I have a friend who swears to using Ozone Isotope on pretty much everything he makes. I’ve tried it at his place on my own mixes, but ended up being very unsure about how the “mastered” mixes really sounded. Listening now to a few tracks I just finished, the mastered vs the unmastered versions, I think I prefer the unmastered ones, even though they are lower in volume.
So - how do you go about mastering your mixes? Do you have any good tricks up your sleeve? What programs or techniques do you use?
I’ve tried Ozone, and while I’m no expert at mastering I thought it made everything sound, and I’m sorry to use such harsh language, like shit. It had this nasty sheen to it no matter you did.
Glue + some freeware limiter whose name I’ve forgot worked much better for me.
Right now I don’t do any kind of mastering, I just record my OT+A4 jams straight to the recorder and upload them to Soundcloud as they are.
If I happen to write a hit, I’ll just spend 150€ or so on Dubplates and Mastering, they’re the best for my kind of music.
Mastering for what format? I wouldn’t really bother properly mastering tracks for download, just do some simple limiting and volume matching. If your mastering for physical release, I would get it done professionally, especially for vinyl. With vinyl and CD there are standards to adhere to, and considerations such as needle jumps (needing mid-side compression).
Badly mastered / over processed tracks are a real epidemic. Too many people with pirate copies of Isotope wanting to use all the features without really thinking about why. Use your ears, if it doesn’t sound any better (and I doubt it will) go back to the mix.
Thanks for your replies, guys. I guess what I’m really looking to do is raise the volume of the tracks I have without having to compress them to death.
what i do find problematic most of the times is to make sure that what comes out of the mix sounds good on other ‘playback devices’ as well but there’s always something which doesn’t sound as i thought it would, the like: play a track on headphones and sounds great, playback on laptop: where are the basses!?..and that’s probably where professional people come in to play i guess
I could spend days just making slight tweaks to a master buss, rendering the track, listening on shitty headphones , laptop speaker, the car, and then days more starting over again with the mix- which leads to inevitable changes to the automation envelopes, the group busses and individual ones, and sometimes to the arrangement itself.
Fortunately the past 4 months of Saturdays and late nights spent lost in the a track refinement loop, I’m finally at the point (been working on two now still for the past week) where I’m spending the proper time it takes to get better results in all aspects of a song.
So mastering might be a pain in the ass and something someone else can do for you, I’m finding it to be a peculiar kind of zen meditative activity.
That being said, stay away from stuff like Ozone, BX XL (which I either don’t really understand yet or simply do not like…).
Go for M/S mastering if you must (too bad the Plugin alliance sale just ended- BX digital v 2 really allows you to isolate your mono from your stereo and process them independently. while massivley expanding your stereo width and overall loudness. Just remember to roll off at 22HZ on both Mono and especially stereo, watch your panning (your stereo width can get so wide that panning isn’t really necessary and will lead to a lot of clipping.
But on another note- don’t feel bad about having a track that seems “quiet” in comparison to others- the whole loudness boom in music a terrible fad brought on by programs like Ozone
I don’t master stuff, I just try to get my mixes to sound nice as they are without a ton of limiting and compression on the master chain.
I’m not a fan of the loudness wars and I don’t particularly like the super compressed white fizz that seems to be all over the place at the moment.
That’s not to say there is anything wrong with mastering I just don’t do it to my own tracks because I don’t ahve access to a huge neve console and amazing monitors.
Saying that, I always mix and EQ and then check it on different speakers (TV/Car etc) but I do all that before the master chain.
I try and do as little as possible with the master channel if I can avoid it - just roll off the extreme lows then run the track through something gentle and warming. I replaced the valves in my Elektribe with some less nasty ones so I usually just record through that, which usually gets the average loudness somewhere in the -10db ballpark.
For tracks that are destined to vinyl, I always make sure that anything under 100Hz is mono.
Just to be clear - I’m not a fan of over-compression either, but if I compare a track I’ve recorded at what I would assume is pretty much the highest volume I could record that track at without getting peaking levels of audio with a “professional” recording of something quite similar to what I’m trying to achieve, my track will always sound significantly lower in volume. Which is a bit annoying if you want other people to hear your track coming from listening to a “regular” sounding track. But oh well, not a biggie.
It’s just one of those things now, especially with electronic music. Sure, some people don’t have to squash and stretch everything, but most do. It’s a sad fact but the instant gratification culture is leading to music that is being drained of character and complexity by the loudness war.
But, even if you look better and are more comfortable expressing yourself in jeans and a T-shirt, you still better show up to your job interview in a suit.
Get Shawn Hatfield at Audible Oddities to do it.
His prices are fair, he’s mastered most every type of music (very pro releases), and he’s one of the nicest guys I can think of.
You can buy Ozone or Voxengo Elephant or some other compressor/limiter/magic wand and do it yourself, but it would completely miss the point of mastering.
Mastering isn’t just for making tracks louder, which is where most people connect the dots because the “Loudness War” has become such a big debate lately.
Mastering adds volume to your mixes, but the main goal is to polish them for better translation and get them sounding consistent with the other songs on the release.
