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-- mastering - the broad question

mastering - the broad question

when you send your tracks in to get mastered... what do you send in, and what do they do? Do you send in the track as a whole, or every set of instruments separated out in different files so the person mastering can lay them together and adjust mix down as well. I've been trying for a while to get a clean sound out of my computer but its just not getting there =(. will mastering make that much of a difference?

Re: mastering - the broad question

quote:

Originally posted by Tomas Klein when you send your tracks in to get mastered... what do you send in, and what do they do? Do you send in the track as a whole, or every set of instruments separated out in different files so the person mastering can lay them together and adjust mix down as well. I've been trying for a while to get a clean sound out of my computer but its just not getting there =(.

Honestly man, its really all about practice and getting the composition, arrangement and mix sounding right. Without that, mastering isn't going to be much help. You'd be shocked at how much really good music gets released these days with no mastering. If you track is lacking clarity, depth or punch, these things need to be fixed at mixdown time. Mastering is not going to add them.

quote:

Originally posted by Tomas Klein will mastering make that much of a difference?

Not if the mix isn't good. Fix it in the mix, then use mastering to add the polish. A track that is well composed, arranged, and mixed may not need mastering at all.

Do not let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that mastering can fix a broken mix. It is a common myth amongst new and learning producers these days.

It generally depends on the mastering house, but they'll usually want a stereo .wav file with around 6dB of headroom, with all instruments already mixed and bounced down. You don't want to send them the stems of individual tracks - those are used for mixing/remixing, which happens prior to mastering.

If you're having trouble getting a good sound, the problem usually comes down to mixing skills and/or poor acoustics in your room, which is very common for home studios. Mastering won't fix either of those problems. Your mixes should sound just about club-ready before you send them to the mastering house, so focus on your mixing skills, make sure you have the best monitoring system/studio treatment you can afford, and test your mixes on multiple systems.

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Originally posted by cryophonik make sure you have the best monitoring system/studio treatment you can afford, and test your mixes on multiple systems.

THIS.

IME, this single fact is one of the most common that new and even intermediate producers fail to do. Your monitoring is everything and its especially important when you are in the process of learning to mix. Having a clean, high quality signal path that allows you to hear as much detail as possible is paramount to assisting you to become a better mix engineer.

About 2 years ago, I sold off a major amount of outboard hardware to purchase "mastering-grade" monitors and it made a huge, immediate improvement in my mixes from the start, even with average D/A. I didn't think things could get much better, but then I installed acoustic treatment last year and things sounded even better. Now, I just installed a major upgrade to my D/A conversion, and I'm even MORE astounded at how much better things sound, and how much easier still it is to mix. 75% of my studio budget is now invested in high quality monitors, high quality D/A and acoustic treatment, and I can tell you that it is making things so much easier, its not even funny. Now, I can imagine how much better still things would sound if I had a $12,000 signal chain instead of a $6,000 one.

I mean, sure, buying high quality monitors, high quality D/A conversion and good acoustic treatment is not nearly as fun or as sexy as buying that shiny new synth, but nothing gives you more bang for your buck than having high quality monitoring signal chain.

To be honest threads like this have never made sense to me either way.

You have one side curious about how far mastering can take a track, and another side telling you not to focus on mastering, but to focus on the mixing.

Well mixing IS mastering, and mastering IS mixing. Why do you low cut all your percussion? Why do you hi cut your sub even when you don't hear hi's? Why do you render in 24 bit wav? ALL THESE THINGS you're already doing are essentially mastering.

The things that confuse me about mastering is some of the expensive hardware they use and some of the contradicting things I hear about how well the equipment works compared to crap you find in a regular home studio. You have pros from FM Studio interviews saying things like "the culture vulture can turn any mousey kick into a mans kick" or praising their $15,000 pieces of equipment that can send samples into the future, but then those same pros will say exactly what you heard cryo and eric saying. Mastering doesn't do much for a mix but "polish" it.

I have no reservations about what mastering does and what it is for, but sometimes I doubt the way people interpret facts to the rest of the world.

So you're telling me that machine you spent 50 grand on isn't gonna make my mix sound that much better? So why the hell do mastering studios exist? I'm not expecting my tune to sound like tiesto just by running it through your fancy little equipment but it damn well better be doing something I can't do otherwise whats the point?

