A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

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ross-alexander
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by ross-alexander »

Great topic Steve, very informative information, thanks for sharing it ;)

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by calum666 »

Lost to the Void wrote:Alrighty, here is my guide to mastering your own music to use in a club.
this won`t replace proper mastering as the problem with mastering your own music is that, well if you knew what problems there were in your music, you would have sorted them at the mix stage, this is where the third party objectivity and experience of an engineer helps.
This guide should however allow you to get your tunes to a competitive "loudness" to allow you to use them in a DJ set to test them out, without absolutely destroying the music trying to get it loud.
I earn my money as a mastering engineer, so this is all based on my own experience in the industry.


**EQ**

You will need a spectrum analyser. Set the analyser on an average/RMS setting if possible, with a slow update. You want an average, over time, reading of the spectrum, not a moment to moment instant read of peaks.

Ok so once you have this set up you then want a nice clean EQ, free from too many artefacts, nothing too characterful. I use a massive passive, and brainworx EQ.
What you want to do is level out the average from roughly 100hz up to about 5khz. What I mean by this is you want to get your spectrum to read a roughly flat line between these frequencies. So pull down any peaks and push up any troughs. Don`t go for any sharp Q`s, you want to be making gentle movements here to roughly balance out spectrum, with a slight downward slope to the high frequencies. I`m doing this in terms of dance music, so from around 100hz down expect to have a big hump for the bass, this is fine, dance music is bass heavy.
Now you can flatten down above 5k, but be very very careful here as you can start to damage transient information, so only make broad and slight adjustments if you need to.
You might prefer a little smile EQ pattern, our ears like this, if so your dip will be around 800hz ish.
You can afford to really cut in to your low end, especially in the sub 30hz range, just kill that shit.

Compression

Ok, I'm going to advise using a standard 2 comp setup here over multiband. Multiband compression is fraught with problems, and unless you really really know compression (in which case you won`t need this guide) I would not advise multiband compression. It has specific uses, it can shred any sense of groove and can absolutely kill dynamic interest.

So the idea is you use one compressor to capture rapid peaks and control them, you then use another compressor to control overall changes in the body of the music, which will act more slowly and gently.

So compressor choice. Well for the main rhythmic compression the choice is up to you. I tend to go with something characterful for the fast comp, and something more transparent for the second comp.
Feedback compression is great for a full mix, it is gentle and musical, but stuff like an SSL buss comp will also do a nice job if treated right.

Settings?

You want a relatively gentle ratio, with everything in mastering, you want to be fairly gentle, unless you are trying to recover specific mistakes that can`t be fixed in the mix.

so a gentle ratio.

Attack needs to be fast, but not so fast as to kill the punch and the transients, I can`t give any numbers here because 200ms on one compressor, won`t necessarily be the same as on another. Use your ears, pull the attack down and listen to the front end of your kicks, high hats, punchy synths, stuff that has real snappy transient information, at the point you hear the compressor biting down on the transients, pull back, you want these to go through a little.

Release again, you need to tune this. You really want to watch your VU meter here. If your compressor lacks a VU or something that emulates the ballistics of one, then get a standalone in your chain. You want to tune the release so that the VU meter is moving in with the groove of the track, and other transients are smoothed out of this motion. You`ll never get a perfect swing unless you are mastering a tune that is only kick drums, but you want this to be a smooth motion on average.
the release should be relaxing enough where the compression is returning to almost non action, but not no action at all, before the next kick. If you set the release to fast you`ll really notice the comp too much and it will pump and possibly distort in a nasty way. Too slow and you will effectively be over attenuating the mix. You want the release to be just a little longer than each beat, so there is still a little compression acting by the time the next kick comes in, this will give a natural groove.

Now raise the ratio so that the compressor stops acting at all, and gradually bring it back down again until action begins, you really don`t want to go for more than 3db of gain reduction, but how much all depends on the sound. Some hardware comps can actually be right in the sweet spot with barely any movement on the meter. So just use your ears.

You may want to adjust the frequency of the sidechain input, if the comp has it, to take out some of the really low information that may effect the rhythmic movement of the comp. Use your meter and your ears combined to get this right. It applies if you have a lot of low end content, especially the big old low end techno rumble.

the second comp you want a much slower attack, you want to capture sounds with slower transients (not the drums) so again tune by ear, but a rough guide is to double the setting of the first comp. Release can be a little more gradual too, a lower ratio than the previous comp. This might capture big stabs, swells, filter sweeps that peak etc. Very gentle.


**Clean Up EQ**

You may want another Eq in the chain here just to tidy up any changes the compression has added, same rules as above. If you have done things right, you shouldn't need to.

**Limiting**

Right, to get your final level you want a limiter.
If you are in digital domain then you can use a lookahead, which is always a nice option.
If you can adjust the attack and release then you want to essentially follow the rules above for comp, really pay attention to tuning the attack, you don`t want to kill all the transients, something like 1100 ms on dance music will do the trick.
Again you don`t want to be ramming your gain reduction here. I try to never let a limiter go beyond 2db of gain reduction. All limiters are different, but I`ve never heard one that goes much beyond 2db without getting gacky.

Obviously at this stage dither down to 16 bit is fine.

that should do ya, as a rough guide.

With say 1-2 db GR with your first comp, another say, 1-2 db with the second and then another 2 on the limiter you`ve got 6db of gain reduction there, and if you have done it right and used your ears, it should be a relatively clean 6db of reduction.

