master track

[charles1]

I thought that this would be an interesting thread as I haven't seen one dedicated to it from a search of the forum. I think we should discuss our personal preferences for treating the master track but also accepted standards that professional artists use. So, how do you normally treat your master track?

Lately I've begun to add a little bit of EQ and compression to my master track, along with a limiter just to be safe. For EQ, I put a steep low pass filter at 17,000 Hz because anything above that is inaudible to humans and unnecessarily raises the volume. Then I put a very, very slight high pass at 30 Hz, and put a little bump at 250 Hz. I read this here: http://abletonlife.com/how-to-master-a- ... leton-live

Lately, I have also been adding some compression to my master track. I use a relatively large knee at about 8 dB, a small ratio usually less than 2, and a threshold at approximately -10 dB. Finally I've got a limited at -0.2 dB just to be safe.

Everyone knows how important it is to keep the volume of your individual tracks relatively low so that the master does not reach 0 dB. Like most people, it feels unnatural for me to lower the volumes of each track. My solution for this is to let them stay wherever you had them while you made the song (as long as they don't clip over 0 db). Then I simply lower the output level on my compressor to somewhere around -5 dB (or however low you need to go so that the master track peaks below 0 dB. This way, nothing clips, and I don't need to go through the annoying process of balancing each track at low volumes.

I'm not saying this is the best way to do things. I'm certainly not an expert and I'm hoping to learn from your responses. I hear a lot of people say that your track should peak between -6 and -12 dB. Honestly this doesn't seem necessary to me (but I'm probably wrong). I try to let my track peak as high as it can as long as it stays below 0 dB, and I have the limiter there (with no gain btw), which only comes into play maybe 5 times (usually at a snare) over the course of the entire song and reduces the gain by about a half a dB - not a big deal in my opinion.

So anyway, how do you treat your master track?

[fragments]

Arrangement/Sound Design: Voxengo Elephant Limiter default setting to protect monitors.

When I'm mixing: Slate VCC Mix Bus, Slate VTM, Voxengo Elephant Limiter default setting to protect my monitors.

If I decided to try a ghetto self master: I push the master through a tube amp to add a little gain. After I've recorded that Waves H-EQ, something from CLA Classic Compressors (haven't found my favorite yet) for a tiny squeeze, Vox Elephant to taste. Maybe another Slate VTM if I'm feeling that vibe.

[Today]

>low passing master @ 15k

what are u doing OP

[lloydy]

I treat each master how it needs to be treated.Every tunes different yo!!
Why are you lowpassing down to 15000hz?Surely 17-18khz would be fine,15khz seems a bit extreme to me.

Well on my master i have 4 plugins normally that i find reliable and am pretty astute with so i see no need for more.
Now first in the list is Logics multimeter,use this to check for peaks and where they may be + also has a goniometer within the plugin to aid with monitoring the stereo image.
Next i have ozone 4 not 5(i'm not rich),i only use the eq,harmonic exciter and the stereo imager.
I find the eq to be nice and clean,the harmonic exciter is just stunning for adding shine to a mix.The stereo imager i rarely use but have on a few tunes if i feel they need added width.
Next Psp vintage warmer as it is by far the best sounding limiter there is but very easy to overdo things.
Next another multimeter just to again check levels and stereo image.

I just want to say i have these on my master but all turned off because i attempt to wright/mix all my music with enough headroom on the master without having to rely on plugins.
Yes i have in the past mixed hot and relied on a limiter but now i find my mixes have a lot more clarity if i do not.
Each to their own i guess.

[Today]

high passing master at 30Hz jesus christ its like u are against hearing both bass and air in ur trax. good luck m2

[lloydy]

high passing master at 30Hz jesus christ its like u are against hearing both bass and air in ur trax. good luck m2

Also on a side note op it isn't a science,your ears are for listening so listen.If it don't sound good make it!

[mthrfnk]

Above 15k is inaudible? Your hearing sucks either that or you don't have any air in your tracks.

