My first Master

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skal1

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
1,282
Location
Birmingham,uk
Ok guys and girls i have been toying with mastering for a be now , and a friend approach me, and  ask if i could master a track for him so here it is , just drums and base .


Take a listen ME guys really need your input here thanks

Any criticism is welcome and need ...

So here is the link https://app.box.com/s/xtrzaqbqmb7abbj1563f

skal


 
ok here it is i will try to match the volume


https://app.box.com/s/3pdx0f8b8pkvllzd9aut    mix no process

https://app.box.com/s/jr1ycxib13rnlfzf1e0d      process

cheers ruairioflaherty

skal1
 
hey Skal,

In a session, just give us the mix untouched (no volume changes) and we can level match ourselves.

I will listen tonight when I finish.

Cheers,
Ruairi
 
The stereo image is significantly narrower on the mastered version. Was that on purpose?
 
mattiasNYC said:
The stereo image is significantly narrower on the mastered version. Was that on purpose?

Well no , not really but maybe the mid is a bit excessive which is clouding the stereo image , just my 2 pence .

thanks for pointing it out.

cheers

skal
 
Hey Skal,

I've had a listen to the mix and the master.  The out of phase/stereo information is very extreme on the original mix.  I'm guessing that your mixer friend used some form of stereo enhancement tool.  That said I've heard some pretty extreme stuff like this on tracks before so my first question to the mixer would be whether that really is intentional.  I would explain that I could make the track hit harder without it but that may not be what he wants.

Tell us what you heard on the track and what your goal was.  Did the mixer give you any ideas of what he wanted?  Or did he just say make it better?

I've got lots of specifics we can discuss but first give me a sense of what you were going for and what you actually did and used.

Cheers,
Ruairi

P.S. I've done a rough master of my own to see what I would actually do.
 
Hey Ruairi

I've had a chat with my friend and yes indeed he did put some kind of  stereo effect all over the rides and hats but never wanted to mess up the stereo image is intentional , could the stereo effect have messed in the stereo image?.

Anyway he came by today laptop in hand , and i uploaded his daw mix into my lpt , all the other channels have no stereo effect on them so that must have been the probelm you may have been evaluating i guess.

I also had a look at the bass ,kick and snr to see if they were stereo or mono and they mono so cool i think.
ruairioflaherty said:
Did the mixer give you any ideas of what he wanted?  Or did he just say make it better?

Make it better



Thanks again for taking the time out to have a listen to the master, i will get back to you on my reasons for the changes i made on the mix.

cheers

skal


,
 
The stereo effect is pretty nauseating, unless he really loves the effect I would remove it or dial it way back, it takes from the punch of the track.

I'll wait to hear from you on what you were going before giving any feedback.

What speakers are you listening on? 


 
Ok Ruairi

This is what i did maybe i went a bit over board , hey you never learn if you do not try lol


eq 1

dip at 2khz

dip at  5khz

mud at 267  cut  notch

cut  at  145  notch

flabby bass 


eq 2  some cut to smooth things out

nasal  cut  at 2khz 5khz

bright  cut  at  20khz


eq3 abit more  smoothing

32khz boost 


1khz  dip

4khz dip

cheers

skal
 
Maybe a little  :)

From memory there we 3 main things  I wanted to address

- Reduce the width (after speaking to the client - in this case he seems happy to go that way)
- Give the very bottom some weight (around 60 to 70 Hz)
- Control the harshness in the upper mids region

There were other tweaks but all subtle.

I didn't use any compression, and then clipped and limited for level.

Important question - what speakers are you listening on?

 
O sorry forgot about the speaker ?  , 8030a Genelec nearfield moniters with sub, probaly not the moniters for for job but hey still learning here.

I can see i was not that far off :)

cheers again

skal
 
skal1 said:
O sorry forgot about the speaker ?  , 8030a Genelec nearfield moniters with sub, probaly not the moniters for for job but hey still learning here.

I can see i was not that far off :)

cheers again

skal

Yes, you definitely went after some of the right areas.  The trick with mastering is to get the result by doing as little as possible.  Contrary to what is posted up and down the internet "surgical EQ" is rarely the way to go, keep your Q low (wide bells).

The one big thing you didn't do was boost the low end so your master ended up feeling pretty thin.

A very very important question before you start mastering is how do good records sound on your speaker system?  You can do decent work with lots of speakers if a good record sounds correct.
 
Well, could you point me in the direction of some good sounding material , as reference .

Yeah , going to have another go at it and try and use as little as possible to achieve the clients goal.

By the way , how much did you boost the bottom by  ;D


cheers much love


skal

 
skal1 said:
Well, could you point me in the direction of some good sounding material , as reference .

Well, I've spent about an hour helping you so far so I think if you spend an hour looking for some good sounding records in your collection you will find them :) What sounds good is very personal.  There is no one reference point, you need to find records that you think sound good everywhere.

A good idea here is to ask your friend what he thinks sounds good, what was he shooting for?

Yeah , going to have another go at it and try and use as little as possible to achieve the clients goal.

Excellent.  Think chess, how do I win in as few moves as possible, always looking for the simplest most elegant way.  Less processing always sounds better.

By the way , how much did you boost the bottom by  ;D

+4dB at 71Hz with a Q of around 1

(Edit: This is pretty unusual, most of my eq moves are +/- 1dB max but that's what the track needed)
 
ok back for 2 round take listen



https://app.box.com/s/ksz0rtbu66lo9gn3okat  Pre master no level match

https://app.box.com/s/qnifdm3egf8xbqh1vgso Master




Cheers

skal
 
Hi  ruairio you said in my first master thread that you used a clipper ,what type of clipper are you using  is hardware/software is their any you could point me to which you have used  or are still using and what do tha accually do to the audio..

cheers

skal
 
Hey Skal,

I'll try to get some time to listen to your second revision later today.

Clipping is one of 3 ways to get the kinds of level demanded by clients today.
1) Aggressive EQ - sometimes if absolute level is called for we can eq so that there's more energy where the ear is most sensitive, 2 to 4kHz.  If done right this can make for a very aggressive and loud sounding master without crossing the line to harsh.
2) Limiting - there are lots available and I'm going through some pretty comprehensive tests right now.  My current favorite is the Fabfilter Pro-L, read the manual!
3) Clipping - much like anything else in mastering one should only consider such a powerful tool if they are absolutely confident in what they hear.  Clipping brutalizes the music and 1dB too much can cross the line from effective to unlistenable.  When done correctly along with 1 and 2 above it can get the level required to compete for certain projects.

I use clipping on probably 30% of the work I do - heavy rock/metal/urban and electronica and even then not always on those genres.

I use a plug in by Sonnox called the inflator to clip but you can use any stage that hard clips (note they don't all sound the same).  Clipping causes a lot of nasty harmonics so I like to work at 96k which helps mitigate some of that.

I do not use the Inflator process, merely the in and out gains to clip in the plug and then pass a legal signal on to my limiter.

Like almost everything else there is way to much emphasis placed on clipping on the various fora, it is not a panacea for loudness and needs to be used very carefully.  If you are starting out it's 1,000 times more important to focus on good sound than loudness.
 
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