pharohoknaughty 
I always stacked the tracks up and down so I could visualize them better, but your way might make it easier to do the final export, given Sonar's range export idiosyncrasies.

I really haven't found idiosyncrasies, just tons of options. I'd recommend saving export presets so you don't have to think about what to check and not check each time. Of course you also have to make sure everything is selected properly but presets are a real time-saver.

tlw
Time signature, key etc. are, as you say, irrelevant.

A couple of things I forgot to mention. Make sure the low frequencies are centralised, we tend not to be good at locating the source of a sound at below around 200Hz and as the frequency drops we get steadily worse. Low frequency sounds are also very prone to phasing issues. So panning low frequencies or giving them stereo width can lead to some odd results.

And if you're mastering for vinyl forget most of what I said. That has its' own peculiar requirements to do with the physical limitations of vinyl playback and is a very skilled job indeed.

Thanks.  Probably not a bad idea to have an analyzer in that bus as well.  I think it would be neat to see some master bus PC presets.  Anyone want to post one?
 
Paul

Anderton

pharohoknaughty 
I always stacked the tracks up and down so I could visualize them better, but your way might make it easier to do the final export, given Sonar's range export idiosyncrasies.

I really haven't found idiosyncrasies, just tons of options. I'd recommend saving export presets so you don't have to think about what to check and not check each time. Of course you also have to make sure everything is selected properly but presets are a real time-saver.

Personally, I think placing each song in it's own track would make things easier to manage.
 
Paul

Here is a tip that I gleaned from sitting in on a session with a top mastering engineer here in Melbourne.
 
What he did was lay all the tracks out sequentially on one track and we listened to all of them and then he chose one to master first.  The one he chose had everything going for it.  The biggest sound, the most instrumentation, the most going on... the lot.. There is usually one track out of a whole group that is like this.
 
Then he created a separate session and mastered that track.  Also he had commercial reference tracks going on as well the whole time.  He did not have to place the ref tracks into the session. We were using a Neve desk and they have lots of stereo two channel inputs than can be switched to very quickly.  But even so you can still import a ref track anyway and use it.  It is still a great idea to master against a fantastic sounding track. (similar of course)  It keeps you honest and stops you from straying away from a good sound which is easy to do.
 
So once this 'first big' track was mastered then he opened up the original session that had all the tracks in it. Then he pasted the mastered track many times sequentially on another track so no matter which track he was mastering he could always quickly listen to the mastered track which now we can call the reference track.  He used that to fine tune all the others tonally etc so they all matched up nice in the end.
 
Its OK to use a commercial reference track to master your first track.  But then after that the ultimate reference track then becomes the first mastered track from the actual album you are mastering.  You will get the others sounding very much like it.

Paul G

Anderton

pharohoknaughty 
I always stacked the tracks up and down so I could visualize them better, but your way might make it easier to do the final export, given Sonar's range export idiosyncrasies.

I really haven't found idiosyncrasies, just tons of options. I'd recommend saving export presets so you don't have to think about what to check and not check each time. Of course you also have to make sure everything is selected properly but presets are a real time-saver.

Personally, I think placing each song in it's own track would make things easier to manage.
 
Paul

 
I agree each tune should be on a separate track. I think next time I will try to put each tune in a separate track, but with the tunes going across the time line, like a waterfall. So each tune will have a separate section of the time line.
 
That way you don't have to solo each track to hear it, just move the "now time".
 
By the way, by this stage in the game the tunes should be in pretty good shape. I only want to verify they are working well together sonically. The early part of mastering should be accomplished before this.
 
As far as the export, I am sure it is my own personal demon that so often causes all of the tracks to have the length of the longest event (when I stack all of the tracks being mastered). The trick is to highlight the CLIP that is the tune AND solo the track with the tune you want exported, so the time selection will only be the length of the soloed tune. 
 
But since I only do this every so often, I forget. Like I said it is my personal issue, although I notice that on the forum I am not the only one that had a similar problem through the years.
 
BTW, the advise TLW gave is really good. Anderton's advise is always very good also.
 
Another source that you might find helpful is the free mastering guide that is on the iZotope website. It is a PDF of how to master that explains things well. It uses the iZotope products as examples but you can learn the techniques and use the equivalent software if you want. This guide really helped me out way back in the days of Pro Audio 9, when I got serious about mastering. I was in a band that needed a CD but of course no one would pay for an expert. So I had to learn.
 
And, on a lark, I will quote a prior contributor from the forum in 2006. I saved this in a Word file because it works so well.  His name was Shea, but he quit contributing a long time ago. Unfortunately, he assumes you have Waves LinMB and L2. The part about the mastering bus is optional, but the use of the multi band and limiter is golden.
 
Here is what he wrote:
 
This is a mastering tip i got away back and i use it all the time.It renders great results all the time, especially for radio mastering. Now adays i feel that every body has to get every thing so loud and squashed that it loses all dynamics especially bottom end.I see you have waves. Right.

Create a master bus in sonar. This asumes that you have a nice ballenced mix and everything is rooted to that bus.


Place LinMB and L2 in the master chain — LinMB first, followed by L2. Load the "Adaptive Multi Electro Mastering" preset. Set your eq to taste, being very careful with the amount.
Under the "Master" section, you'll see control boxes with arrows. These controls globally affect all of the frequency bands. Grab the Threshold control and drag downwards. This lowers the thresholds across all frequency bands. When the animated DynamicLine begins to dance like a snake, you are beginning to apply compression. Stop when the DynamicLine is moving through about half of the total Range represented by the blue band.

Assuming all looks and sounds well, you can proceed to the L2. Grab the left Threshold slider, and drag it downward until you begin to see very slight activity on the attenuation meter. Leave the slider at that position. Adjust the Out Ceiling slider to a ceiling of -0.1 dB to extra-guard overshoots.

At this point, you should be hearing a very full mix, where most of the peak information is still intact.

Now proceed to making your final master, not by bouncing but by summing through your desk in realtime.
At this stage you should have a nice loud radio friendly mix.

Great thread!!  Hi Paul!!

This is a great thread...thanks for all of the useful information.

Jeff Evans
Here is a tip that I gleaned from sitting in on a session with a top mastering engineer here in Melbourne.
 
What he did was lay all the tracks out sequentially on one track and we listened to all of them and then he chose one to master first.  The one he chose had everything going for it.  The biggest sound, the most instrumentation, the most going on... the lot.. There is usually one track out of a whole group that is like this.
 
Then he created a separate session and mastered that track.  Also he had commercial reference tracks going on as well the whole time.  He did not have to place the ref tracks into the session. We were using a Neve desk and they have lots of stereo two channel inputs than can be switched to very quickly.  But even so you can still import a ref track anyway and use it.  It is still a great idea to master against a fantastic sounding track. (similar of course)  It keeps you honest and stops you from straying away from a good sound which is easy to do.
 
So once this 'first big' track was mastered then he opened up the original session that had all the tracks in it. Then he pasted the mastered track many times sequentially on another track so no matter which track he was mastering he could always quickly listen to the mastered track which now we can call the reference track.  He used that to fine tune all the others tonally etc so they all matched up nice in the end.
 
Its OK to use a commercial reference track to master your first track.  But then after that the ultimate reference track then becomes the first mastered track from the actual album you are mastering.  You will get the others sounding very much like it.

Great post.  Thanks.
 

harmony gardens
Great thread!!  Hi Paul!!

Hi Dale!  Great to hear from you.  PM me if you get a chance and we'll catch up.
 
Paul

harmony gardens
Great thread!!  Hi Paul!!

Long time no see, Dale.