In general I normally mix to -3dB ish overall then I sometimes play with the levels of my busses (bass/drums/synths etc.) to bring this down further if FX on the busses are adding overall volume. On my busses I normally have an analogue style EQ with a flat low cut (changes dependant on the buss - I mean like 20Hz for Bass) and sometimes a slow roll off at 16-18k. I have a compressor on most busses (sometimes single band The Glue, sometimes Izotopes multiband) to glue things together a little, and I also normally have an exciter and stereo imager on things such as synths or orchestral elements just adding little amounts - nothing major. On my drums buss I normally have FerricTDS adding a little something too. If I'm using vocals I'll also sometimes add stripBus to make the synth/piano buss "duck" when theres a signal on the vocals buss - not sidechaining, just a light duck to even stuff out and I know this isn't how you're meant to use stripBus but I do .

I normally have something like the Glue on my master when bouncing out with very transparent compression just to, as the name suggests, "glue" to track a little.

Then I'll import into a new project, and on the master I use as standard Izotopes exciter with minimal settings on the mid and highs, multiband comp, and limiter bringing it up to around -0.3 - although I normally try not to slam my stuff too hard. I sometimes use M/S EQ to roll off <200Hz from the side channel if I decide it's a little messy. Sometimes I'll ease back on Izotopes limiter and place a Waves L2 after this, I read somewhere it's occasionally better to at gain reduction in stages so you don't push one limiter too hard, and I find the L2 is pretty good.

Like you I'm not saying this is great, in fact some people may state some of what I do is "wrong" but atm it gets me to where I want to be with a demo level finished track.

[charles1]

oops, I meant I put my lowpass at 17,000 Hz, not 15,000!

@today - do you have lowpass and highpass mixed up with low cut and high cut? or did you miss the part where I said "very, very slight"? or did you not read the link? I am directly following the guy in the link who himself said that anything about 15k Hz is usually inaudible to humans. However, I do 17k just to be safe.

I don't know what you guys mean by "air". I put a little bit of noise and automate it so it sounds like an ocean wave in my tracks for some ambiance in just about every song. but that usually has a low pass at like 1000 Hz so the 15k+ range isn't doing much for me.

do you think it's safe to have a compressor on there? sometimes i find that they can make some funky sounds (not in a good way). for example, some random little shaker perc might sound really loud because nothing else is playing at the same time. so I wonder if it's okay to just throw a compressor on there without giving it a second thought.

exciters are something I am really interested in. ableton AFAIK doesn't come with one. are there any good free plug ins you might suggest?

[AxeD]

You can create an exciter effect quite easily with an EQ and distortion or saturation.

[lloydy]

oops, I meant I put my lowpass at 17,000 Hz, not 15,000!

@today - do you have lowpass and highpass mixed up with low cut and high cut? or did you miss the part where I said "very, very slight"? or did you not read the link? I am directly following the guy in the link who himself said that anything about 15k Hz is usually inaudible to humans. However, I do 17k just to be safe.

Again you shouldn't listen to too many people's opinions,mastering engineers will correct whats wrong with the track not stick to a defined path of action.
Also some instruments will have textures out of our hearing range but these textures could affect the tones we hear so heavy lowpassing or highpassing could affect the music you making.
Now making club system music yeah is different because deafening a crowd isn't really the done thing but it all comes down to the harshness of your top end.If it is harsh then yeah it will need sorting out and a mastering engineer will be well aware i suppose.
Again different tracks will take different approaches.

do you think it's safe to have a compressor on there? sometimes i find that they can make some funky sounds (not in a good way). for example, some random little shaker perc might sound really loud because nothing else is playing at the same time. so I wonder if it's okay to just throw a compressor on there without giving it a second thought.

