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Hi folks,
Just wondering is there any plugin available that I can run a commerically availabe song through(country)and it will give me an idea of what to do as regards eq or other things when mastering my own country song?
Something pretty simple but maybe thats not available.
Thanks
Musiclover
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I believe that professional mastering services have (or should have) a specialized room with "perfect" acoustic treatment and high end monitors and a few hardware and software tools to master songs according to sonic requirements of today's music. What to do if you are like me with the lack of a specialized acoustical treatment and monitors? Mastering for me just becomes an exercise in leveling the volumes across all the songs that would make up a CD. of course today, folks like to think that you can master individual songs. If it is for one song, you are going to use a compressor (or a limiter -- a specialized compressor) to compress the peaks and then boost the overall gain to get closer to what one would consider radio ready volume levels. Perhaps a multi-band compressor with a limiter on top of that is really the most you can reasonably do ( Free multi-band compressors). Your job, as a home studio guy, is to just really mix really well. If you have an excellent mix, then mastering is not as required -- except for maybe that multiband compressor and limiter combination on the master bus. Kevin
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The problem is that the song is already mastered, so there's no plug in that will tell you what was done. Even if there was, you still wouldn't have the original file to compare to what the mastering engineer did. Manning1 used to say 'What is the black art of audio engineering?', IIRC, and he's right. In a sense, it is a black art.  Today's engineers are tending to use a minimalist approach. Use as little effects as you can to achieve the required and desired sound. One old trick that I really like is this. Cut a CD with your track on it, and then go play it on as many different devices as you can find. Your computer, your home stereo, your car, your personal CD player, etc. If it sounds good on all of them, at the settings you find pleasant for all other listening, then you've mastered it pretty well. What this does is help you to identify bits of your monitoring system and listening enclosure to determine what's happening in there. From there, you can adjust the mix as necessary to produce the best sound. Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Quote:
... Cut a CD with your track on it, and then go play it on as many different devices as you can find. Your computer, your home stereo, your car, your personal CD player, etc. If it sounds good on all of them, at the settings you find pleasant for all other listening, then you've mastered it pretty well. ... --- Gary
No, I think you can say you "mixed" it well. Whether or not it translates on various system is not the primary function of mastering engineer, that is the primary function of the mixing engineer.
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Can y9ou define the terms mixdown, mastering and enginnering for me so I know when I read your posts, and I read them carefully because you know what you are doing, I know what you really mean. I know a lot of people who use those terms interchangeably and it would help me understand to know how you define "mastering".
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"Home Mastering" is a term not unlike "Home Neurosurgery". If you need a radio-ready track, pay the money and get it mastered.
Regards,
Bob
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Throw the word engineer away -- that's just whoever is doing the work. mastering: Here are some good definitions I've found: (a) Audio mastering: "...is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master); the source from which all copies will be produced" (b) "The last transfer from work in progress to finished product that is intended for the end consumer." (c)"a process whereby a number of songs, after being mixed down, are EQ'd, compressed as necessary, and balanced in volume with each other, so that they will sound good when placed together on a CD." Basically mastering is always done to the finished stereo file. Can you use EQ and compression to overcome a less than stellar mix? I guess so, but that seems like a self defeating task. Mixing: This is what all of us do (ha, ha). We take our 4, 8, 12, 24 ... tracks and individually pan them, eq them, compress them, reverb them, and (optionally) send them to mix busses as groups to process them there (eq, compression, effects) so that we get a nice, balanced sounding stereo master output. If we have done our jobs well, we can take our stereo mix out to the car, over to a friend's house, put it on a mp3 player, etc. and it will pretty much sound the same (within reason) as what we heard in our "studio". If they sound too different on different systems, it is back to the DAW and re-mix a little. The key to good mixing is "trusting what your hear". I have an untreated room, BX5a 5" monitors and ath-m50 headphones. I listen under everything, listen to reference tracks (commercial CD's I think are great) and do the best I can. I can't seem to get a good mix without listening on other systems though -- my listening setup is not that good, I guess. Is it magic ears??? Nope -- I can get the mix to sound pretty decent on my setup. It just doesn't "translate" to other systems like I would hope. My ears are "OK", it just means my room and my monitors (and headphones) are not re-producing the full EQ spectrum accurately enough. Now, if I can't Mix accurately enough, how in the world could I ever hope to master accurately?
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Quote:
"Home Mastering" is a term not unlike "Home Neurosurgery".
So I am guessing "home vasectomy" is also not a great idea?
Quote:
If you need a radio-ready track, pay the money and get it mastered.
I agree in principle, but "Eddie" and "pay the money" are rarely used that close together in a sentence.
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Kevin,
Okay, you're right. Mixing and mastering are two different things. Yes, I used the words interchangeably. In a home studio, it is possible that the terms are closer to one another in meaning than if you were to go to DiskMakers or such and have them prepare a Red book CD for you.
Now, here's the real question. Which term did the OP mean? Did he use the term "mastering" correctly, or did he mean mixing?
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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I am actually doing a CD (finally) and I hope to be finished in the next month or two. I have 12 songs that clock in at around 36 minutes. My plan is to mix them as best that I can do, then turn off the compression/limiting on the master bus and output the 12 stereo files to individual wave files.
To "master" them, I will then import those songs one by one into a new Sonar file with spaces between each one. So I will have 12 songs end to end on one track that will last 36 minutes. Then I will apply light multiband compression and limiting on that new "master" bus and try and make the songs flow together volume wise. Once I have it as good as I can do, I will then re-rendered the 12 songs individually, drag them into a CD-burning program and bam!, a CD is born. Oh, I will find a special "mastering engineering" hat to wear while I do all that!