It doesn’t give them a specific sound so much as make them friendlier to a broader range of playback systems.
Mastering professionally means:
A) Fresh ears on your mixes.
B) It’s completed in a room built specifically for audio mastering using extremely expensive and beautiful sounding outboard gear that would have even the richest person in a temporary state of sticker shock.
You can master yourself all day long, but you’d be working at an extreme disadvantage.
My advice:
Turn up the volume to listen to your two track mixes for gathering mixing notes.
Wait until you have a group of songs you truly believe are your best and send them to someone with the gear and ear to make it worthwhile.
For actual releases I get a mastering engineer to master them, or I use Platinum Notes.
Platinum Notes does a really good job of the volume matching, tuning, and clip fixing, etc.
Having done several “real masters” and now a master using Platinum Notes, I feel like Platinum Notes does a pretty decent job if you’re just releasing digital versions. If issues come up, it’s usually due to bad/radically different mix decisions.
my music is mainly for the floor and to be honest i like it raw. I also do not really have tracks its more like patterns and melodies that work together. I just spend quite some time with eq-ing and panning sounds and then resampling them until all the sounds of a “track” fit and have the space they need without losing touch. I do some test recordings from time to time and listen to them with cheap headpones, when riding the train.
Great thread. Although I have not have any of my tracks mastered, my personal opinion is that having a solid mix is good enough for most listening needs. I cannot lie, yes I will master a few of my tracks in the future when I intend on having a cream product…and when I do, I choose dos equis man to master my tracks.
‘Mastering’ is hella tricky unless you have patience, some amazing gear and ears like a Hobbit - I have neither. I’ve recorded all manner of acoustic instruments, twisted shit up electronically, microsampled and edited and mixed like a loon breaking all the ‘rules’ by panning kicks and bass all over the place. It’s fun. Been in top end studios and read anything I can get my hands on to help me master audio and it’s still as mythical as a Unicorn eating gold plated rainbow oats. (I did learn that reading about listening is stupid)
But hey, I use software - Ableton and almost only ever a little bit of PSP Vintage Warmer on pretty much everything I have ever made. I have no idea if it sounds ‘good’ or ‘right’ but I get a kick out of it. The only suggestion I can make to anyone is ‘break those rules’ because mastering can be as equally creative as everything else that comes before it. And do it quickly…(but patiently). If it sounds awful then it IS awful. Start over.
I don’t see the point in paying a ‘professional’ to be ‘professional’ when you can be … ‘different’?
that’s true and i agree with what you say but: what if you had to make a living out of your music? would ‘be different’ still fill the pocket? don’t get me wrong, i’m not a professional and (unfortunately) don’t make money out of my music but i believe there’re standards to which, sometimes, one needs to adhere. if there’s one thing that i don’t like is when i realize that playing back my tracks on cheap/other headphones/speakers doesn’t sound like the original (or at least to what i thought it would have sounded … ) and these are the moments when i would really like to know how to get things properly done but having said that…there’s always time to learn (should have gone to that mastering course ages ago… )
+1 for Shawn at Audible Oddities. He’s mastered one of mine before and it came out sounding much better than it went in. I’d also like to say the Panic Studios in Seattle are the BEST place to get anything mastered. Good prices, amazing set up and great ears. They did loads of my stuff and the quality was top drawer. If you are going to release something - whether it’s a CD, vinyl or digital, get a pro studio to master it. Otherwise, what’s the point of spending all those hours making it?
Ozone is very good, but you must know what you are doing. Presets are completely useless. Mastering can’t be done with presets, every song is different. Let me know if you would like me to have a go and see how you like that? Then I can tell you what I did if you like the result.
Basically you have to turn everyting off in ozone. Then, start with enabling the EQ (although I use fabfilter ProQ, just find that one more easy). Carefully look for problems, sweeping the spectrum with a high Q. Compare with similar mastered tracks to determine the amount of bass/highs/mids etc.
Go to the dynamics. Bypass every band, enable the high band, applying compression to taste. Usually 2 or 3 db gain reduction is enough. Rinse and repeat for the other bands. Then enable stereo imaging if needed. Only when it makes it better. Then finally the limiter. Drag it down so the mix gets louder without distorting. Done.
Lots of great answers in here, guys! Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it. I have come to the conclusion that I’ll just stay away from “home mastering” for now, and rather return to this thread once I have some music actually worth considering releasing “for real”.
And thanks for the offer, SB, but I’m not really comfortable with sending the crap I’m making to someone for “mastering” yet, not even for a test run, as it’s just not that great music, to be honest.
In general, I would advise against using multiband compression unless there is something in the track that absolutely needs it. Also, I almost always get better results using two different compressors doing around 1dB compression than one compressor doing 2-3dB. I do the bulk of my mastering work in the analog domain, usually with just a mid/side EQ and a limiter done digitally. My analog chain usually is thermionic culture Phoenix (great just for adding vibe and increasing rms) followed by a bettermaker EQ, then into a RND master bus processor for final leveling polish and stereo enhancement if it is needed. After this I can get the master pretty loud using less than 1db of limiting. I usually don’t need anything else unless the track has serious problems
(should have gone to that mastering course ages ago… 
)