If you have things becoming loud during quiet parts you riding the threshold to much.Look at it like this if you mix your track down with heavy limiting or heavy compression on your master your not really hearing the mix properly.You could do a whole mix and then take the compressor/limiter off to master and the dynamics could be all over the place which in turn could give you a bit of a headache to sort out.(trust i've been there)

exciters are something I am really interested in. ableton AFAIK doesn't come with one. are there any good free plug ins you might suggest?

Exciters do pretty much what they say on the tin.I think they add tones/noise to the mix which can excite the frequency spectrum and for me basically make it sound brighter.
Ozone has a multiband exciter with 4 bands available,i could not live without it.Again easy to overdo things so less is more approach needed.

[lloydy]

You can create an exciter effect quite easily with an EQ and distortion or saturation.

Care to explain i would like to hear how if you don't mind

[Sharmaji]

as always-- it depends.

some tunes sound great with a bit of compression to glue everything together. sometimes that glue sounds like ass. Sometimes a tune needs a whole heap of a bell at 22k to bring the upper harmonics into a more exciting place, sometimes it needs a rolloff at 17k because of weird buildups.

if you don't know what you're doing, for chrissakes, don't do anything. Experiment until you learn what does what. Make things sound shitty, and then fix them. learn what overcompression and too much EQ sound like.

Lately, if a tune actually does benefit from master buss compression, i'm usually reaching for the waves SSL comp-- it's simple, meaty, and tends to do the trick. It can sometimes be too obvious though, so if that's the case, i'll reach for the stillwell bombardier if it really, really, really needs compression.

[VirtualMark]

Lately I've begun to add a little bit of EQ and compression to my master track, along with a limiter just to be safe. For EQ, I put a steep low pass filter at 17,000 Hz because anything above that is inaudible to humans and unnecessarily raises the volume. Then I put a very, very slight high pass at 30 Hz, and put a little bump at 250 Hz. I read this here: http://abletonlife.com/how-to-master-a- ... leton-live

So, you get all of your mastering information from a single web page?

I'd think it's fair to say that mastering is a deep subject, and that you should probably read a few books on it instead of trusting a single article.

Why on earth boost at 250hz?

As for your steep high pass and low pass, you should brush up on EQs before deciding to do something this drastic to your master. This video is a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efKabAQQsPQ

[Locktar]

Obviously it's different with each track but I normally just stick with a PSP Vintage Warmer (using different settings depending on the track) and a Spectrum Analyser VST to give me and idea of what's what in the mix. I sometimes do some EQ work if I feel it's necessary. Just depends.

I wouldn't go too heavy into putting stuff on the master channel, though. Mainly because I wouldn't know where to start!

[djrq]

spectral analyser and that's it.
I try to get everything pretty much as I want it without anything on the master, I treat it like I am mixing it down to send off for mastering.
then if I need a bigger more polished version I will give the bounced wav a bit of a home master.
(eq, ozone and maybe a bit of a crunchy limit)

I used to stack up a few things on the master but found it was giving me bad habits as I was hearing a false representation of what I was doing during the creation process.

[outbound]

I would probably avoid the steep LP filter at 17KHz. There is definitely information up there (most of the time) and doing this will make every mix sound excessively dark.

That's not to say I'm against using LP filtering in a mastering context, it can sometimes be useful with a gentle slope if I get a mix through that needs taming in the highs but generally I avoid it. (And as for headroom, it's not that relevant as the higher frequencies take up so little space compared to LF)

With HP Filtering I don't even use this by default. Maybe one out of every 7 or so projects will have this (more so in rock/pop projects than bass heavy music) Getting the Low-end balance in a track is a fine art between getting something that has enough headroom to compliment the rest of the spectral mix and something that has enough power to fill up the track and give the proper foundation needed (or weight I guess you'd say) Sometimes HP can get the result I'm after but I get much more precise results with a parametric EQ.

