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Mastering your tracks?

Do you master your own tracks?

Do you get them done professionally? If yes, where?

thanks

I master my own tracks.

what you use? and how did you learn to do it?

Mastering depnds on what you plan on doing with your track.

If you are intending it to go out as a real release on real Vinyl then by all means do a "Rough demo" master", but make sure you have an unmastered version that you give to the label / Cutting room when you start the physical process of making the actual vinyl.

If at all possible attend the session so you can see what the mastering engineer does and learn from it. This is really useful..

If it's going on CD then again leave the mastering to the Pros, but again see if you can attend.

If you are sticking a track up on a website or just for local play then by all means try it yourself, but be aware that unless you are either very skilled, or very lucky you won't get the most out of your track. Not least because you are mastering in the same environment as you wrote which means you can't hear the flaws in the mix induced by your monitoring setup.

I just discovered a great plugin that is awesome for mastering. It is called Ozone 3. See info on it here:

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/

I don't master my tracks, if a label happens to sign it they are likely to do it better than me

do digital labels master tracks if they sign them?

I use T-Racks and if you have the money - Waves!

There are some tutorials on here somewhere! Search and give them ago! I did buy that trance experience book, helps a little but it's too focused on the Waves stuff!

Labels do master signed tracks but however, I have had tracks sent from a well know producer (no names mentioned) and the mastering is no different than when I downloaded the tune from a download portal (supporting the artist). I assume he does such a good job that the labels see if fit to leave it!

quote:

Originally posted by dj_kane do digital labels master tracks if they sign them?

Some do it, some don't

Well, i have try to do it my self, but as said before, i think its good to have a fresh pair of ears to do it for you. I my experience, after listening to the track over and over again, your ears tend to get numb sometimes, so if you deside to do it your self, you should wait a couple of days before doing it, and rest your ears from producing, the you hear the track in a whole nother dimention.

If you want you can, just before mastering, listen to a released track from a cd that you think sounds good, and then right after listen to your own and try to hear whats missing in the soundpicture, and you can even import that tune into your wave studio and see how it is in the spectrum analyzer, and train your ears a bit. In this way you can follow the sound and see how the the different frequencies work...etc..etc..

Or if you wanna pay for it, try this, its cheep and the results are really good. I used it on my latest track (which got signed), and im satisfied.They are specialised on clubmusic.

http://www.master-your-track.com/

Or if you want, u can try this one out. Ive heard they are good to. A little expencive though.

http://www.online-mastering.com/

Thats what i had to share, i dont say that this is what you SHOULD do, as some peolpe tend to think, but something you can try if you want.

Cheers

Would these type of places you mention ever tell you EXACTLY how they mastered your track so you can learn?

Alternatively, could you also send them your own attempt at mastering your track so they can tell you where you went wrong?

quote:

Originally posted by Synchronicity Would these type of places you mention ever tell you EXACTLY how they mastered your track so you can learn? Alternatively, could you also send them your own attempt at mastering your track so they can tell you where you went wrong?

Sorry, dont know that, but you can try. But i dont think they will share what they make money on!?

But they can tell you what ecuiptment they use when they do it, just ask them , but as i said, dont think they will tell you how you should or should not do it, then you should take some mastering courses.

quote:

Originally posted by substorm Sorry, dont know that, but you can try. But i dont think they will share what they make money on!?

Yeah, I guess all I can do is ask. Would be great if they did.

Bruce Miller http://bruceamiller.us/ seems to be quite keen to teach so maybe he would. Maybe I could make a track, use his 'starving artists' deal and ask him then.

When I master my tracks I use Sound Forge's excellent Audio Plug-In Chainer to create a combination of Waves and Sound Forge's internal processors. Depending on what each track needs, I tend to use some sort of EQ, compression, stereo enhancement and finally a maximiser. Typically, I find that Sound Forge's Wave Hammer gives much more satisfactory results than the Waves L2 or L3 maximiser.

great help guys, thanks. substorm some good sites there that first one is very reasonable. will check that out.

cheers!

i definetly recomend izotope ozone 3...prog is golden.
such intricate tuning can be done to your tracks compared to other programs like t-racks etc....

I sometimes EQ my final mix just a little, and I always normalize the volume, then adjust the MP3 volume, but that's about it. I don't think that's considered true "mastering".

As far as serious mastering, that's something I really don't understand yet, and it's a skill that takes time to learn. I'm considering using one of those online mastering services though. Right now I'm only doing digital releases, so it's not crucial that I have my tracks mastered by a pro.

I'm on a digital label, and they do have me send them the wavefiles along with the MP3's for my tracks. I think they ask for the wavefile in case the track goes to vinyl or CD one day. As far as I know, they used the MP3's that I sent them. The samples of my track on beatport don't sound any different. The only thing I think I should of done is make the MP3 volume a little louder, but oh well.

It's better not to master your own tracks as you lose your objective ear after prodcuing them. Best would be to have a pro do it. If you can't afford it, hook up with a friend who also produces, then you master his tracks and he masters your, that way you both have an objective ear listen to your track and give it what's needed.

the easiest is to take a break and then do it yourself...

i even think that it's better because...you know...if you like to do your things yourself

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