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Posted by Centity on Sep-15-2009 22:08:

Nuendo Mastering

Whenever I create a song in Nuendo it sounds flat, I was wondering if anyone had any tips/links/advice on mastering.

Is there a vst that can help with it?

My I noticed that I find my songs often have a lot of tracks and aggregated, the volume becomes too high and it clips the song at parts.

If I lower the volumes the song lacks the same consistency. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would appreciate it.

Posted by Nightshift on Sep-15-2009 22:12:

Post a sample?

Posted by cryophonik on Sep-15-2009 22:12:

You just asked a whole book's worth (or more) of questions. The short answer is simple: work on your mixing and don't expect mastering to fix it for you. And, no, there is no one magic plugin that will turn a "flat" or otherwise crappy mix into gold.

Search the forum for threads on mastering and you'll find more info than you'd ever want to see re-hashed every other week.

Posted by Nightshift on Sep-15-2009 22:13:

^^that.

and post a sample?

Posted by Centity on Sep-15-2009 22:17:

Well here's a flat remix I made for a beatport contest... this was my 1st time making a remix and I know it needs more work:

http://www.beatportal.com/remix/det...ng-centity-mix/

All other things aside, you'll find that it sounds really flat and poorly encoded. I don't know whether it is my audio driver, the way I export, or the lack of mastering, but I always thought that mastering is what will help me get the clear sounds that I need to really get it sounding right.

Posted by Centity on Sep-15-2009 22:22:

Most of the sounds play on the build about 4/7 way into the song if you don't want to listen to the whole thing. It sounds flat.

Posted by derail on Sep-15-2009 22:56:

quote:
Originally posted by Centity
I always thought that mastering is what will help me get the clear sounds that I need to really get it sounding right.

Mixing gets you clear, vibrant sounds.

Mastering, if required, will make the song sound more "correct" - no over-the-top sub frequencies which can't be heard on a lot of systems, for example. If the song sounds very different after mastering, you need to work on your mixing.

Posted by Centity on Sep-15-2009 23:07:

@ derail

Given the sample I posted, would you say that there is more of a mixing or mastering issue contributing to the flatness of the song.

Posted by derail on Sep-16-2009 02:27:

quote:
Originally posted by Centity
@ derail

Given the sample I posted, would you say that there is more of a mixing or mastering issue contributing to the flatness of the song.

I'll listen to it when I'm back at home and let you know my opinion.

Posted by Centity on Sep-16-2009 09:02:

quote:
Originally posted by derail
I'll listen to it when I'm back at home and let you know my opinion.

Thanks!

Posted by Richard Butler on Sep-16-2009 10:03:

I'd say more of a mixing issue, which of course included the most vital part in the process - initial sound selection and editing / processing - something that seems to take the majority of my time.

I think in time the pro's get a lot quicker at sound selection, but for us amateurs it can be a seemingly never ending troll through thousands of sounds.

I made something recently, but it just did'nt pump if you know what I mean, despite using sidechaining and all the tricks. In the end I narrowed it down to the bass sounds simply not having enough character and drive.

EQ also needs a lot of care, I mean acres of care

Posted by derail on Sep-16-2009 10:07:

Well, it sounds fine to me, taken on it's own. The sounds can all be heard, nothing is obviously overpowering the mix. Mastering won't change what you have here in any major way.

It depends what you're intending this song to be though - it's not a driving, "up and at em" mix - the bassline only comes in towards the end, and it's not a particularly driving bassline. There are no busy percussive elements to lift it up. If the song is flat, it is flat in it's style, in terms of being laid-back. For me, it works fine as a laid-back kind of a song.

Rather than mixing or mastering, if you want to go somewhere different with this, I'd suggest changing parts or adding parts. It totally depends on what you're aiming for. Listen to songs which don't sound "flat", to your ears, and take notes on what is going on in those songs.

All the best.

Posted by Zak McKracken on Sep-16-2009 11:31:

what mastering gives you normaly is a track that sounds overcompressed, distorted and just fucking loud, gives u headache and tired ears and shit-sound just so u can hear the track on shit TVs and car-stereos. stay away at all costs.

Posted by Centity on Sep-16-2009 20:51:

Thanks for the advice guys.

To clarify. What I mean by "flat" is that it does not sound like its full range. For example the lows don't seem to get as low as other songs do.

When I play this song on my better setup, the LFO is not making as much sound as I'd like it to be.

I tried making the lows higher on the EQ but it still does not go to the sub whereas other MP3s do have that full sound.

Posted by derail on Sep-16-2009 22:35:

The lows on the kick or the lows on the bass?

As I said, for most of the song I couldn't hear a bassline. I thought potentially there was a subbass down there, but it was too low (frequency-wise, not volume-wise) for my internet computer's speakers to pick up.

If the kick doesn't have enough lows, either find another kick sample or try layering with a sub kick. It does sound odd though. Many times kicks and basses have a bit too much sub content and have to be filtered away a bit.