Comments on: Modern Mastering (Part 1)

By: BLACKSTEEZE

BLACKSTEEZE — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:45:57 +0000

Ahhh nice… Right now im listening to the final Part… I love this loudness (Even if i know its Bad), but im missing some lowend since the First REQ4 Part of the mastering… Need to search a bit more for the right spot.

Is there a common Sense why wie Master to 6db Peak?

Ahh that’s the idea i was common with. I’ll put it up next, when i’m hooked with the mix.

When i now bounce the mastering, can i let logic normalize it or not? I know, we don’t do that for the mix down, but here???

PS: You still didn’t answer Jimmy’s question about Figure 11… Can you explain, what’s different with the additional moves by har-bal tutorial?

So far, thank you very much, i appreciate that!

By: bvesco

bvesco — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:34:48 +0000

The beauty of the process on this page is that it doesn’t matter too much what level your stereo file is at. The Waves plugs will bring it up to the right level anyway because you master it to 6dB above the desired peak. What I do on my mixes is to set my master track fader to -10dB while mixing. Once I am happy with my mix I adjust the master fader up to where I have between 0-1dB headroom and bounce to stereo at that level.

By: BLACKSTEEZE

BLACKSTEEZE — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:33:17 +0000

Hey Ben,

Thanks for this wonderful site!

I’m missing a Info about, how loud to bounce the Stereo file?
I always was reading about -6-9db before mastering.

Is that right?

Greets STEEZE

By: david goslan

david goslan — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:46:24 +0000

dosnt really help

By: bvesco

bvesco — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:42:23 +0000

This is really the kind of thing that is easiest to troubleshoot in person. Best to ask a local pal to help out or head down to your favorite music shop.

By: david goslan

david goslan — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:03:28 +0000

hi ben can you help me im playing a mex strat through a fender frontman 100watt amp with a pod x3 live runnig strait to amp input but im getting an annoying sort of microphonic background noise on the clean channels ive tried changing reverb on the pod settings and have gone bak to using the amp reverb but to no avail. thanx

By: Chrys

Chrys — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 05:14:07 +0000

Thank you very much for your answers!

By: bvesco

bvesco — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 23:40:29 +0000

1) The high pass is not necessary at time of mastering if you tracks are not suffering from too much low frequencies.

2) Yes, use as many bands as you need. I like to keep it pretty organic without EQ it beyond what is natural for the style of music.

3) Most drum samples are treated to some degree. Don’t blindly EQ your tracks. Evaluate them closely and do only what is needed. Sometimes you don’t have to EQ a track and that is fine, leave it alone!

By: chrys

chrys — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:23:33 +0000

Hello Ben, i hope you’re still active on this wonderful site! First of all thank you for the great advices I’ve find here, they helped me a lot! Sorry for my bad english sometimes, this is not my native language-)
I have though a few questions.
1.If i already worked with high pass on most of the tracks, it is necessary to use the high pass on mastering too? Cause i have the feeling my songs lacking the bass frequencies after i do the mastering.
2.You use only 3 bands in the mastering 4 bands EQ, it’s ok if i feel the need to use let’s say a 6 band eq and use more than 3 of the bands as you indicated?
3.I work with drum samples, i beat them with my keyboard (using Superior Drummer and Drumagog if i need to replace a sound). I am really confused here. I don’t know if those samples are already EQed and compressed by default. They seem to sound very well as they are, but i always start to modify their sound, as your instructions. I don’t know if those instruction apply for drum samples too, or only for real drums, recorded in a studio. Maybe i don’t need to modify them? Please, can you answer me at these questions? Thank you in advance!

By: andy

andy — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:25:18 +0000

I like your tutorial. There are a couple of things I take issue with though.

I’d recommend people to ‘render’ their stereo mixes at 24-bit resolution, making sure the track never goes above -6db to -3db at it’s loudest point. This leaves plenty of headroom for the mastering and using 24-bit helps stop the sound degrading when it has to go through all the mastering effects. (You should dither down to 16-bit at the end if you plan to burn to CD)

You also seem to recommend taking the track up to 0db at the EQ stage.

Surely at this early stage it’s advisable to continue to leave 3-6db of headroom to ensure no clipping occurs and to leave plenty of room for the final stages of compressing/ maximising. I thought this was standard practice?