[LAU] Tips for mastering?

[S. Massy]

Hello,

First, all of what Al said is good common sense stuff.

When you say "mastering" are you implying that someone else is mixing
and you intend to do the post-processing? Why not go the whole way and
do it all yourself?

IMHO, it's worthwhile to pause and think about how you want things to
sound *before* even touching anything. Once you have an answer to that
question, it's a very good exercise to listen to a cross-section of the
genre and pick a few reference mixes you feel comfortable with (they
don't have to be perfect, so long as you know what the strong and weak
points are): it fulfils the double role of providing some kind of marker
to ce-centre you when your ears have had all they can take, and forcing
you to think about what you like and don't like in a mix.

For a whole album, you probably want to do it in two passes, the first
focusing on the songs, the second on harmonising the sound. If the mixes
were well done in the first place, the amount of work should be minimal:
in fact, you probably should worry if you find yourself tinkering too
much with certain aspects of the sound...

That's all I can think of for now. Good luck!

Cheers,
S.M.

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 02:42:04PM +0100, Gabbe Nord wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> In a month or so I'll for the first time in my life attempt to master two
> smaller EPs (my own music should be added). I've worked up a fairly good
> skillset with some parts of the mastering (multiband compressing etc) but I
> need some major help with tips for what I'm trying to accomplish, which is:
> 
> * I want a similar soundlevel throughout the whole of the EP, eg. I want
> the songs to be similar in strength even if they are dissimilar in
> dynamics/type of song. Some songs are naturally more "aggressive" and thus
> will be a bit stronger, but I want the climaxes in the more easy going
> songs to be as strong.
> 
> I realise that most of this will be done through the traditional "just
> listen and compare", but I'm wondering if there are any other
> analyzingtools that might ease my work a bit? Like analysing RME for the
> whole song, will that give a fair indication that can be compared amongst
> songs? Fatigued ears and the need for alot of small breaks is calculated
> with, but those difficulties will be pretty testing for me I think with my
> low patience lol, so anything that makes the process easier is good stuff!
> Mastering on my own like this probably isn't that good, I know, but I'm
> looking at it as an opportunity to learn some tricks of the trade.
> 
> I will be using plugins from linuxDSP together with a few Calf ones and the
> Foo Limiter, so no Jamin etc.
> 
> Do you have any general tips for me etc? All tips I can get are greatly
> appreciated!
> 
> Thanks in advance, regards,

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