DIY Mastering in SONAR

For the sake of discussion, imagine you're mixing/mastering one song in isolation. That is, not as part of an album or other collection. Is there anything you can do in two steps (exporting the project mix, then importing it into a mastering project) that you couldn't do in one step by just adding your "mastering" effects to the master bus?
 
For years I've been doing this in two steps even though I'm never going to send my mix off to a mastering professional for tweaking. In the case of an album, I can see where a separate mastering step can help you match levels and EQ to make a set of songs fit together sonically, but I'm not sure what this extra step gives you in the case of a single song.
 
Your thoughts?

better to use software that is designed strictly for mastering, IMHO

henkejs
For the sake of discussion, imagine you're mixing/mastering one song in isolation. That is, not as part of an album or other collection. Is there anything you can do in two steps (exporting the project mix, then importing it into a mastering project) that you couldn't do in one step by just adding your "mastering" effects to the master bus?
 
For years I've been doing this in two steps even though I'm never going to send my mix off to a mastering professional for tweaking. In the case of an album, I can see where a separate mastering step can help you match levels and EQ to make a set of songs fit together sonically, but I'm not sure what this extra step gives you in the case of a single song.
 
Your thoughts?

best is 2 steps, 2 professionals ...
 
for DIY IMHO 2 steps are still preferable (give it a break in between to have fresh ears, make only subtle changes because that's what's mastering is about ... it's not remixing, that's a different animal)
 
mastering has totally different objectives than mixing. so I'd even recommend 2 steps with 2 applications so you do not twist the same knobs in the same plugs again ...

Thanks for the replies. It's good to see people's perspectives on this. I'm sure professional mastering or even specialized mastering software would be a big improvement over what I do now. But as I mentioned in the thread title, I'm wondering about what people do in SONAR. For hobbyists like me, it's a constant struggle to decide where to put my limited $$ in order to get the best bang for the buck.
 
I see the advantages of the two step process, especially when system resources are being pushed. It seems like I always hear things in the mastering stage that need to be fixed in the original mix, so back and forth I go. . .

lick4lick
Which software?

there are lots of good options out there.
 
i use wavelab.
 
there is ozone.....
slate....
ik multimedia...
sonoris....
Har Bal.....
sound forge.....
and mastering specific plugins as well.....
Waves.....(what i use)
sonnox.....
just a plethora of stuff........
a google search should put you on the proper path.
 
 
 
 
 

They say it is good to get a mastering engineer to master your track and one of the main reasons is they have never heard it before and hence it is fresh to them.  They are very unbiased.  If however you are mastering your own material then the closest thing to this is to mix the track and let a week go by before mastering it.
 
For me the main reason is you have assaulted your ears for many hours doing the mix so I find I cannot make great mastering decisions straight after that.  Any EQ setting you do on the mix day will be different to an overall EQ decision you make a week later.
 
I prefer to get the mix sounding as good as it can first without mastering.  Another reason too is it is nice to have a full premastered version backed up too which you won't get when you master all at once.  It is nice to listen to the mix as well for a week.  In the car, everywhere.  You will hear things and make slight changes as a result.  Hence a better mix.  They say mastering into a compressor changes things so that is fine put it on your master buss and apply some gentle conditioning there.  But remove it before printing the Presmastered mix though.
 
Wait a week and create a proper mastering session and you will find you make better mastering decisions later on.  You will end up using less of everything when you do it this way.  This is only good if time is on your side though.  I recently had to mix and master at the same time in order to belt it all out fast so yes I did that.  I found though I only needed some compression and limiting to bring the overall level up and it worked fine but for me it is not the ideal method

lick4lick
Jeff ... glad you mentioned letting time go by prior to Mastering your own Mix ... really important to recognize "ear fatigue".

Exactly. On the mix day you will find you are still boosting highs and adding 3 or 4 db at the top end.  But the only reason you are doing this is because your ears are shot.  A week later (after a good nights sleep and you are totally fresh in the morning) you will not only realise that your mix is too toppy but you will find yourself pulling the highs down or rolling them off.  Quite different scenarios.
 
I have read many articles where even the best engineers in the world have said they really regretted mastering so close to mix in order to satisfy the record label deadline.
 
You will always get a better master when you separate the two. Having a totally premastered version also allows you to remaster.  As it sometimes takes more than one attempt at mastering to get it perfect.

Yeah I get that too.  And in a few days if you still feel like boosting the highs then yes the mix may need it for sure.  But then again you may have a totally different view and find you are actually easing them down instead! A lot of mixes are way too toppy.  A good mix wont be actually but only have a few elements in there that are clear and have nice top end.  Put a spectrum analyser over your mix.  The best mixes I have heard all have a gentle slope downward from about 5 K onwards.

