EQ Mixing & Mastering Question

Hello--

I've got Wavelab for mastering and am very satisfied with the accompanying EQ plug-ins that come with it--both EQ plug-ins and the visual meters.

My question is more of a technique question. Is it better to EQ each of your tracks in Sonar individually before mastering in a third-party program, or is it OK to just EQ the whole mix in the mastering--or both?

Thanks,

That's a good question. And there is room for more than one answer. My answer is: your tracks should get the strongest EQ treatment, with the master bus getting only very minor tweaks. Theoretically, if you get the tracks EQ'd right, you won't need any EQ on the master. And if you find that you need major filtering on the master, it's best to figure out why you're long on some bands and/or short on others - the best fix is most likely going to be at the track level.

I think you have answerd your own question, if you were taking the tracks to a mastering house, then the answer is no!!
But because you are doing it yourself, then it's up to you.  I tend to master in Sonar but because i use a hardware compressor i tend  to bounce the track before mastering, so depending on the track and or the mood i somtimes use the eq on the master buss before i bounce and somtimes on the final mix file.  The question you should be asking do i put eq before the compressor or after the compressor.
 
Viva la Revolution
Sonar Forverver, Pro Tools Never
Ben B.C.T (Bachelor of Creative Technology)
http://www.myspace.com/audiomystics

yeah yeah, all you compressor kids can just move along 

I'm just moving along. 
 
But Wicked is right. But even if the track doesn't need an EQ, I still like to put a high pass filter on it. Even if the slope starts at 35 to 40kHz. Every little bit helps.
 
Cj

The nice thing about this is that you can try different things out  and experiment all you want ;..... The tape isn't wearing out and suffering generational degradation ( unfortunatley , at my age , my brain is !!)



Think about this one ... Allot of production like to have a very "airy" tonality , so the end up with low CPU style eq on almost every track . I read about and engineer who actually said that he started out a mix with his best quality , best at performing air boost eq ON THE MASTER BUSS!! .

THis way instead of all those lesser track eq's adding whatever grunge they did ( adding up across a bunch of tracks ) he just mixed into the one on the buss that already had a small air boost on it ..... HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM  

Whta'ya Think ????

Mr Studio says this:

To be frank in respect of 'home mastering'. If you didnt hear a problem in the mix you arent going to fix it by mastering yourself. If you are happy with the mix, shove a couple of compressors each knocking off just a couple of db and a limiter on it and be done. If you are not happy with the mix, go fix the mix.

There is no mystique to mastering. Ultimately, where the audio is concerned, if the mix is good its simply about pushing up the levels (in pretty much the way I suggested above). Yeah they might have some fancy tools like a crane song hedd to add a little tape or valve sound but that's pretty much it. Anything else they do is fixing problems with the mix (this is where the real mystique comes in: be it ms processing, parallel processing or whatever) making it radio ready by knocking off some bottom end.

So my message to you all: it's all about the arrangement and the mix. Get them right and the rest will take care of itself. Add a limiter at the end. Job done.

EQ your tracks methinks.