As for what I use stating the obvious "It depends on the mix" is going to be the most important. Every track I get through and every track I make is going to have a different process but most of the time these are common steps I take:-

- Using Parametric EQ with a tight Q to notch out any nasty resonant buildups that were missed in the mix stage.
- Using Parametric EQ with a wide Q to boost/cut areas that I feel will either bring the track forward or backwards. (Or give the same results with particular instruments/channels I feel could have a little helping hand)
- Using Outboard compression (I use this mainly for colour, sometimes I'll use it and it'll barely register anything past half a db of GR)
- Using ITB compression (I use these for more surgical purposes, e.g multi-band, de-expanding, more transparent compression)
- Limiting - This can range anywhere between 5-6 db of gain reduction (rarely) to again barely doing anything and only acting as a safety net for the odd peak or 2.

What I will say though is mastering for others always provides a better results than mastering my own track. There's more to sending a track to someone else to master besides tools and experience. The objectivity and unbiased approach are vital in getting the most out of a mix. If you're going to do it yourself here's a few tips:-

- Listen to your mix on as many different systems as possible to highlight any possible problems that you may have missed on a previous system.
- Reference to a lot of mixes in a similar style, in fact listen to a lot more music in your listening environment to get a better idea of how a mix should sound.
- When choosing to change something in the mastering chain think to yourself "Is there a way I could achieve this in the mix stage instead?"
- When choosing to change something in the mastering chain instead of adding more or using more extreme settings think about trying to get a more accurate result with what you already have, or try taking certain processors out. Some of my best masters have been a result of this, using as little as possible to get the best possible sound. Having a long list of Plugins not only convolutes the workflow but is usually unnecessary and you could most likely get the result you are after with less.

Hope this helps!

[wub]

I thought that this would be an interesting thread as I haven't seen one dedicated to it from a search of the forum.

What to and not to put on a master bus?? - http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=235699
what are you doing to the master - http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=74666

spectral analyser and that's it.

I don't especially like using compression etc if I can help it, would rather get the mixdown as hot as possible and leave the master completely dry so that if I were for any reason to pass a track onto a mastering house, I could do so as is without having to remove stuff.

I used to stack up a few things on the master but found it was giving me bad habits as I was hearing a false representation of what I was doing during the creation process.

Also, this.



EDIT - exception to this is one of the tunes on my Soundcloud where I put a reverb on the master to add some atmospherics that I felt fitted the theme of the track.

[blinx]

I write and compose with nothing on my master. Ill mix down to around -6db ish and bounce out to a new project file.

This new project is used only for mastering that track, ill generally use a mix of PSP, Ozone and most recetnly L2 to squeeze some "loudness" out of the track. I always lean towards dynamics over loudness so as to not squish anything to much while doing my self master. I want to compete with the big tunes, but i never want to win the loudness war... just compete.

[charles1]

thanks for all the responses everyone. I'm glad to see this be a successful thread.

@AxeD - could you please further explain your manual exciter?

@virtualmark - no, I don't get all of my info from a single article. mentioning an article in no way implies that it is the only source of info you rely on. I put a small bump on 250 Hz because it gives your track a little boost when played on small speakers (eg laptops).

btw the low pass I use is very, very, VERY slight, and it's at 30 Hz. It's a Q of approximately .75

[VirtualMark]

@virtualmark - no, I do not get all of my info from a single article. mentioning an article in no way implies that it is the only source you rely on for information. I put a small bump on 250 Hz because it will give your track a little boost for small speakers (eg laptops).

Sure you don't mate - I'd almost believe you if you hadn't followed the article word for word!

From the article:

I will tighten up the low end by setting a low cut filter on band 1. I’m setting the Frequency to 30hz.

Next, on band 2 I will bump a little in the 250hz range with a Q of 1.4 for some very subtle punch.

Finally, on band 4, I am using a high pass filter to eliminate some frequencies above 18kHz. Usually anything above 15kHz can’t be heard by the human ear, so to be safe I am killing a small amount at the very very top.

Here is the mix post EQ. Not a huge difference, but the slight bump at 250hz will give it some weight on smaller speakers:

Always boosting your master at 250hz is one of the stupidest "tips" I've ever heard. But it's your track, what do I care!