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about mastering

I use FL3.56 to make my music. Once I have a track done, how would I know to master it?? What is the real meaning of mastering a track?
What's the best software to do it in? Can I master a FL track in FL?
thnx,
A Newb Producer

Read these:

http://web.hibo.no/~mva/viewreview.php?id=59
http://web.hibo.no/~mva/viewreview.php?id=60
http://web.hibo.no/~mva/viewreview.php?id=61

They were written for Buzz users, but most of it applies to any producer. There are parts in there about mastering, but I didn't feel like picking through it and finding them again. If you are in a hurry and don't want to read anything else, try looking at the third one and maybe the second, or end of the second.

Enjoy.

I know two perfect ways: (They work for me)

1. Get 'Izotope Ozone'. It's a powerfull mastering VST plug-in. Once installed, select it on your main Fruity fx-channel. It's kinda heavy though, so it eats up your CPU. Then you have the ability to mess around with a paragraphic EQ, mastering reverb, loudness maximizer, multiband harmonic exciter, multiband dynamics and multiband stereo imaging. I don't know all the functions etc. but it sure helps to get a richer sound outta my songs.... There has been a thread about it where you can get a 75 pages PDF-file about Ozone.

2. Save your mix as a wave-file and load it into 'T-racks'.

Hope this helps.

quote:

Originally posted by dj dimwit I know two perfect ways: (They work for me) 1. Get 'Izotope Ozone'. It's a powerfull mastering VST plug-in. Once installed, select it on your main Fruity fx-channel. It's kinda heavy though, so it eats up your CPU. Then you have the ability to mess around with a paragraphic EQ, mastering reverb, loudness maximizer, multiband harmonic exciter, multiband dynamics and multiband stereo imaging. I don't know all the functions etc. but it sure helps to get a richer sound outta my songs.... There has been a thread about it where you can get a 75 pages PDF-file about Ozone.

Thanx alot .... I'll try it.

quote:

2. Save your mix as a wave-file and load it into 'T-racks'. Hope this helps.

what is t-tracks?....I was thinking load each pattern through the whole song into Acid Pro 4 and fix the volumes there.

quote:

Originally posted by brash Read these: http://web.hibo.no/~mva/viewreview.php?id=59 http://web.hibo.no/~mva/viewreview.php?id=60 http://web.hibo.no/~mva/viewreview.php?id=61 They were written for Buzz users, but most of it applies to any producer. There are parts in there about mastering, but I didn't feel like picking through it and finding them again. If you are in a hurry and don't want to read anything else, try looking at the third one and maybe the second, or end of the second. Enjoy.

thnx for the info, I'll read-up.

I dont realy anderstand y u need a mastering program ?

U can do all the mastering in the program ur using

quote:

Originally posted by coby I dont realy anderstand y u need a mastering program ? U can do all the mastering in the program ur using

It's not that I need a mastering program.... I need to master my tracks, and I'm not exactly sure how to do it. I'm new to mastering music I've made. How can I master in FL3.56??

mastering involves the use of compressors and EQ's to try to get the best possible sound out of your track...

a compressor basically has a threshold of a certain decibel where it starts compressing the sound when the threshold is broken... it basically makes sure your track doesn't have like huge "spikes" of volume (like when you view an uncompressed track in cool-edit pro or some other wav editing program, it will likely have a lot of large spikes instead of having a more evened out surface)

EQuing is the adjusting of various volume levels of different frequencies... so if you think your track is too much on the lower bass end, you can simply lower the volume for 50 hz or something... and conversely if you think your track has too much high frequency sounds you can either cut it or lower the volume of it....

for fruity loops, you can do just about fine by using "Fruity Compressor" and "Parametric EQ" in the Master FX Channel...

however... i do recommend T-Racks because it is an awesome mastering program...

hope that helps

It IS possible to do a great part of mastering in Fruity, but I recommend using Ozone as well. Then you have all things needed for mastering in just one plug-in. You CAN do some EQ and compression in Fruity, but with Ozone you can give your track that 'sparkle' by using the 'exciter' i.e.

About the question about T-racks: T-racks is a mastering program, but unlike Ozone, it's not a VST plug-in but a stand-alone program. You need to save your Fruity made track as a wave-file, and then you can load it into T-racks and use EQ, (tube)compress and stereo enhance etc.

I prefer Ozone though it's quite hard to understand all it's features.

Here's a great article on mastering:
http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tuto.../mastering1.asp

Enjoy

Just a quick question regards mastering for SoundCloud and other internet-streaming sites: Are you guys now mastering to -16dB LUFs rather than normalising everything to near 0dBFS?

If Im not mistaken it's -6db

quote:

Originally posted by Mel David Just a quick question regards mastering for SoundCloud and other internet-streaming sites: Are you guys now mastering to -16dB LUFs rather than normalising everything to near 0dBFS?

This is an old thread. Anyway after I finish a track, I gainstage to -4db so there's headroom for mastering, then master to -0.1db

Someone explain a legit technical why you'd mix to anything other than 0dbfs.

Go on. I'm waiting

Read this article: http://transom.org/2015/the-audio-p...de-to-loudness/

It's more about having a consistent playback level on devices, no matter what is being played.

