Originally Posted By: djames
Originally Posted By: Janice & Bud
It depends so much on what YOU want. I typically use individual modules from Ozone, e.g., the imager, the EQ, the multi-band compressor, the limiter, etc. Sometimes we use Waves multi-band compressor and Waves limiter. We always use Izotope's Tonal Balance and Logic Pro's Loudness Meter.

My experience is (beyond adding a little "sparkle" and getting the volume correct for your objective) mastering will "color" your mix to a certain extent. We might like a certain mastering protocol but for a particular song it might alter the "color" of the vocal enough not to use that chain. The IRC selected on Izotope's Maximizer can hugely change the sound of your mix.

FWIW, we like clean, open mixes with a lot of dynamics ... akin to the sound of a tight 4-5 piece band playing live. Thats why we use only multi-band compression in mastering.

I've read the arguments for years about how one should not master their own songs and I call BS. We know what we want the final product to sound like. And, while we assuredly agree that you need an excellent mix to begin with we will still spend considerable time mastering. Over the years we've narrowed down our chains to 4-5 go to's that seem to work for us. We don't claim to be experts by ANY stretch of the imagination but we have had 24 songs licensed by some big companies so I guess we are doing something right. Although I often wonder if we are deluding ourselves. One thing we have learned is that an expert's opinion on your mix/mastering is absolutely golden. Somebody whom you highly respect, understands your music and with whom you can openly and honestly converse with.

Pardon the ramble ... enjoy the journey!

J&B


I love the rambles on these forums! I've learnt a lot from just reading the posts here.

Personally I just want a nice "polished" sounding song, with the minimum of knowledge and expense. For me it's just a bit of fun, for the professionals like yourselves then as always having the right equipment is worth spending the money on as you also have the knowledge on how to use it.

I'm not even sure what an IRC setting is - it could be dangerous in my hands!

Cheers,
David


David, professionals? Hahahaha. We’re a couple of retires who decided to dabble around with creating some Americana music other than the traditional bluegrass that we played for many years. Much, much more of our time is spent hiking and mountain biking and building/maintaining trails. The songs were licensed via Songtradr. We got lucky!

Bud

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