I do a two-step process inside the project.
I bounce 2-3 slightly different stereo mixes, and archive the rest of the tracks when I start "mastering".
That "slightly different" means usually mixes with different EQs or levels on instruments I usually have difficulties with - hihats, cymbals and the very low end.

I always (well unless for technical reasons) master over a full mix.  I don't see the point in the two phase mix approach, although I will get slaughtered, it allows me to do slight adjustments to the mix if needed.  Sometimes this is important, sometimes not...it just depends.
 
I had to do some adjustments last night on a mix/master, because I'm getting use to a new passive mastering EQ (Waves Abbey Road), and some new cans (AKG 712's).  But whatever works :).
 
Ben  

Jeff Evans
Ben I think the main reason is because you have been hitting your ears over a long time with so much sound you may not be in the best position to master well.
 
So in the mastering chain you might have an EQ first and this is one to watch out for.  You may not make the right decision there and then.  All I know when I leave it a week that first EQ ends up being something different entirely!
 
With compression some say the mix changes when the compression is being applied so in that case by all means leave it on and adjust your mix accordingly but take it off before you print a pre master.  And it is a good idea to have a totally pre mastered print as well.  Gives you different mastering options.
 
Funny though when I do a great mix I find the mastering compressor actually does not change anything for me.  The mastering compressor should not be working that hard (in my opinion) for the mix to change.  A great mix still sounds great to me with our without the mastering compressor.  (I think Danny Danzi agrees with me on this one too) It just seems to add some glue as they say and just add a nice professional sheen over the whole thing.  That is about all I can describe about it. (lately I have been into Tokyo Dawn Labs Kotelnikov and it is just sublime)
 
The mastering limiter (PSP Xenon that is) also does not alter my mixes either, just makes them louder so I am happy to do that stuff later on.  My limiter is only adding 3 to 4 dB of (rms) gain so it is not working very hard either.  None of the mastering processes should be working hard.  It should be a combination of all three that give you the sound you are after.  As soon as you start putting too much work onto just one of those processes it all falls apart for me.

Hi Jeff, Actually if you listen to this https://soundcloud.com/aaudiomystiks/higher  I think you will find, I'm pretty close.  This is the track I was talking about in my previous post...which I finished last night.  It's coming through on my laptop speaker amazingly.  Having 500 dollar cans helps too I've found lol.  I missed so much detail in my Beyerdynamic DT990s.
 
It takes a while to train your ears, and you're right...sometimes I mix and master when I'm too fatigued, in which case I use visual clues...meters and needles to judge things.  Also, yep getting the mix right should be the first step...but understanding the mastering chain and the effect is also important, and hence I fiddeled a bit with the mix in mastering...no change in compression mind you, just a couple of minor volume changes, esp on a couple of the verbs, and I changed the EQ slighty on the kicks, but I could trust myself in this regard because I knew I'd push the curves a bit too far and was creating low-mid issues.
 
My mastering chain, and you're correct I do use an EQ first...but only to remove sub-frequencies and too much top end, and maybe low-mids to clean the track.  I then re-gain stage the track, because unlike you and Danny...I don't care about being in the red...within reason when mixing.  This is becuase I don't go back out of the box when mixing and mastering, which is a big no if you do...but does not matter if not, and indeed it helps create a fatter warmer track if you're using emulator tech.
 
I then feed the master into Sonar's tape sim to even the transients just slightly, and to make sure the VU on sim sits between -18 to -12.  Which is then fed into the console emulator to do a little magic to said transients.
 
Now, this is why I was fiddling around with the mix in mastering last night, because I was incorporating a new mastering EQ into my chain (I don't fiddle often), but I was really struggling with the Waves RS56...it works great off the bat for sound art stuff mind you, but for the life of me I could not get the mix to sit with my normal mastering chain.  Normally after the console emulator, I would use the Pro Channel EQ, and I was trying to do the same with RS56.  Being a complete passive type unlike the Pulteq...makes it harder to set IMO.
 
Eventually I gave up, and continued with normal chain so...Pro Channel EQ set to pure but leaving room for the RS56 later, then I use the Waves H-Comp as my mastering compressor...unlike you though I don't push the signal into and make the compressor do the hard yards...for me its small increments and gain staging.
 
Then I used the RS56, and this is where it worked in the chain...mind you it took some tweaking.
 
After this, I use Waves Master Tape...and no this is not an advert for Waves ;)...Sonar is still my go to piece of software tech...but I gain stage between RS56 and the Master Tape...adding in an extra DB of volume after the gain stage, and use the wow and flutter to dial in some punch, and tape hiss helps the top end come through...I know but I can hear it...and the AKG K12s aren't bad cans.
 
Finally I use the concrete limiter with soft-clip on, and set the release manually...and you can hear the difference if you don't set it manually.
 
If you listen to that track Jeff, and you do so in cans...you will notice the verbs and delays wrap around the back of your head...I use a 360 degree panner to create fake binaural type mixes...we are the headphone generation.
 
