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Good Master

Are there any criteria by which you can say: ok, this is a good master? By what you can tell that a certain track has been mastered well? And in what measure your opinion could depend actually by the quality of the mix? How can you help a newby like me to recognize what is a good master?

Re: Good Master

quote:

Originally posted by future_newbie Are there any criteria by which you can say: ok, this is a good master? By what you can tell that a certain track has been mastered well? And in what measure your opinion could depend actually by the quality of the mix? How can you help a newby like me to recognize what is a good master?

When you are a noobie like you and me we worry about good mixing, not mastering

All we can really do is put a limiter on the master and hope for the best, and when you rock a setup like that don't you dare say it's mastered.

A good mix is the first step and the most important step. Sorry to be a downer but we as noobs can't sprinkle magic fairy dust on our tracks to make them sound awesomer, that fairy dust is called mixing (at our stage at least).

Hell, if your mix is good enough who needs to get a track mastered?

A good master should compare favorably to commercial tracks on the medium that it is primarily intended to be played on, but should also transfer to other media. It's important to remember that something mastered primarily for radio is going to sound much different than something master for clubs, iPods, CDs, etc. In terms of dance music, that typically means that it should have roughly the same loudness as a commercial dance song and it should sound good and balanced (not an easy thing to quantify) on a club system. If you're talking about something like album/CD mastering, the song levels should be balanced and have a sense of uniformity in terms of overall sound. Song sequencing (i.e., the order in which songs are presented) is also an important part of album/CD mastering and a good master will create a sense of overall flow.

The question wasn't related in any way to me as a producer. Just wanted to recognize when some track has been mastered well. Thanks to cryophonik who understood perfectly my question.

Hope to hear something more specific from now on. Even some examples of tracks that you consider greatly mastered.
And if you could indicate exactly what makes them "well mastered".

quote:

Originally posted by future_newbie The question wasn't related in any way to me as a producer. Just wanted to recognize when some track has been mastered well. Thanks to cryophonik who understood perfectly my question. Hope to hear something more specific from now on. Even some examples of tracks that you consider greatly mastered. And if you could indicate exactly what makes them "well mastered".

Oh if that's what you meant then I'd go with Micheal Jackson and Katy Perry stuff.

Ahh, I don't understand. When your making a track, you have everything at your fingertips. You can adjust/readjust volumes, frequencies, you make things fit perfectly to how your creating the track. Now by no means am I a pro. I can't even pretend I am. But, I go back through over and over and over again making sure levels are where their supposed to be, I equalize and lift my melodies, I even get in and sometimes do it 2 or 3 times just to make sure its as loud and well placed as my ear can get it. I don't even like to use limiters. If the sound is over-powering my mix I go back through and fix the entire track. I have to. I produce and mix inside my headphones. I spend a lot of times listening to others people's "mastered" tracks, and I just try to do my best to get that same "sound". A good track needs to be mastered very little.

quote:

Originally posted by skyhunter Oh if that's what you meant then I'd go with Micheal Jackson and Katy Perry stuff.

I friggin love all of Katy Perry's Tracks..

quote:

Originally posted by future_newbie The question wasn't related in any way to me as a producer. Just wanted to recognize when some track has been mastered well. Thanks to cryophonik who understood perfectly my question. Hope to hear something more specific from now on. Even some examples of tracks that you consider greatly mastered. And if you could indicate exactly what makes them "well mastered".

you need to train your own ears first to understand a well mastered track

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