DMusic.com | for indie musicians and fans | Free MP3 music downloads - Forums: The General Forum: So what mastering software do you use? and do you have any recording tricks to share?

Forums > The General Forum

So what mastering software do you use? and do you have any recording tricks to share?

woodhead	Date: November 4, 2003 @ 11:24 PM I use sound forge 6 to master. And a trick? when mastering, to see if any freq wil cause noise, I change to mono for a listen, here you will find if there are freq that are fighting for space.
fireball87	Date: November 4, 2003 @ 11:30 PM ah sound forge... such a good program...
woodhead	Date: November 4, 2003 @ 11:57 PM soundforge rock in my opinion
GeneHilbert	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 12:25 AM SF6 is kewl - I like the way you can push the volume right up to 0db and if you have a small amount of clippings you can just draw out the spikes.
Jennae	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 2:44 AM cubase
Veracohr	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 3:50 AM For the mp3s I put here, I use the same program I use to record, which is Digital Performer 2.72. For the album I'm trying to do, I'll go with a real mastering house.
Veracohr	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 3:52 AM Oh yeah, tricks...Well, I'm not a mastering engineer, so I really don't have any. The only thing I really have to say is to not slam the fucking thing on a limiter. Sure, it makes it "loud", but it also makes it sound like shit.
Apertome	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 6:32 AM I use Cubase, along with the Waves mastering plugins or Ozone. The main problem with Ozone is that it's a DirectX plug-in, and no host I've found seems to do proper DirectX automation. Not sure what Veracohr means exactly by saying not to "slam the fucking thing on a limiter" -- I find some limiting is usually necessary, but too much does indeed make it sound like shit. As for tricks, I can't think of any good technical tricks offhand for mastering, but instead a social engineering trick. Often I master friends' DJ mixes. I have learned to do less limiting than it really needs before I let them hear it, because they _ALWAYS_ ask me to make it "louder." This way, I can make it louder, making them feel like they have some say in it, without killing the sound. Actually, I did think of a trick or two I like to use. For me, it's vital to have a visual representation of the sound -- Ozone does a great job of this, and Waves has the PAZ Analyzer. Say you listen to a track similar to the one you're mastering by a commercial artist, and you really like the way it sounds. Play it back and watch the waveform display in Ozone or PAZ Analyzer, or something similar. Look at the shape of the waveform. Now, try to make the waveform in your track look similar. In fact, Ozone has a "snapshot" feature that lets you store how a particular waveform looks. Very useful. Also, whatever software you use, make sure it can do multiband compression. This way, you can (for example) compress the bass to give it that "punch" you want, while not compressing the whole track. This may not be necessary when you have all of the instruments recorded separately, but for things like DJ mixes, it's essential. On that note, I could use some advice. When mastering DJ mixes (which are usually continuous), how do you deal with the track changes? In the past, I've tried to find settings that worked well on the whole mix, but now I'm experimenting with automating compression, EQ, etc. But I don't want to micromanage the levels -- what do other people do in this kind of situation?
Arthen	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 7:16 AM Steinberg's Wavelab and Nuendo. In fact the tracks "Highway Warrior" and "Please Come Back" of mine are totally recorded, mixed and mastered in Wavelab alone.
woodhead	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 9:18 AM When I stated tricks these can be in recording also, any trick for music purposes doesn't have to be mastering. Ex: want a bull horn sound on vocals? but short on cash? Use a get ready to ruble mic found in the toy section of most dept stores.
fireball87	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 10:00 AM all you crazy people ussing cubass... get sound forge now... i mean sonic foundery makes all the best programs... well... sony now makes all the best programs... they just bought sonic foundry
GeneHilbert	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 10:47 AM Cubase Sx is a little harder to use to - but what a sound. "The Dark Horse" CD was done in Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 & Sound Forge. Although the CD audio sounds fine - the mp3's from it are 2 dimensional (kinda flat). The new CD is being done in SX. I'm here to tell you SX kicks ass - the audio engines sound GREAT. The only thing I've heard that sounds better is Nuendo 2
woodhead	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 10:52 AM I use cake walk and sound forge 6 as well. When you mastered your original mix did you add air? and then enhance the final mix? I do this and get the crisp sound.
