The secrets of mastering a song?

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I've just finished recording and mixing a jazz/rnb cover of Georgia on my mind. All that's left to do is mastering..

I've slapped the track through ozone elements which has made some seemingly random EQ changes and made it louder + more compressed.

I honestly have no clue what I'm doing. Anyone have any tips or resources? I've watched some YouTube vids but happy to watch or read more to understand the subject? 

Or is it best to hire a mastering engineer and learn from his process? 
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Comments

  • spark240spark240 Frets: 2073
    Send it to Pete Maher....even if you dont like the result it will give you an insight as to what a Pro engineer would do.

    It takes years IMHO to become a Mastering engineer....in fact I dont think Ive enough lifetime left to get good !

    Ozone is cool for pumping it etc...but its not the full monty...

    Or...post it and lets have listen ;-)







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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    The secret is, there is no secret.

    If it doesn't sound great without being mastered, then it needs remixing, not mastering.

    If it does sound great, then mastering is about ensuring it meets certain technical standards (eg. hitting an appopriate loudness level for the destination platform) and perhaps applying a tiny amount of EQ or compression. A good mastering engineer should have the confidence to say "you know what, actually I don't need to do anything at all to this track" if appropriate.

    Where mastering becomes highly skilled is in making a collection of tracks work together as an album.

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  • blobbblobb Frets: 2914
    For a couple of quid, these tutorials by Eddie Brazil (Samplecraze) are worth it. Pick the ones you are interested in:



    Feelin' Reelin' & Squeelin'
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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    edited February 2019
    Try this demo, but don't pay anywhere near the full price if you find it interesting. They always have sales, and send you vouchers if you are on their mailing list. I found it useful for doing rough masters quickly, but for anything special I'd send it off to https://www.petemaher.com

    https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/bx_masterdesk.html

    Regarding Ozone, I usually put a tilt EQ and Monoiser in front of it.

    PS I didn't buy Masterdesk, and I am still looking for a mastering chain that works. I have a sneaky feeling that hardware, a treated room, decent speakers, and a good set of ears are unbeatable.

    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    edited February 2019
    Running audio through plugins without knowing
    a) what the goal is (in technical terms).
    b) what tools are needed for a particular job
    c) how to use the plugins
    d) in a room without treatment and on prosumer monitors

    is a total waste of time.
    It would be like a non guitarist buying an out of tune guitar, taking it home and then playing it with a chocolate digestive, rather than a pick before announcing ‘see, I’m playing a guitar’.
    Well, technically you are, but I don’t want to listen to it and no, I do not want the biscuit afterwards.

    That doesn’t mean you cannot learn things from the process, but abandon all hope of turning out a product that is release quality, you will probably make it worse.

    Mastering is essentially about 3 things:

    1) level/loudness
    2) musical balance
    3) taste

    It is also about having another set of ears in another room.
    I don’t master my own mixes for this reason.
    I do sometimes finalise the works of others, but I don’t call what I do mastering because I don’t think I’m entirely qualified (yet).
    It takes quite a lot of time to understand how compression works on entire mixes and multi band compression is more complicated.

    My advice is engage someone with a better room, better gear and ‘ears that are not yours’ to finish off the tracks. they don’t have to be a mastering engineer per se, but that would be good.
    You’ll learn a lot more than stumbling about in the dark on this.
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    edited February 2019
    Thanks all for the advice. I am usually able to accomplish what I want with audio as long as I know what I'm trying to achieve. The issue with mastering is that I'm not exactly which direction I should be heading to, i.e. what I'm aiming for..

    Since someone asked for it, and I think it would help give context to the discussion, here is the track I'm working on that has been put through my ham-fisted attempt at mastering. Would appreciate any comments on what can be done and where mastering can take the track..

    https://soundcloud.com/brandon-shen-shi-han/jessie-lim-georgia-on-my-mind-master-2/s-7odA2
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    edited February 2019
    Thanks all for the links to Peter Maher. I will consider him for more serious projects. The prices are not exorbitant.. £28 per master seems very reasonable, especially if he lists out what he does so that I can learn his process..

    @stuckfast thanks for the sage and practical advice. 

    @octatonic point taken regarding blindly running audio through plugins, the ozone elements plugin that I have is a simple one, EQ + compression, which I have a reasonable understanding of, so hopefully I haven't mangled my mix. What I truly have no idea about is how the software decides what EQ changes to make and whether they are good at all.. But as you've said, it's a taste thing as well, so there is no one fixed correct answer.
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    edited February 2019
    Branshen said:
    Thanks all for the links to Peter Maher. I will consider him for more serious projects. The prices are not exorbitant.. £28 per master seems very reasonable, especially if he lists out what he does so that I can learn his process..

    @stuckfast thanks for the sage and practical advice. 

