Mastering in Sonar

tlw
Get the mix as near perfect as possible first, mastering is gentle final touches, not fixing major problems in balance between instruments/voice or eq. So mix into a gentle compressor on the master bus with a ratio of around 1-2 or maybe 1-4 first. Then export the stereo mixdown. Do the same with any other tracks you need to give a similar sound to (e.g. because they'll all end up on the same CD).

Wait a few days at least so the next stage can be approached with a head clear of what you were thinking when you did the mixing.

Set up a new project and import all tracks that need mastering, so each occupies a separate section of the time line. Listen to the lot. If anything strikes you as wrong go back to the mix and sort it out. Also load a reference track either one of your own that you are happy with or a commercial mix that has the kind of sound you're aiming for. Route it directly to a hardware output so it doesn't go through the master bus and use it as a comparator with your own work.

Insert onto the master bus a multiband compressor, eq, maybe a reverb with a very short tail set to almost entirely dry (can be a useful "glue"). Then a frequency analyser (Voxengo Span is good and free) and a gonomiometer to check phasing. Finally a transparent limiter to use for the final volume setting, limiter set to not allow anything louder than -0.3dB.

Set all track and bus meters to show RMS as well as peak values.

Proceed from there. There are as many approaches to mastering as there are people who do it. Reading up on Bob Katz's K system is a good idea, as is watching some of the more professional videos on Youtube (the Point Blank FFL! ones are useful). Finally, it helps if you have a decibel meter so you can set your monitors to a consistent level somewhere between 78 and 85dBA (our hearing system is easily fooled and tends to think a slight volume increase = better sounding even when it isn't).

Take lots of breaks to avoid hearing shifts and tired ears.

tlw


Set up a new project and import all tracks that need mastering, so each occupies a separate section of the time line.

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.

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.

harmony gardens
Great thread!!  Hi Paul!!