Mastering home recordings.......?

hassleham

octatonic said:

hassleham said:

I agree that mastering techniques are often a well kept secret. 

Um, no not really.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Audio-Science-Bob-Katz/dp/0240808371

Oh, Ill just buy that and become a pro mastering engineer then.

octatonic

hassleham said:

octatonic said:

hassleham said:

I agree that mastering techniques are often a well kept secret. 

Um, no not really.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Audio-Science-Bob-Katz/dp/0240808371

Oh, Ill just buy that and become a pro mastering engineer then.

... and about £60k of specialised hardware, and a great room to master in and I reckon at 10 years of experience at least as a mix engineer.
My point is though that many of these 'secrets' are there for all to see.
Katz has been very thorough and very revealing.
Have you read it?

I've considered making the move to mastering (I mix at the moment, as well as all the other stuff I do) but I want to give myself a few more years before I do this.

ToneControl

get a good Multi band compressor plugin

Winny_Pooh

Multiband compression usually sounds wrong to me, I would never recommend it to an amatuer in a million years. I've only really used it as a to control unruly individual elements in a mix.

hassleham

@octatonic ;;

Not going to lie, I ordered it last night thanks to you  

Cirrus

There really is no secret to mastering. Lots of them do attended sessions, I've never once been asked to turn around or seen them furtively adjusting settings on secret gear that's hidden behind blackout curtains.

As for multiband compression, it's a handy tool but very, very easy to screw things up with. Any time I've seen pros use it, they've just engaged a single band to fix a specific problem. The thing that makes me laugh are the presets they come loaded with where all the bands seem set randomly to mangle your mix.

octatonic

Winny_Pooh said:

Multiband compression usually sounds wrong to me, I would never recommend it to an amatuer in a million years. I've only really used it as a to control unruly individual elements in a mix.

I agree.
It is pretty obvious when someone has mastered from Waves presets.

guitarfishbay

The only time I've used more than 1 band of MB compression is on vocals that use both a wide range and a wide dynamic range, in which case I'll sometimes use 2 bands lightly.  One to slightly clean up the low/low mid when they're singing lower, and one to just knock a tiny tiny bit off somewhere in the upper mids when they go loud and high and it gets a little harsh.  Really not doing a lot, but it can be more effective than EQ which can be a bit too much in those situations - especially static EQ cuts which would lead to compromising one for the other.

I got the idea to try it after watching this video 

Cirrus

I quite like dynamic EQ for that, though I know it's a subtle distinction - those vocal resonances between say 2-4kHz can be notched out when they get too loud.

Using all the bands on an MB compressor is like using all the bands on an 8 band EQ just because they're there.

guitarfishbay

Cirrus said:

I quite like dynamic EQ for that, though I know it's a subtle distinction - those vocal resonances between say 2-4kHz can be notched out when they get too loud.

Using all the bands on an MB compressor is like using all the bands on an 8 band EQ just because they're there.

For narrow cuts I'd still go EQ, in fact I've never used a dynamic EQ and have only ever dealt with resonances manually.  What dynamic EQ are you using and are you using it on just vocals or something else?  Resonances in distorted guitars/bass guitars can be a massive pain in the backside.

Cirrus

I've been using TDR Nova, quite like it and not just because it's free . I've found myself using it in two main ways; firstly to fix the aforementioned upper midrange harshness in vocals where it's only a problem on the louder bits (otherwise I'll just use the stock Sonar eq), and secondly in sideband mode to duck certain low frequencies on the bass when the kick and toms hit. Also once use it on a boomy distorted guitar that I still wanted to sound bassy with three bands set to duck the peaks of the main offending resonant frequencies between 100-200hz. Worked quite well - got rid of the rumble/ whomp without feeling like the bottom end had been cut.

For higher guitar resonances, because they tend to be less dynamic I tend to use a regular eq or occasionally a de-esser if there's a particularly edgy frequency range getting in the way of something else.

guitarfishbay

Cool I'll have to check it out.