A lot of people on here want you to think that mastering can't help and they want you to learn how to produce cleanly during the mixing phase. But I do doubt the extent to which some people on this forum downtalk mastering.
If you think about it rationally. Mastering starts from the second you open a fresh new project. Equalizing, using filters to seperate sounds and give space, using compressors and limiters to get levels up to par and under control, isn't this all considered "mastering"? But you're telling me mastering doesn't really do a whole hell of a lot?
In my opinion, the whole concept of mastering is prob the single most important thing a producer can focus on. We are ALL obsessed over the deepest, cleanest, loudest sounds we can get, and we achieve that level of sound through the concepts of mastering... so how did mastering come to be so underappreciated on these forums? What would music sound like w/out it? Or am I twisting words around by labeling the things we do during mixing as "mastering"? When people on here tell you to "get a mix sounding good first", isn't about 50% of that advice refering to the mastering part? Equalizers, limiters, compressors, stereo imaging, panning, I mean I don't really consider all this stuff "mixing", I consider it all early mastering. And if thats what it is, you won't survive w/out mastering.

As far as how its sent in, I always thought they wanted everything seperated. I could def be wrong, but you can't really do a whole hell of a lot with a single wav file.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox You have one side curious about how far mastering can take a track, and another side telling you not to focus on mastering, but to focus on the mixing.

No, we're telling you that mastering can't fix a bad mix.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Well mixing IS mastering, and mastering IS mixing.

No it is not. That is quite often the case in dance music because one person often fulfills the roles played by many people in other genres of music. In pop music, quite often you'll have a composer, arranger, mix engineer and mastering engineer and all these roles are played by different people. in dance music, we often have to do all these things ourselves, which his one of the reasons that making dance music can be so challenging. You have to learn many different skills sets.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Why do you low cut all your percussion? Why do you hi cut your sub even when you don't hear hi's?

Because those things are applying processing on individual tracks, which is part of the mixing process not the mastering process. Mastering can only operate on a single stereo file. That's what mastering is. Have too much low end on that percussion? Well you cant fix that in the master process because you can only operate on the single stereo output. If you cut at 300Hz in the mastering process you are cutting ALL elements at 300 Hz, not just that one element that has too much low end.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Why do you render in 24 bit wav? ALL THESE THINGS you're already doing are essentially mastering.

You don't render at 24 bit if you are producing a final output file, you render (or dither) to 16 bit, 44.1 because that is the current standard for consumer audio. Windows Media player cant play 24 bit files. mp3 converters cant convert a WAV to mp3 at 24 bit. It must be at 16 bit, 44.1 first.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox The things that confuse me about mastering is some of the expensive hardware they use and some of the contradicting things I hear about how well the equipment works compared to crap you find in a regular home studio. You have pros from FM Studio interviews saying things like "the culture vulture can turn any mousey kick into a mans kick" or praising their $15,000 pieces of equipment that can send samples into the future, but then those same pros will say exactly what you heard cryo and eric saying. Mastering doesn't do much for a mix but "polish" it.

Yes, because were saying that you cant fix a bad mix with all the expensive mastering hardware in the world, In order to fix a bad mix you need to apply processing to the individual channels and you cant do that in the master process because all the channels are already combined into a single stereo file.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I have no reservations about what mastering does and what it is for, but sometimes I doubt the way people interpret facts to the rest of the world.

This is explained above.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox So you're telling me that machine you spent 50 grand on isn't gonna make my mix sound that much better? So why the hell do mastering studios exist? I'm not expecting my tune to sound like tiesto just by running it through your fancy little equipment but it damn well better be doing something I can't do otherwise whats the point?

No it isn't, If your mix sucks, mastering isn't going to make it sound better.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox A lot of people on here want you to think that mastering can't help and they want you to learn how to produce cleanly during the mixing phase. But I do doubt the extent to which some people on this forum downtalk mastering. If you think about it rationally. Mastering starts from the second you open a fresh new project. Equalizing, using filters to seperate sounds and give space, using compressors and limiters to get levels up to par and under control, isn't this all considered "mastering"? But you're telling me mastering doesn't really do a whole hell of a lot?

