Mastering is about getting the tracks to sound great individually but uniform, putting them in the right order and making the whole final production flow from A to Z. It is scientific and artistic at the same time.
Another very very good book is 'Mastering Audio' by Bob Katz.
Get your mix sounding as great as it can. Keep peaks well clear of 0db FS. (I dont mind a little
gentle compression on the mix masterbuss, it helps to establish good final mastered tracks later)
Allow time to pass between mixing and mastering. Setup a new mastering session and import your mix. Generally there are three processes on the master buss. EQ, a Multiband Compressor and some Limiting. They all have different jobs and they all add a bit to the overall volume. These stages of EQ compression, limiting etc can be all digital or sending your mix through some fine analog processors or a combination of both. Tape machines can be handy as well. I am a believer that digital mastering processes are sounding fantastic now and better than ever before!
With EQ a great thing to do is to have a professionally mixed album of your favourite music right in the same genre. Enable your monitoring to be able to switch over to this reference from time to time. This will help you set your EQ. Your mix may not need a lot of EQ but sometimes things like a little dip at 250 Hz and some sweetening on the very highs might just be it. Use the 64 bit plugins when doing this.
All this work should be done manually. Presets are no good and presets have no idea about the material they are affecting. Sure they are not bad but better mastering happens when you treat each piece individually and carefully set each process.
The multiband compressor comes next and with practice you can get it adding volume to the track and still keeping it punchy and it seems to come out more polished after the compressor. There are settings in Bob Katz's book. It does take a little time to get to know the multiband but after a while you can pretty well make a big improvement to the sound. Bypass the compressor all the time to make sure you are doing good. The final limiting can bring the volume up another 3 db or so and not effect the mix. There are some great limiters around. Boost 11 is not fantastic at this. Other limiters are a bit better for now. The Sonar EQ and Multiband are surpurb though.
Switching back to the reference keeps you on track all the time.
Out of a group of music tracks, there is ususlly one that stands out as having the perfect sound for your album. You do this one first and also keep it in check with the professional reference CD. Now you do your other tracks and also have the first track you mastered on hand to listen to at any time so you can keep the EQ and compression and limiting on all the remainder tracks in tune with it.
VU meters (real ones and expensive) can keep all the levels of the tracks in check. There is no need to go for the loudness war volumes that is happening right now. It effects other areas far too much. There is a point where you can still have punchy and transient information present, but the track can be quite loud at the same time. You then select the song order and start burning CD's and listening to them. The time between tracks also needs to be carefully adjusted as it varies. If a track fades, it does not need as much silence in between tracks as a track that ends quick and big. You end up making a few different track orders and between you and your artist you end up working it out.
You should be able to play a complete album at a distance at a dinner party and not take much notice but all the tracks should flow with nothing sticking out. Even the slightest thing will be obvious like a track being too soft or too loud or starting way too soon after an ending etc... Good luck!
post edited by Jeff Evans - 2009/10/20 08:30:26