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Quote:
... Now, here's the real question. Which term did the OP mean? Did he use the term "mastering" correctly, or did he mean mixing? -- Gary
I just re-read that OP and I guess I missed what he was wanting to do. I believe he has the terminology right -- but there is nothing out there (that I know of) that will do what he wants. You have to go the other way -- tweak and tweak until you get a sound close to those commercial records.
Here's a quick interesting article on pre-mastering tips: http://passivepromotion.com/a-mastering-engineers-guide-to-final-mixdown Note that he does talk about "mastering" being used to allow consistent playback on many systems. However, if you don't have that part right in the "mix", you have just made the mastering engineer's job a lot harder (and more expensive if you want it to sound great).
Of course, since you don't have the same expensive listening room that the mastering engineer has, you can only get so close to a final CD that translates excellently everywhere.
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Professional mastering is really not that expensive, when you consider how an experienced ME can make your tracks sound. Approx. $2.00 per minute, and you get a red book master that is ready for duplication. Here is a good article on mastering: http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/gman_mastering.htmp.s. I am not, nor have I ever been a mastering engineer. Anyone who listens to my tracks will attest to that.  Regards, Bob
Last edited by 90 dB; 06/01/12 12:35 PM.
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Thanks a lot for replies. Yes it’s the mastering part that I am on about, the final tweaking after mixing to give the mixdown that little bit extra to make it shine and closer to a commercial release that we hear. In fact I am just talking about doing one song at a time, as I don't have a whole bunch of songs that I could turn into a CD. I do have ozone 4 with a lot of presets in it, and I suppose it helps a bit, but still a lot of hit and miss. 1 Just wondering if a song has each track mixed down well, with the proper eq's and other plugins added to each track, does this minimize the need for mastering on the final stereo track) (if its a standalone song not to be put on a CD) 2 As regards the Harmonic Series for each instrument in a song, is it wise mainly to tweak the eq frequencies for a particular instrument's song range i.e. cutting the frequencies of that instrument so that it won't clash with another instrument in the song? I am probably not understanding or asking this right so if you don't understand what I am asking feel free to ignore it.  Gary's tip about playing the finished song on different systems is good, I had thought about that, and maybe even loading a commercial song into the DAW so that I can compare the tonal qualities of it to my song as regards mastering. Thanks very much for your replies and advice, Musiclover
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There's really no such thing as mastering one song.
Another trick I learned when it comes to seeing how your mix is. Pull out the old vacuum cleaner and start cleaning your mix room.Then see if you can hear the tune evenly with all the noise going. Start turning the song down and see if you start losing stuff.Sounds ridiculous I know but give it a try.The wife will be happy as well.
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Quote:
There's really no such thing as mastering one song.
Another trick I learned when it comes to seeing how your mix is. Pull out the old vacuum cleaner and start cleaning your mix room.Then see if you can hear the tune evenly with all the noise going. Start turning the song down and see if you start losing stuff.Sounds ridiculous I know but give it a try.The wife will be happy as well.
Thanks a lot John for your reply, I thought it was was possible to master just one standalone song, surely single releases are mastered.
Thanks for that tip about the vacuum, must try it. Unfortunately I don't have a studio room due to lack of space, the spealers are sitting behind my 22 inch LG monitor, and I mean directly behind it.
receipe for disaster I know as regards having a good mixdown.
musiclover
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Single Releaases are indeed Mastered. Or at least, they should be.
If you think that tossing the title of "Engineer" out is all you need do, don't expect to be able to reliably get good results every time.
That said, there are softwares and plugins designed to make the Mastering rather easy. Likely the leader of the pack these days would be T-Racks, also check out Ozone.
--Mac
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If OP already has Ozone and really wants to do it himself, he should spend time learning it. Read the manual (very good stuff in there). Oh, and saw this today http://www.izotope.com/artists/adam_ayan...2012+Newsletter
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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In the old days, when balancing the tracks on an album, the mastering engineer would use his ears, instead of relying only on the meters, to assess relative sound intensity. This approach seems to have largely died out, which is perhaps a shame.
ROG.
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Quote:
Single Releaases are indeed Mastered. Or at least, they should be.
If you think that tossing the title of "Engineer" out is all you need do, don't expect to be able to reliably get good results every time.
That said, there are softwares and plugins designed to make the Mastering rather easy. Likely the leader of the pack these days would be T-Racks, also check out Ozone.
--Mac
Mac,
I think you miss my point. I actually wasn't real clear on what I mean. Of course if you take a single song from a project of a bunch of songs it will have been Mastered.My point is that you don't take say 12 songs Master one ,set it aside. Master #2 and set it aside.Master #3 and set it aside. Mastering is really taking a whole group of songs and making a cohesive sounding project.If you record just one song, take the stereo file and do some hokuss pokus to it I really don't call that Mastering. To me it's just finishing the mix of the one tune.Any good engineer can finish a single song to be release ready. It takes an Engineer that's also an "artist" to Master a group of 12 songs. Just my opinion.
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In Logic Pro 9 you can load a song and it will make the frequencies that are present into a template so that it's EQ can be replicated. But that's a long way from what mastering a song from scratch would be. There are so many other aspects to mastering, and listening a pro song and trying to match the sound isn't as easy as it would seem although not impossible. I've heard some homemade stuff that was as good as any studio, but if I was needing a pro sound I would use a pro studio. I'm just a hobbyist so I don't need perfection to have fun.
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