This is where I think you are misunderstanding. All the things you describe are part of the mixing process, not the mastering process.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox In my opinion, the whole concept of mastering is prob the single most important thing a producer can focus on. We are ALL obsessed over the deepest, cleanest, loudest sounds we can get, and we achieve that level of sound through the concepts of mastering... so how did mastering come to be so underappreciated on these forums?

No, we accomplish these things through MIXING.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox What would music sound like w/out it? Or am I twisting words around by labeling the things we do during mixing as "mastering"? When people on here tell you to "get a mix sounding good first", isn't about 50% of that advice refering to the mastering part? Equalizers, limiters, compressors, stereo imaging, panning, I mean I don't really consider all this stuff "mixing", I consider it all early mastering. And if thats what it is, you won't survive w/out mastering.

The rest of the audio world considers those things you are describing as mixing. Again, mastering is the act of applying processing to a single stereo file which is the combination of all your channels into a single track, a single file.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox As far as how its sent in, I always thought they wanted everything seperated. I could def be wrong, but you can't really do a whole hell of a lot with a single wav file.

This is where you are misunderstanding. If you send everything separate then you are hiring a MIX engineer not a mastering engineer. Mastering houses operate on a single stereo file.

You have to understand what the original point of mastering was in the first place. in the context of an album, which is a collection of tracks, one of the most important things that a mastering engineer is to ensure that all the tracks across the album have a similar sonic footprint and a consistent tone and volume. These things are not nearly as important in dance music because dance music is primarily a single business, so there is no need for consistency across tracks to the same extent because tracks are released individually rather than in album format as is common with other forms of music. For dance music the primary function of a mastering engineer is to provide an objective set of ears and add a tiny bit of volume and polish. it is quite common for a mastering engineer in any genre to send a track back to the mix engineer and have them fix any major problems at the mixing stage before attempting a final master.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J No, we're telling you that mastering can't fix a bad mix. No it is not. That is quite often the case in dance music because one person often fulfills the roles played by many people in other genres of music. In pop music, quite often you'll have a composer, arranger, mix engineer and mastering engineer and all these roles are played by different people. in dance music, we often have to do all these things ourselves, which his one of the reasons that making dance music can be so challenging. You have to learn many different skills sets. Because those things are applying processing on individual tracks, which is part of the mixing process not the mastering process. Mastering can only operate on a single stereo file. That's what mastering is. Have too much low end on that percussion? Well you cant fix that in the master process because you can only operate on the single stereo output. If you cut at 300Hz in the mastering process you are cutting ALL elements at 300 Hz, not just that one element that has too much low end. You don't render at 24 bit if you are producing a final output file, you render (or dither) to 16 bit, 44.1 because that is the current standard for consumer audio. Windows Media player cant play 24 bit files. mp3 converters cant convert a WAV to mp3 at 24 bit. It must be at 16 bit, 44.1 first. Yes, because were saying that you cant fix a bad mix with all the expensive mastering hardware in the world, In order to fix a bad mix you need to apply processing to the individual channels and you cant do that in the master process because all the channels are already combined into a single stereo file. This is explained above. No it isn't, If your mix sucks, mastering isn't going to make it sound better. This is where I think you are misunderstanding. All the things you describe are part of the mixing process, not the mastering process. No, we accomplish these things through MIXING. The rest of the audio world considers those things you are describing as mixing. Again, mastering is the act of applying processing to a single stereo file which is the combination of all your channels into a single track, a single file. This is where you are misunderstanding. If you send everything separate then you are hiring a MIX engineer not a mastering engineer. Mastering houses operate on a single stereo file. You have to understand what the original point of mastering was in the first place. in the context of an album, which is a collection of tracks, one of the most important things that a mastering engineer is to ensure that all the tracks across the album have a similar sonic footprint and a consistent tone and volume. These things are not nearly as important in dance music because dance music is primarily a single business, so there is no need for consistency across tracks to the same extent because tracks are released individually rather than in album format as is common with other forms of music. For dance music the primary function of a mastering engineer is to provide an objective set of ears and add a tiny bit of volume and polish. it is quite common for a mastering engineer in any genre to send a track back to the mix engineer and have them fix any major problems at the mixing stage before attempting a final master.

Ok cool, it looks like I just had the wrong idea about what mastering was because I always considered everytime I equalized a sound a form of pre-mastering but I suppose its really just mixing like you say.