Also: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/fe...oudness-war.htm

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Someone explain a legit technical why you'd mix to anything other than 0dbfs. Go on. I'm waiting

Are you referring to my post or someone else's? And if you were asking me that question, were you asking why gainstage to a few db under 0db to prepare it for mastering? It's for safety's sake, ME's always ask that x-db amount of headroom is left for them. I don't ever put a limiter on the master bus of any premasters, I keep a close eye to see what the max peak is and gainstage the song so that the loudest peak doesn't exceed what the ME says to leave for headroom, the amount of headroom needed by the ME is an arbitrary number, it's just so the ME doesnt have to deal with any clipping. Yes you could limit it but why would you put a limiter on the master bus of a premaster, just to turn around and send it to a ME who will do the master bus limiting? Makes more sense to let the ME handle limiting on the master and just gainstage it properly for him.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Someone explain a legit technical why you'd mix to anything other than 0dbfs. Go on. I'm waiting

Mix into +1 db, it sounds better.

quote:

Originally posted by Mel David Read this article: http://transom.org/2015/the-audio-p...de-to-loudness/ It's more about having a consistent playback level on devices, no matter what is being played. Also: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/fe...oudness-war.htm

Thanks Mel but it was facetious and rhetorical question.

The answer is there is no good reason to mix below 0db, unless as Dizzy alluded to, your chosen mastering engineer wants it.

Even then, I really don't get it - If you send them a 0dbfs mix which has been properly mixed on a calibrated system, what is the possibly scientific logic stopping them from taking that file, poppin it in to their 32bit floating point environment and dropping the gain by 3db or 6db if that's who they like to work?

However, if you mix to say -3db or -6db, you're printing the file, with the relative noise at that -3db or -6db point, which means if they then maximize or makeup gain or raise the volume (whatever to get you to 0db) then they are raising the noise floor with it and effectively introducing more noise than.

Personally, I think it stems (soz for the pun) from mastering engineers receiving brickwall limited, clipped peaked files that were a pain to work with so they told these idiots to mix to -3 or -6 as they can at least work with that headroom.

But if I sent a file that was properly mixed to be mastered, and the ME asked for it -3db lower I'd tell him to give up the day job.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN But if I sent a file that was properly mixed to be mastered, and the ME asked for it -3db lower I'd tell him to give up the day job.

The few times I had something mastered, and the engineer asked that the level be -6db or whatever, I always wondered why they can't just turn the gain down themselves, that's what I'm gonna do before I send it. Next time I shop around for mastering, which I'm doing now, I think I'll avoid the ones that require the mix to be below 0db.

Is Raphie purposely staying away from this thread?

What's the question again?
Also what's the purpose?

Mastering is NOT about levels, It's also not about loudness.
It's about a great ear, in a great room, with world class monitoring, pointing out what you are missing in your bedroom or while mixing on HP's
Every mix (and arguably genre) has it's loudness sweetspot, going beyond that point will sound sub optimal, distorted and squashed.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Someone explain a legit technical why you'd mix to anything other than 0dbfs. Go on. I'm waiting

intersample distortion would be a good one. I can list a bunch of others but i think that pretty much satisfies legit and technical.

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney intersample distortion would be a good one. I can list a bunch of others but i think that pretty much satisfies legit and technical.

Bring it my biarch.

No clipping = no legit reason. And even if the MA wants it lower then just reduce the master on your finished file by that amount and print. The entire point of gain staging is to get the highest level and lowest noise floor without distortion. It's bonkers to try to mix to say 80% of you available headroom when there's an inherent relative noisefloor.

Following this subject and please guys, keep it going. Attempting to learn about this as much as possible..Which, prompted me to do some research.
I read an article at SOS and it spoke mainly to a mix rather than a master however, it was all lead up. From what I am taking in is that both L4C and Rann both have valid points at the same time, this article spoke of the difference in headroom achieved from a 32 bit - 64 bit Daw & analogue system. All were different.
Needless to say, the interest I have in this is the whole gain staging topic. This article seemed to agree with Rann in the fact that people do not realize that just turning things down can eliminate alot of problems. Using tremendously high level signals in a mix can lead to issues in the mix.
Is this a correct assessment? Or did I just troll the fuck out of this thread..lol

quote:

Originally posted by SystematicX1 Following this subject and please guys, keep it going. Attempting to learn about this as much as possible..Which, prompted me to do some research. I read an article at SOS and it spoke mainly to a mix rather than a master however, it was all lead up. From what I am taking in is that both L4C and Rann both have valid points at the same time, this article spoke of the difference in headroom achieved from a 32 bit - 64 bit Daw & analogue system. All were different. Needless to say, the interest I have in this is the whole gain staging topic. This article seemed to agree with Rann in the fact that people do not realize that just turning things down can eliminate alot of problems. Using tremendously high level signals in a mix can lead to issues in the mix. Is this a correct assessment? Or did I just troll the fuck out of this thread..lol

Sort of correct, without using plugins it doesn't matter as long as your master doesn't clip, you can hear the distortion/saturation by design in some daws.
Problems arise when badly designed plugins get fed a toomhot signal and clip internally.
With 32bit float file format (something else than a 64bit DAW) yo have virtual unilmited headroom before the master output

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