[LAU] mastering - do I need it?

[Mark Knecht]

On Nov 23, 2007 8:44 AM, Chuckk Hubbard <badmuthahubbard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 23, 2007 5:05 PM, Dave Phillips <dlphillips at woh.rr.com> wrote:
> > Short answer: Yes, you should employ JAMin and work at mastering your
> > work before printing to disc.
>
><SNIP>
> Any ideas?  I like the interface, I'd love to get it working...
>
> -Chuckk
>

Chuck,
   Mastering is not mixing. Jamin as a plugin is generally far too
resource intensive to use real-time. Nor is it really needed. This is
not only true for Jamin but also for *all* similar tools I've used on
Windows, such as the mastering tools from Waves.

1) Do all you recording/mix work first. Finish the mix on ALL songs
for the CD first. Bounce a completed wave file for each song.

2) Set up a simple app to play back your bounced final-mix wave files.
This could be Ardour or something far more simple like Audacity. Do
your work in Jamin on those files to created a mastered version of
each. Focus not only on the sound of the song but really more on the
overall mix of the group of song, spectrum and transition from song to
son. Burn your final CD for production using these mastered files.

   Remember that in general mastering is a process of getting a *set*
of audio files ready for a final CD. The task is to make them sound
good together. Taking a single file through the mastering process is
only part of the game.

- Mark