I also thought mastering delt with all the channels seperately, I can't even imagine what they could possibly do to just 1 file, seems almost like something I'd just rather do myself, but you did a great job explaining the point so I think I get it lol. Mastering is NOT me applying a soft clipper or limiter during the mix, but specifically always the end process.
I guess thats why they say if you get everything settled at the "mix level" you won't even have to worry about mastering, so it would make sense that other people consider it mixing too. I just envisioned mixing as the actual selection and combination of sounds, tweaking knobs within the synth and what not, and saw everything else I was doing basically as "mastering". Having master busses for all your individual elements so you can clean up the sound, I didn't think the proper terminology for that was "mixing" as I was dealing specifically with sound quality, but it looks like I was wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I also thought mastering delt with all the channels seperately, I can't even imagine what they could possibly do to just 1 file, seems almost like something I'd just rather do myself, but you did a great job explaining the point so I think I get it lol.

Well there are things that a ME will do to a single final stereo file, but again these are mostly related to adding "loudness" (in modern music), and "polish", usually exciters or some other type of sweetening. Again, in EDM, which is primarily a singles business, there is no need to maintain consistency between tracks because music is not delivered in the traditional album format in this genre generally. In traditional music the mixing and mastering are always separate, and there are good reason for doing that in those genres. In EDM, we can get away with this simply because one person is playing all six roles.

That being said, if you have a good mix, you can realize some benefit from having it properly mastered, even if it is just a matter of having an objective set of ears listen to your work. However, in practical terms, it is not economically viable for a lot of producers to send every track to an ME and for a lot of club music, its fine to do without it.

Think of it like this: if writing music were like making an ice cream sundae, the composing, arrangement and mixing are the act of putting together the ice cream, chocolate, fruit, and nuts, and mastering is like putting the cherry on top. The sundae should still taste good without the cherry, its just going to taste a little bit better with the cherry.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Mastering is NOT me applying a soft clipper or limiter during the mix, but specifically always the end process.

Correct.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox I just envisioned mixing as the actual selection and combination of sounds, tweaking knobs within the synth and what not, and saw everything else I was doing basically as "mastering".

Well technically, that would be considered part of the composing process, where you are writing the actual parts and choosing sounds. In EDM this process is quite a bit more complicated than is something like, say, rock music or classical music where you pretty much have a standard compliment of instruments that are always used. When you are composing a rock song, you generally know that you are going to have drums, bass one or more guitars and vocals and (sometimes) a keyboard part or two.

Same goes for classical. When a classical composer is writing a piece, they are writing parts for the traditional orchestra instruments. So, depending on the piece, you may be writing for, say 4 string instruments if its a string quartet piece, or maybe string, horns, and winds if you are writing for a compact orchestra (say, 30 pieces) or even all the parts in a full 110 piece orchestra. The instruments are already chosen. In EDM, we have so many options that the parts are not predetermined, so in many cases that is why EDM doesn't follow the traditional "rules" for composition.

very helpful information guys. i definitely need to up my mixing game

Quick question about all of this....

I know some of you have recently talked about putting some mastering plug-ins on your master channel when you start to make a track (as opposed to putting them on after).

So is this because YOU are mastering your own track? Or do you still send this audio file with the mastering plug-ins on it to get mastered?

Or do you keep those plug-ins off any tracks that you want to get professional done by a mastering engineer?

quote:

Originally posted by cammaxwell So is this because YOU are mastering your own track?

Yes.

quote:

Originally posted by cammaxwell Or do you still send this audio file with the mastering plug-ins on it to get mastered? Or do you keep those plug-ins off any tracks that you want to get professional done by a mastering engineer?

Never do that, if you are planning on send the file out to be mastered separately, take any "mastering" plugins off the mains.

ahh ok very good information. I usually always have a multiband compressor, EQ, and limiter on my master channel.. i guess this would be me mastering my own music i was unaware of this haha

Hey Guys,

Eric J is doing a great job here, but it seems like a lot of you just have a general misunderstanding of exactly what mastering is. There is a great book written by Bob Katz (im sure that has been posted up before), which basically outlines/explains/guides you through the process. It uncovers all rumors and is a very comprehensive "easy to get your head around" read.

http://books.google.com/books?id=A0u4oWVGUX0C&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1

its only about 20$ and you can usually find it at any major bookstore. Check it out!

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