There are two different techniques for applying mastering processing to a mix: in the Master track of the Set you’re mixing in or in a separate Set just used for mastering. The conventional approach is, of course, to complete the mix then master it separately. However, there are always variations. If I’m doing a quick […]
CUTTING THE LOWS
Remember a few tips back when I was talking about seeing sharp drop off in frequencies below 30Hz? These super low frequencies can consume a lot of mix headroom without contributing much to the outcome. These frequencies can cause limiters to respond very agressively and really make a mess of things. They can also contribute […]
SETTLING FOR LESS
You may find that, even after tweaking the limiter a bit, you’re just not able to get acceptable sound quality with the level of loudness you’re going for. That’s understandable – music these days is mastered incredibly loud. It takes a lot of skill to get stuff that loud with good sound quality. (There’s also […]
LIMITER TWEAKS
If you use a limiter to bring up the volume of a track, bear these few principles in mind. A slower attack will leave the transients of the music a bit more in tact, but at the cost of higher distortion. Live’s Limiter does not have an attack control, it only has Lookahead. The shorter […]
LOUD – BUT AT WHAT COST?
For the moment, we’re going to continue focus on Limiting as the main source of adding loudness to a mix. It’s not the only tool that’s used, but it’s the most available and the easiest to understand… At first, when you crank up a limiter to give your mix some volume, it can be very […]
GETTING IT LOUD
To get oriented, put your RMS meter on the track you want to want yours to sound like (more or less). Listen to a full, loud portion of the song and take a look at the Average RMS: Now, put the meter on your own song and take a reading. Let’s say the unmastered song […]
NO FREE LUNCH
Unfortunately, there are no secret settings that I can let you in on that will magically make everything sound loud and good. We’ll get into some technical stuff next, but before that I want to mention a general principle. I call it There Is No Free Lunch. You could also call it Something’s Gotta Give. Let […]
WHAT IS LOUD?
If you know nothing else about mastering, you probably know that this is the stage at which commercial recordings get their increased loudness. Even if your unmastered mix is absolutely perfect in every other respect, it’s still going to be far quieter when compared to anything else in your music library, so some processing will […]
REFERENCING DURING MIXING
Now that we’re on to the subject of using a reference mix,let’s back up a step and look at doing this during the mixing process. I feel that referencing during mixing is very important. During mixing, we tend to get hyper focused on details and can sometimes lose track of the big picture. A reference […]
REFERENCING WITH SPECTRUM
There are a number of ways to use Spectrum in a real world context. Here we’re going to set up a mastering session with the primary intention of comparing a mastered song to one of your own. Let’s assume you’ve rendered a mix of a song you’re working on. To set up a mastering session, […]
