So, yeah, mastering programs...

So, uh, yeah. t-track, you say, eh?

HOW DO I SHOT MASTERING?

It's the only thing I don't really know how to do myself.

some would sensibly argue that it's something one shouldn't do themselves (not that that ever stops anyone, including me)

ozone and t-racks have both gone through major updates since this thread was started. i didn't like the older versions of either program but i don't have direct experience with the newer versions - apparently there have been major improvements in sound..

are you asking about what sort of things you should think about when 'mastering' or just the software side of things?

There are two approaches to mastering. One is the audiophile, Bob Clearmountain type notion of subtle enhancement of an already well-mixed piece of music, increasing perceived loudness and 'punch' but without destroying dynamics. The second is the 'pump that shit up as far as it can go so it blasts out from a Myspace page' type approach. I used to be sniffy about the latter but now, depending on the style of music, I think it's part and parcel of the era we live in and should be embraced. Just as 1960s guitar group and Tamla Motown records have a certain quality of sound that is now inseparable from the music, so the exaggerated compression is today's sound, certainly for dance music, r&b, hip hop and production line chart pop.

If you want the pumped-up sound, you need to use a multi band compressor limiter. This splits the frequency spectrum into two or more bands and applies different amounts of compression to each.

A single band compressor will almost certainly not work well on a whole mix because a loud kick drum will prompt the compressor to reduce the level of the whole mix momentarily, which would then be heard as fluctuations in other sounds, especially anything that's supposed to be smooth and continuous, eg a keyboard pad sound.

The programs/plug-ins mentioned so far (T-Racks and Ozone) are all of the multi-band type.

I am no mastering expert but I have used a number of different plug-ins and find that it's always a battle to get the level up without introducing distortion and also a loss of impact in the transients of drums. I was using PSP Audio's Vintage Warmer, which I quite like, although I was finding that there was a tendency for kicks and snares to begin to lose their sharpness when applying higher levels of compression. More recently I've gone over to T-Racks (v 2.01, which is quite old), and I noticed immediately that the impact of kicks and snares was better preserved than with any other of the small number of programs I'd tried. The result was that I could get a 'louder' mix and the drums didn't sound like they had been squashed down, or at least not as much. I was quite impressed so decided to see what other people thought, but could only find Clearmountain and Katz type people being sniffy about it, so it seems it's not well thought of in more audiophile circles.

A single band compressor will almost certainly not work well on a whole mix because a loud kick drum will prompt the compressor to reduce the level of the whole mix momentarily, which would then be heard as fluctuations in other sounds, especially anything that's supposed to be smooth and continuous, eg a keyboard pad sound.

I hate to say it, but apparently, much as it gives me horrible woozy sea-sick feelings, I think there are places where this is, in your parlance, "a certain quality of sound that is now inseparable from the music"

It can actually make me somewhat dizzy and nauseated to hear too much of it, but I'll hear tracks -- well-loved tracks! -- using it as sort of a focal-point effect

(Totally off-topic, but I think it starts with certain undie-type hip-hop stuff, a big kick that steps in and squeezes the entire rest of the mix, and somehow that sound has started appealing to people in other places)

Yes, I know the kind of thing you're talking about. There was also a huge, huge dance track a few years ago (can't think of its name) that exploited that 'pumping' effect, which is usually considered undesirable.

It's funny how 'rules' always end up getting broken and new styles created as a result. The auto tune vocal sound, for one - total abuse of the original intent of the thing, using the 'wrong' settings. Hey presto, a whole new style.

Yes, I know the kind of thing you're talking about. There was also a huge, huge dance track a few years ago (can't think of its name) that exploited that 'pumping' effect, which is usually considered undesirable.

isn't this basically the whole point of the daftenjustice franco-sidechannel

if you're using a mac, you have a 4-band multicompressor that came with OS X for free (along with garageband - so even if your preferred tools can't use audio units, you can just drop the mix into gb and use it that way) - there's four presets and plenty of room for fiddling, probably best just to start with the ratios in each. I also use the master channel as a place to introduce stochastic noise, just enough to hear hiss instead of silence at either end of the track - this can make a heck of a difference in softer passages, I think.

i think i might start trying to fiddle with the multicomp settings by eye instead of by ear, personally, and see if that helps produce more consistent results.

I really don't want to do it myself. I'd much rather pay someone else to do it, but I don't have the £££££.

But, I think, given the type of music involved, I definitely want more of the subtle enhancement type rather than the PUSH IT SO HARD IT HURTS HOT HOT HOTTTT school of mastering because I've spent so freaking long mixing this record there's a lot of subtlety I don't want to lose.

I was using PSP Audio's Vintage Warmer, which I quite like, although I was finding that there was a tendency for kicks and snares to begin to lose their sharpness when applying higher levels of compression. More recently I've gone over to T-Racks (v 2.01, which is quite old), and I noticed immediately that the impact of kicks and snares was better preserved than with any other of the small number of programs I'd tried. The result was that I could get a 'louder' mix and the drums didn't sound like they had been squashed down, or at least not as much.

Possibly a dumb question, but why wouldn't it work to use something like PSP on the whole song - with the kicks and snares take out, and added on top of it later? I haven't really tried any serious mastering at home, but I'm trying to learn more about it and haven't thought to try that until now.

I hadn't thought of that, but I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work in theory, provided you were careful in joining the two files up again. It would certainly be a bit of a trial and error process (I'm not sure how easy it would be evaluate the sound of the compression on the file without the drums, without actually hearing the drums at the same time), but I'm almost tempted to try it to see how it would sound.

john what did you do?

i hope you went to an analog place

ha well actually we just never did it at all. chalk one up to luck in anticipating that the coming economy might not be the best time for the label launch.

got a dude that has heard about the project through some people we know that seems kind of motivated out of interest in seeing the material see the light of day and the potential to get a fairly cool album cred, so prob going that route.

dubmill, I was reading something on the dubstepforum that I might try. some producer said he cut kick and snare frequences from the sub bass using HP filters. Sounds kind of unorthodox, but could be worth trying and if nothing else might lead to one of those happy mistakes. I hope if you try adding the drums in after compression you post back here to tell us how it sounded.

serious offer kate, i would be interested in having a go at mastering for you - even just a track to see if it's in the ballpark. i have some idiosyncratic methods but i get there in the end, quite a bit more complicated than slapping on a limiter and a multiband and selecting a couple of presets..