Veracohr	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 5:02 PM You said the same thing I meant. Do a little limiting, but don't go overboard. Most mastering these days goes way too far, and the music ends up clipped and harsh. But also loud, and that's all anyone cares about. My philosophy is that if you master at a decent level and don't clip too much, they can turn up the damned volume if it's low compared to other albums. I'd rather the sound be good than just loud. That's what amplifiers were made for!" id="67793">"Not sure what Veracohr means exactly by saying not to "slam the fucking thing on a limiter" -- I find some limiting is usually necessary, but too much does indeed make it sound like shit." You said the same thing I meant. Do a little limiting, but don't go overboard. Most mastering these days goes way too far, and the music ends up clipped and harsh. But also loud, and that's all anyone cares about. My philosophy is that if you master at a decent level and don't clip too much, they can turn up the damned volume if it's low compared to other albums. I'd rather the sound be good than just loud. That's what amplifiers were made for!
Veracohr	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 5:06 PM To put perspective on the issue, I get uneasy when my limiter does more than 2 dB of gain reduction more than a couple times during the whole song, and my RMS level is usually -13 to -11dB at the loudest. Compare that to mastering engineers that to 10dB of limiting or more.
Apertome	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 7:39 PM I agree with Gene, SX rules! That aside, I prefer Cool Edit Pro to Sound Forge. Sound Forge seems much more popular, but I can't figure out why. A friend of mine was using SF, and I turned him on to CEP, and he never looked back. Veracohr, is RMS what I recall from electrical engineering classes, "root mean square?" An average of sorts, IIRC. If so, is this a good tool for ensuring your tracks sound like they are at the same volume level? Or is it still more of an art than a science? When I'm doing mastering, I mostly do what sounds good to me, rather than shooting for any particular specs (so far, anyway).
Veracohr	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 7:56 PM Oh, I don't shoot for any specific RMS level, but the nature of RMS level means that songs that sound about the same loudness will have about the same RMS level. I only mentioned it because the limiter I use, Masterworks Limiter that came with Digital Performer, shows peak and RMS level in addition to regular limiter things. But I don't pretend to have any good mastering skills, I just do the best I can for mp3 purposes. I just try to keep from clipping it too much. Sometimes it's hard to not focus on the visual aspect of the DAW. I often have to close my eyes to get a good sense of my mix, because otherwise I conentrate more on the screen than the sound.
Arthen	Date: November 5, 2003 @ 10:46 PM I don't like SoundForge at all. Cubase, Nuendo and Wavelab rules!!!
woodhead	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 12:47 AM We all have our prefences, but any tricks any one? at least one? that would be cool yes indeed it would.
pog	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 1:15 AM some tricks... hmmm I find that if you place an individual e.q. on every track, or most of them, you can shape the sounds to create more distinct soundscapes. Digital distortion is bad, and everything is ultimately up to the artists ears.
woodhead	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 1:23 AM thanks pog, a trick finally
Apertome	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 2:22 AM Here are a couple of tricks for vocals: 1. Use delay, with feedback mostly or all the way down and mostly dry, to fatten up a vocal track. You're not shooting for echo, you just want to make it sound thicker. (Someone on DMusic told me this trick, it could have been Veracohr, but I'm not sure. To whomever told me this, thanks!) 2. If you do want audible delay or reverb on vocals, and you have some essing, sibilance, or similar artifacts, only apply the effect to frequency ranges which are not problematic (Izotope Spectron makes this easy). This way you get reverb/delay but the artifacts don't echo. And here's a bass tip (I read this in some interview with Thievery Corporation): Take the treble down about 50% and put a steep dip in the EQ somewhere in the 250-300Hz range. This cuts out some stray harmonics and opens up the space above the bass for the other parts to fit in better.
