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Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere else, I have been reading through the collective wealth of knowledge here on DSF and still haven't stumbled upon the answer I'm looking for.

I was wondering how you would go about preparing your track to send out to DJs, or for you to play out yourself. I don't have the means yet to get my track mastered by a proper engineer so just looking for tips.

So after I have done the mixdown and bounced the track, I load the waveform into a new mastering project and the track is around -20dB RMS give or take, peaking at around -10dB to -6dB, depending on the style, and then I proceed to add some light compression and Linear Phase EQ, and then limit it, bounce it, and this is the part that throws me: to check my tracks I usually have a mix, and throw it in with other (released) tracks, but the volume is never the same

Are there any processes that you guys do to prepare your tracks before you send them out as dubs, or before you play them out yourself? if you don't get them mastered before hand that is. And how do you achieve that benchmark volume so it fits in with full release tracks?

Hope I've asked this clearly enough.

Thanks in advance

If you're just looking for volume, get something like Ozone and crank up the maximizer. But other than that it's hard to give mastering advice, just watch some youtube videos on it I guess

Disclaimer: I am not a mastering engineer by any means and there are probably things very wrong with what I do but it sounds good to me

My self masters usually go like this:
Make sure the mixdown sounds good and nothing is peaking high above everything else (if your snare is at -8 and everything else is at under -14 you can't boost the volume much without clipping the snare). If anything (generally snares) are peaking too loud compress them to keep the volume of the body but lose the peak a bit.
Throw a parametric EQ on the master and low pass at around 16-17KHz and high pass around 20Hz then maybe a 1Db boost around 2k and a Db dip somewhere between 250Hz and 500Hz (I have no idea why I do these boosts and cuts but they seem to work on most of my tracks to reduce kick mud and bring out my percussion)
Then I compress by 1 or 2Db with a ratio of 2 with a really low ttack and decay to try and smooth out the peaks a little more (I use The Glue for this as I like it's sound)
Then I use Loudmax (a free limiter that is really transparent) with a output of -0.3 to -0.1 (depending on the track) and the Threshold can normally go 1 or 2 Db below the volume you mixed it to without sounding bad,so if you mix to -6Db you can normally get it to -8Db before it starts sounding worse (for my ears/monitors anyway)

Obviously you can't master yourself.. But in my experience there are some guidelines to follow to not overcompress and still become a pretty 'loud' mix.
First of all it's pretty obvious your mix is right.. Ofcourse you need your ears for this, but you can use your eyes and a/b comparison. With a tool like voxengo span (or another spectrum analyzer) you can check how your peaks in frequency are behaving, look if your curve is a little bit the same as a track in your genre. Usualy the bass needs to be a little heavier than the highs, your mid is around your bass (a little bit less).

If that's right, just smack a limiter on it and smash it till around -13, -12 RMS.. Don't overdo it!
Probably that's enough for self mastering.. If you want to use eq and other stuff, just don't overdo it.. Normally you solve that shit in your mix!

Not gonna say this gives a amazing master, but yeah.. I don't think there's such thing. it's al in your mixdown! And if your tune is a little bit to quiet when you are playing out... Just turn the volume up a little!

societyloser1 wrote:If that's right, just smack a limiter on it and smash it till around -13, -12 RMS.. Don't overdo it!

That's my problem, when I limit it like that, and then load it up to test it in the mix with other tunes, the gain knob needs to be cranked most of the way up (around 4 oclock), and it still isn't at 0dB (0dB would be when the gain knob is at 12 o clock). So what's the deal with that, I'd rather I just wack my tune in and it's benchmark volume, so is there a process to that? Or as you said, just smash the limiter lol.

Also thanks a bunch for the other tips and taking the time to type them out you guys

Brothulhu wrote:Disclaimer: I am not a mastering engineer by any means and there are probably things very wrong with what I do but it sounds good to me

My self masters usually go like this:
Make sure the mixdown sounds good and nothing is peaking high above everything else (if your snare is at -8 and everything else is at under -14 you can't boost the volume much without clipping the snare). If anything (generally snares) are peaking too loud compress them to keep the volume of the body but lose the peak a bit.
Throw a parametric EQ on the master and low pass at around 16-17KHz and high pass around 20Hz then maybe a 1Db boost around 2k and a Db dip somewhere between 250Hz and 500Hz (I have no idea why I do these boosts and cuts but they seem to work on most of my tracks to reduce kick mud and bring out my percussion)
Then I compress by 1 or 2Db with a ratio of 2 with a really low ttack and decay to try and smooth out the peaks a little more (I use The Glue for this as I like it's sound)
Then I use Loudmax (a free limiter that is really transparent) with a output of -0.3 to -0.1 (depending on the track) and the Threshold can normally go 1 or 2 Db below the volume you mixed it to without sounding bad,so if you mix to -6Db you can normally get it to -8Db before it starts sounding worse (for my ears/monitors anyway)

Oh shit hi Cryonic dreams

It doesnt matter how much you crank the gain on the limiter, you need to worry more about gain reduction. If the overall volume of your bounce is low, you are gonna need to add more gain to it with the limiter, but other than making it louder the limiter isnt doing anything to it until you start getting gain reduction.

This is what it sounds like to me anyway if you are saying it isnt hitting 0db until cranking it up high, cos a limiter should always be hitting 0db (or like -0.3db as i prefer)

Slim Dubs wrote:
Oh shit hi Cryonic dreams

Big ups man didn't realise it was you posting haha

mix the tune with other tracks in a similar style and see if it sounds a similar loudness/quality to the song you mixed out of

Aiiight guys cheers for the ideas.

If you're not confident in the post-mixing process, it's probably best to compress and limit as little as possible. Compensate for that when mixing by cranking up the gain knobs on your mixer.

If boosting the gain doesn't get it loud enough, you could try and mix as loudly as possible. I get the impression that most mastering guys recommend an overall output of -6db, but if you're mixing for dub-purposes you can get away with mixing a bit louder.

Besides, very small amounts of clipping won't necessarily kill your sound. Trust your ears and, most importantly, play your track on lots of different types of systems.

Personally I never upload or send anything until it sounds good on both my laptop speakers and in my car.

Apologies to any mastering engineers who have read this and want to burn me for my lack of knowledge, but I'm just speaking from experience.