    @octatonic point taken regarding blindly running audio through plugins, the ozone elements plugin that I have is a simple one, EQ + compression, which I have a reasonable understanding of, so hopefully I haven't mangled my mix. What I truly have no idea about is how the software decides what EQ changes to make and whether they are good at all.. But as you've said, it's a taste thing as well, so there is no one fixed correct answer.
    Have a read of this PDF: http://downloads.izotope.com/guides/iZotopeMasteringGuide_MasteringWithOzone.pdf
    It gives you a bit more information on how Ozone works and some tips on how to use it.

    FWIW, I have Ozone but I tend to not use it very often.
    It has a sound of its own, which is fine, but I tend to go for separate EQ and Compression/Limiting tools, some hardware, some software.

    If you have access to UAD plugins then the Mastering Manley Massive Passive is very good.
    So is Softube's Weiss DS1.

    My master bus (so this is a mix technique, not mastering) usually looks something like this:

    Slot 1: Tape Emulation, usually Empirical Labs Fatso Jnr.
    Slot 2: EQ: API 5500, Chandler Curve Bender or Manely Massive Passive, Fabfilter Pro-Q, Massenburg MDWEQ5
    Slot 3: Compression: SSL G-Bus, Crane Song STC8 or Chandler Zener 
    Slot 4: Limiter: Waves L3-LL, Eventide/Newfangled Elevate, Fabfilter ProL, Weiss DS1
    Slot 5: Metering, usually Nugen VisLM or Izotope Insight.

    It is important to ensure you don't have phase issues or digital clipping.
    I usually lightly limit- threshold about -3db and out ceiling -0.3db.
    Lowering the threshold makes the song very exciting but fatiguing to listen to.

    Sometimes I'll verse the EQ compression order.
    Having the EQ before compression usually = warmer, EQ after compression = clearer.
    So if my track is getting congested I'll switch them around but I tend to start a mix with EQ before compression.

    I also mix into all these tools, I don't turn them on after the mix is done.

    When I send the tracks come back from the mastering engineer they will sound a bit louder but usually the balance of the music isn't massively changed, maybe some lower end might have changed (because my room isn't flat below 80hz).

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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    Thanks for the detailed write-ups @octatonic. Very interesting to see your master bus chain. I will give that guide a good read! thanks!
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    I would add that all-in-one mastering plug-ins such as Ozone include all sorts of processing that real mastering engineers rarely if ever use. Ozone is all parallel this and multi-band the other. Real mastering is about listening very carefully and perhaps making small EQ moves. You can do an awful lot of damage to a mix with something like Ozone because it's much more heavy-handed than any half-decent real engineer would be.
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  • CirrusCirrus Frets: 8481
    I could write a fuckload about mastering. And I probably will. But for now...

    Good mastering will do two things to each individual track. It'll make your mix a loudness that is suitable for the genre, and it'll make your mix sound the way you already thought it sounded.

    And it'll do one thing to the entire project; it'll make the mixes sound like they belong with each other.
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  • FreebirdFreebird Frets: 5821
    Branshen said:
    Thanks all for the advice. I am usually able to accomplish what I want with audio as long as I know what I'm trying to achieve. The issue with mastering is that I'm not exactly which direction I should be heading to, i.e. what I'm aiming for..
    Are you referencing quality commercial tracks during the mastering process?
    If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.
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  • BranshenBranshen Frets: 1222
    Freebird said:
    Branshen said:
    Thanks all for the advice. I am usually able to accomplish what I want with audio as long as I know what I'm trying to achieve. The issue with mastering is that I'm not exactly which direction I should be heading to, i.e. what I'm aiming for..
    Are you referencing quality commercial tracks during the mastering process?
    yea. I referenced a number of them..
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  • octatonic said:
    Running audio through plugins without knowing
    a) what the goal is (in technical terms).
    b) what tools are needed for a particular job
    c) how to use the plugins
    d) in a room without treatment and on prosumer monitors

    is a total waste of time.
    It would be like a non guitarist buying an out of tune guitar, taking it home and then playing it with a chocolate digestive, rather than a pick before announcing ‘see, I’m playing a guitar’.
    Well, technically you are, but I don’t want to listen to it and no, I do not want the biscuit afterwards.


    You are describing my planned process for the mastering challenge there! :dissapointed: 
    ဈǝᴉʇsɐoʇǝsǝǝɥɔဪቌ
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  • octatonic said:
    Running audio through plugins without knowing
    a) what the goal is (in technical terms).
    b) what tools are needed for a particular job
    c) how to use the plugins
    d) in a room without treatment and on prosumer monitors

    is a total waste of time.
    It would be like a non guitarist buying an out of tune guitar, taking it home and then playing it with a chocolate digestive, rather than a pick before announcing ‘see, I’m playing a guitar’.
    Well, technically you are, but I don’t want to listen to it and no, I do not want the biscuit afterwards.


    You are describing my planned process for the mastering challenge there! :dissapointed: 

    Have you been watching the Mike Kalajian URM Fast Track?
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