Apertome	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 2:31 AM Oh yeah, here's a really fun one. This is how I do it in Reason; I'm sure it's possible with many other soft/hardware synths, though: A really cool effect is to route, for example, a guitar part through a Maelstrom synth's filters/shaper, but also use the oscillators on the synth. This way you end up with the oscillators and guitar going through the same filter(s). You can do some wild stuff by controlling the filters with the LFOs, and using envelopes/sync takes it a step further. On my track "Hijinks," with Victors Skull, I do this -- there are parts where the guitar and synth sound "chopped"; this is due to using sync on the LFOs, so when you play a note on the keyboard, the LFOs kick in, "chopping" both the guitar and synth. A cool side effect of this is that when you aren't playing a note in the synth, you can use the filters as usual on the guitar part, with the modwheel or by automating the cutoff/resonance. I hope that makes sense
pog	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 4:10 AM when you release a track, listen to it on a heap of different sized media players... like put it on a cd and test it on a small cd player, as well as a good system, a mono system... that way you'll have an idea of what it'll sound like on the radio Although there are no actual rules to a perfect production, having rhythm guitars slightly down in the mix and vocals slightly up in the mix is always a good approach. ...the differnce between a delay and a reverb is milliseconds.
furiousBall	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 10:00 AM I'm using Sonar 3 with Ozone for my mastering. Really can't say enough good things about Ozone - love that stuff. pog's suggestions are exactly right, listen to your mix on as many different stereo's, walkmans, car stereo's, mono mixes, with subs, and without subs... i also like to listen to the entire song at high volume and very low volume too...at low volume you should still be able to hear kick, snare, and vocals (this of course varies from genre to genre). i always like to be able to feel the kick sound in my chest.
robin101	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 10:06 AM If you are attempting to "master" in order to "separate" sounds (which are too close to other sounds), you're fighting an uphill battle. When the frequencies are initially recorded too close, this is called: "inter-modulation distortion" (this is not "distortion" as we generally know the term). If the piece is arranged correctly (from inception), mastering is "a piece of cake". Rick Iantosca (Robin101)
woodhead	Date: November 6, 2003 @ 10:34 AM I agree with Pog also and one tof the best places to hear your mix is in a car stereo. I am like Vanda I have to feel the kick in my chest as well.
kredd	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 2:59 PM a big rule of thumb for me, and vandaman hit on this, is to listen to your mix at a very low level. you still should be able to hear everything in the mix. this won't necessarily give you THE best mix, but it allows you to hear if some instruments are mixed too low that you would never have heard at a high volume.
SoulBeats	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 3:21 PM Windows Sound Recorded
Slurgi	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 6:21 PM I use cool edit pro. Does anyone else use it? Its now been purchased by Adobe i do believe. I think its pretty good, but i havent really used anything else...
pog	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 7:18 PM I like cooledit pro2 heaps
sinai	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 7:24 PM I use cakewalk, and am yet to get good enough with it to offer any tips or tricks
robin101	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 8:22 PM What possible reason would anyone have to master at this stage of the game. If you concentrate hard enough on your mixes, it is not necessary to "master" your mixes.
robin101	Date: November 12, 2003 @ 8:22 PM What possible reason would anyone have to master at this stage of the game. If you concentrate hard enough on your mixes, it is not necessary to "master" your mixes.
woodhead	Date: November 13, 2003 @ 12:26 AM I use cakewalk I use cake walk also but the trick can be anything, in recording such as finding the sweet spot in a cab, or a cool way to layer something, or a wild sound effect. When I stated trick any trick and all tricks are cool. If you concentrate hard enough on your mixes, it is not necessary to "master" your mixes. and I was talking about after the tracks are done and your mix is to stereo, such as this statement "The only thing I really have to say is to not slam the fucking thing on a limiter. Sure, it makes it "loud", but it also makes it sound like shit." Mastering the finnished product, limiter, compresion, "eq" dynamic filters etc etc etc.....

Post A Reply
From:	Guest	(Icons - Linking)
Post: