Mastering?

ORIGINAL: delanm2

I've gotten multiple tracks completed and mixed as well as I can. The next step would be to compile them and make an "album". Being a novice I would like someone else to get all the levels correct. There are a lot of people offering to do this (this forum itself has a few). My question is how would this be done? Would I just send the mixed down wave files or send the actuall bundles? Some songs where done in Protracks and some in Sonar (but all cakewalk). I'm getting ready for this step so any input helps. Thanks in advance.

The best way is to export at 24bit so the person doing the mastering can do any adjustments with all 24bits to work with. They will do the bit reduction with dither as the last step of mastering. So all you need to do is send them the stereo 24bit export of the project.

ORIGINAL: chaz

I would venture to say that if you are a "novice", you need to first make certain that your mixes are ready for the mastering stage.

This is a must!

This shouldn't have to be any more difficult than mailing a CD. And in most cases, it's as simple as that. You mail me (or whoever) a CD (along with a check of course ) and you get a CD mailed back with the mastered versions of the songs - ready for duplication.

things to consider:

1) poor mix - "mixed to the best of my (your) ability" doesn't impress me much (I can see heads nodding in agreement). Might take a few attempts to get it right before we can proceed. I won't know until I hear it. There are too many "gotchas" to name them all. It's not uncommon to have to mail CD's more than once before I get a mix I can work with. It might not be a bad idea to send the raw WAV files for each song. If you have special effects on the tracks - export them with the effects.

2) CD text - track names, ISRC codes and such.

3) Track order and amount of quiet time between tracks.

Am I missing something? I don't know. If you want to pursue it contact me off-line.

ORIGINAL: delanm2

I've gotten multiple tracks completed and mixed as well as I can.

if "as well as i can" = "sounds like i want it to, but the individual songs don't flow together", then you're probably on the right track. if "as well as i can" = "it's not that great but mastering will fix that right?" then it's time to send those mixes to a mix engineer or go back to the drawing board.

you must have a good mix before it goes to mastering. in fact some would say that mastering is just getting the mix right. however i think beyond that it is seeing the album as a project and working with the songs so that they sound like an album and not just a collection of songs. there has to be a continuity between them. basically, read yep's link. =)