Cheers Ben 
 

Rob[atSound-Rehab]

BenMMusTech
 
Now, this is why I was fiddling around with the mix in mastering last night, because I was incorporating a new mastering EQ into my chain (I don't fiddle often), but I was really struggling with the Waves RS56...it works great off the bat for sound art stuff mind you, but for the life of me I could not get the mix to sit with my normal mastering chain.  Normally after the console emulator, I would use the Pro Channel EQ, and I was trying to do the same with RS56.  Being a complete passive type unlike the Pulteq...makes it harder to set IMO.
 
Eventually I gave up, and continued with normal chain so...Pro Channel EQ set to pure but leaving room for the RS56 later, then I use the Waves H-Comp as my mastering compressor...unlike you though I don't push the signal into and make the compressor do the hard yards...for me its small increments and gain staging.
 
Then I used the RS56, and this is where it worked in the chain...mind you it took some tweaking.
 
After this, I use Waves Master Tape...and no this is not an advert for Waves ;)...Sonar is still my go to piece of software tech...but I gain stage between RS56 and the Master Tape...adding in an extra DB of volume after the gain stage, and use the wow and flutter to dial in some punch, and tape hiss helps the top end come through...I know but I can hear it...and the AKG K12s aren't bad cans.
 

IMHO you are "sound shaping" your master bus, or whatever other name one could find for throwing a ton of FX at the master bus.
 
There's nothing wrong with that from a creative perspective - if it sounds right, it is right (and what sounds right is very flexible in the creative domain).
 
Yet, this has nothing to do with classical mastering where you finish the piece of art first, then have it polished so that it sounds as good as possible across playback systems. For some reason they still build speaker into cars ...

Yep, you're right in regards to mix must sound good across a number of systems, and from experience for my stuff...if it sounds right on crap speakers...it will transfer to other system.  I might have left too much low-mids in the track I posted a link to in last post...again I'm getting use to a new EQ.
 
But the OP wasn't really talking about classical mastering...he was asking from his perspective, and so classical mastering isn't really relevant is it?
 
And if you think about it...what is classical mastering?  I mean there's the 60's and the aforementioned use of the RS56 for LP, and i'm sure mastering for cassette tape requires a different type of mastering, as cd does, and now the digital medium does too.  As an example and even though Jimmy Page was doing the latest remasters for cash too, it was also to remaster for the digital medium.  Even he gets the digital or to put it more accurately the digitised analogue medium has to be treated in a new way to all forms of analogue mediums, LP and Tape and even early digital i.e. CD.  And for once, I'm actually pretty qualified to explain the difference in mediums...medium specificity is a part of my research degree. 
 
Whilst all classical engineering techniques, esp when getting the signal into the box and back out if this how you mix and master apply...and depending on the type of digital mixing paradigm you use i.e. the hybrid type, where the signal goes in and out of the box and therefore you need to always watch the levels and actually negate both the benefits of analogue and digital, or total digital where you get the benefits of analogue emulation technology by staying in the box once its in, this means emulating the signal level of analogue too, and using an excess of what looks like superfluous and excess amount of plug-ins to emulate things like the fattness of transients.
 
Sure, and again I'm qualified to say this, if I was mastering someone else's material I would judge it on it's merit, and be judicious in my choice of mastering equipment...that's what a good mastering engineer does.  Again, the OP from what I could tell wanted to know from his perspective and classical mastering technique would probably  not apply :)
 
Cheers Ben 
 
 

henkejs

Bristol_Jonesey
But I also have a Pre Master bus which I use for exporting individual songs which are then re-imported into my album project with the same mastering chain.

 
Interesting. I'm trying to picture how you're routing the tracks and buses. Are the pre-master bus and master bus in series?

should work either way - parallel or in series. either way you can export both without negative impact ...
 
---|---> master
   |---> premaster
 
---> pre-master ---> master
 
 

Boy, I wish I knew more about mastering . . .
 
. . . which is why I don't really do it. I have tried both approaches being discussed. I think if you master while you mix, with Ozone or a stack of plugins on the master bus, then what you are doing is essentially mixing with Ozone. 
 
If you value "setting it aside" and coming back with a two-step process - then you must have the time for multiple re-renders so you can make inevitable mix corrections.
 
In either case, you can always come back the next day with fresh ears, so the two-step process is not your only opportunity to do that.
 
I was an Ozone abuser on the master bus for a while, but I just got the feeling that it gave me 10 options, two of which were good choices, but you must go through all 10 to get to the two.
 
Nowadays I mix to the best of my ability, put FabFilter Pro-L limiter on the master bus, maybe add a db of gain with that, and call it a day. It keeps my song cleaner - because I've found trying to master without real knowledge is the ultimate rabbit hole, with a screwed-up song at its bottom.
 
-Tom