie HPF + LPF) in a vinyl mastering chain than in a purely digital-oriented though, in my experience.

[serox]

If it has too much bass, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

If it has too much high end, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

The difference a high-pass filter makes to stuff above the cutoff cannot be overestimated. You really need an excellent monitoring system to hear and make that judgement. Similarly with a LPF.

FWIW I don't always HPF everything. When I do it's for good reason. It's not always the same filter slope and it's certainly not always at 36Hz or whatever. It depends. What sounds best?

I do tend to HPF more than I LPF, but that's partly because the MLA-3 can handle that super-high stuff in a more transparent way, keeping more 'air' but controlling the very very top when needed. Also, the most painful/harsh/irritating stuff tends to be anywhere between 5 and 11.5kHz, which an LPF won't do anything to fix.

In any case, if you're doing it yourself; why didn't you do it in the mix you bloody nana? That's so important I'll ask it twice - why didn't you do it in the mix?


Everything below 300Hz doesn't have to be mono for vinyl by the way, that's tosh. You are much much more likely to find bandlimiting (ie HPF + LPF) in a vinyl mastering chain than in a purely digital-oriented though, in my experience.

Thanks for clearing that up. I think I will just leave my master dry because I have filters/eqs already as I add each channel. I dont have a great system or room so I wont be messing with things I dont know enough about and could make it worse.

[Littlefoot]

Bob Katz is generally accepted to be the definitive source on this issue. Get this:

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Audio-S ... b_title_bk

Bob Katz has quite a few opinions/techniques/ways of working that a lot of us don't agree with to be honest, and although that book is a source of many many great nuggest of information, isn't "the world of mastering" in every engineers eyes, just a thought!

Just to say, us MEs are mostly MASSIVE NERDS, so just send us emails and we'll talk about mastering, I mean I can only speak for myself, but I would note from experience that myself, Macc, SafeandSound and some others are usually available to PM / email via this forum.

[Littlefoot]

If it has too much bass, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

If it has too much high end, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

The difference a high-pass filter makes to stuff above the cutoff cannot be overestimated. You really need an excellent monitoring system to hear and make that judgement. Similarly with a LPF.

FWIW I don't always HPF everything. When I do it's for good reason. It's not always the same filter slope and it's certainly not always at 36Hz or whatever. It depends. What sounds best?

I do tend to HPF more than I LPF, but that's partly because the MLA-3 can handle that super-high stuff in a more transparent way, keeping more 'air' but controlling the very very top when needed. Also, the most painful/harsh/irritating stuff tends to be anywhere between 5 and 11.5kHz, which an LPF won't do anything to fix.

In any case, if you're doing it yourself; why didn't you do it in the mix you bloody nana? That's so important I'll ask it twice - why didn't you do it in the mix?


Everything below 300Hz doesn't have to be mono for vinyl by the way, that's tosh. You are much much more likely to find bandlimiting (ie HPF + LPF) in a vinyl mastering chain than in a purely digital-oriented though, in my experience.

Wise words as always.

[pete_bubonic]

If it has too much bass, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

If it has too much high end, cut it. If it doesn't, don't.

The difference a high-pass filter makes to stuff above the cutoff cannot be overestimated. You really need an excellent monitoring system to hear and make that judgement. Similarly with a LPF.

FWIW I don't always HPF everything. When I do it's for good reason. It's not always the same filter slope and it's certainly not always at 36Hz or whatever. It depends. What sounds best?

I do tend to HPF more than I LPF, but that's partly because the MLA-3 can handle that super-high stuff in a more transparent way, keeping more 'air' but controlling the very very top when needed. Also, the most painful/harsh/irritating stuff tends to be anywhere between 5 and 11.5kHz, which an LPF won't do anything to fix.

In any case, if you're doing it yourself; why didn't you do it in the mix you bloody nana? That's so important I'll ask it twice - why didn't you do it in the mix?


Everything below 300Hz doesn't have to be mono for vinyl by the way, that's tosh. You are much much more likely to find bandlimiting (ie HPF + LPF) in a vinyl mastering chain than in a purely digital-oriented though, in my experience.

make my tracks bare fat, GET ME DOE