With a peak of -0.5db you should be able to get your RMS to around -8 which is loud enough to use in the club.
I have just tried out these techniques on a few of the track I am working on at the moment and all I can say is this is the best information I have found anywhere on the net. Thank you very much for this info. :D

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

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Planar wrote: This is how Timo Maas must feel...
now all I need is his funky hairdo and messy beard and I'm all set ! :lol:
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Hades »

can't wait to try out some of this advice though.
thx Steve (and Mattias)

may the cunt be with you !
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Plyphon »

"Wonder if there's anything good on Subsekt lately?"


Was not disappoint.

Can't wait to try this at some point - Cheers Steve.

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Plyphon »

Just looking at that bit you wrote about Glue - is that preset for Ableton only? Would it work if I had Glue in any other DAW?

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Lost to the Void »

No, I do have the standalone glue though, I can upload the settings as a preset if you like
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by daunzila »

Man, thanks a lot for all this topic!
WTF?!

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by babyjordan »

Lost to the Void wrote:No, I do have the standalone glue though, I can upload the settings as a preset if you like
It'd be great if you could upload the preset file!

Thanks for the guide as well.

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Plyphon »

Lost to the Void wrote:No, I do have the standalone glue though, I can upload the settings as a preset if you like

That would be very handy, if you wouldn't mind. I don't have a copy of Glue yet, but I've got a birthday coming up and I've been a good boy this year.

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by jordanneke »

That is an awesome post. Thanks Steve.

I have a question, that perhaps anyone can answer...

When you are producing/ composing/ arranging, do you have the mastering process in mind?

For example, knowing that you may want the spectrum to look a certain way (when it's mastered), do you eq the tracks with this in mind? Or do you do it by ear?

If that makes sense?

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Mattias »

The only thing of concern while producing composing and mixing is to make sure it all sound balanced and correct and represent how you want the track (and not make odd things that can complicate mastering). On shouldn't think "Oh I wonder how it will sound in mastering, I better EQ this and that for safety" because it doesn't make any sense.
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Bobby Vosene »

Great thread, thanks. I just went back and remastered my most recent effort using this knowledge and it came out a lot better I think.
I have a question about rms levels - I've just been using FreeG to measure my rms... Does it do a decent job? On my track the level was about -8db, but when I referenced a professionally released track it was showing as about -5db, which seems quite loud (both tracks were kind of dubby techno).

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Mattias »

Different meters shows different things, slightly.

However, RMS is not a measurement of loudness, but a measurement of relative energy.

The question is, did your own track have about the same loudness as the commercially released one? If it was around the same but the meters shows two very different RMS figures it can depend on, for example that your track is lacking low-end compared to the other. Especially in dub techno the figures can be all over the place as its a style where there can differ a lot between types and magnitude of bass.
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by serial »

for A/B compare try this vst. it has a great future to match volume after using plugins
so you can hear effect results with same loudness as original audio.. check second part of video :)
youtu.be/gpyt0NNUzDU

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Bobby Vosene »

My track was quieter...
I suppose what I want to know is if the difference in loudness between my track and the reference track is acceptable, bearing in mind my track is not being mastered professionally...

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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Mattias »

There is no definitive answer sorry to say. Perhaps the track you compare with is pushed beyond it's loudness potential and therefor also distorts and sounds bad.
For your own personal use, to listen / play on gigs etc it can probably work good.

Which track was it that you referenced it with?
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Lost to the Void »

RMS is only really a guide, it`s more handy when working out dynamic range and overall changes to your material through dynamic processing.
If you want to visually compare loudness then you need an LFUS meter, but your ears will always tell you the true story.

Try to mix at the same level when doing fine work. Mark a position on your monitor dial or amp or whatever, as your common mixing, and listening volume, and always reference at this volume. A hand held db meter is handy when sorting this out.

Do you/should you have mastering processes in mind?
That depends if you want something specific done at the mastering stage, some specific tonal colouration etc.

But no, generally you should be trying to get a good even, balanced mix, as this is what the mastering engineer will be trying to get/correct for/achieve when working on your mix.

You can however, if you are going for a nice compressed sound on your final theoretical master, compensate for the master compression at the final stage by giving your kick drum 1/4 - 3/4 of a db more level before sending the mix away. This little extra level on the kick, over what sounded "correct" on your mix, will allow the final mastering compression to bite down a little on the kick to get a nice full compressed sound with a little pump, without burying the kick in to the bass.

This is not a general rule, hence the italics on can
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Lost to the Void »

Bobby Vosene wrote:Great thread, thanks. I just went back and remastered my most recent effort using this knowledge and it came out a lot better I think.
I have a question about rms levels - I've just been using FreeG to measure my rms... Does it do a decent job? On my track the level was about -8db, but when I referenced a professionally released track it was showing as about -5db, which seems quite loud (both tracks were kind of dubby techno).
Loudness is not "better"
What was the "professionally" released track you were referencing?

Did that track you referenced have a good dynamic range?
Were the percussive parts punchy and snappy or was the overall sound of the percussion very flat and level?
Was there an overpresent pump in the mix?
Was there distortion in the upper frequencies?

Don`t reference LOUD tracks, reference "good" tracks.
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Re: A guide to home "Mastering" of your own tunes

Post by Bobby Vosene »

This is the track here:

youtu.be/UzNcpTEBA8w

Just something I happened to be listening to on the way to work and liked the sound of...


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