Yeah peaks can kill the outcome of a master for sure. Here's what they are most times..

Vocals, snare drums, kicks, toms, bass, certain chords on electric guitars.

How to fix them:

On vocals, it's usually the eq's we use and the lack of compression. Sometimes we need more compression than we think we do, and your attack time can be crucial depending on your delivery. Some guys use more threshold than they need when sometimes all they need to do is decrease attack time/release and maybe increase a ratio. 

On kicks, snares and toms, it's mostly eq's. A kick with a lot of low end is gonna peak up. You either curb the low end or compress it a bit. Same with snares...we want them to pop/crack and remain dynamic, but the compressor you choose here is important or the snare can be all over the place. With toms...I really don't like to compress them much because of how dynamic they are. When I do compress them, I usually automate. Watch for low floor toms...some guys put enough low end into them to make them sound like kick drums and you don't want that. It's a good rule of thumb to run your drums into a bus with a light compression on them so that it keeps the kit tight as an entity. This further controls peaks on the entire kit.

For the bass, most times it's the pop/slap type stuff that may get us, or a guy using a pick that is banging the heck out of it. In this situation, you're going to need more compression with a shorter attack time IF his pick is really making things stick out. You'll also need to watch for 5 string basses with a low B because that low B is always going to leap out a bit more than the others. A Multi-band limiter can really help here IF you absolutely have to. I try to stay away from them though unless it's a necessity.

Electric guitars when played in certain areas can really ramp up. If you use high gain sounds, you can really notice this as the distortion will literally make the guitar levels on your meter change. For example, chug an E chord down the bottom of the neck and watch your meters. Then chug an A chord and look at the meter. Pretty big difference. G#, A Bb and B will usually get you more meter level than all of the others. Don't forget to high pass your electric guitars. Remember, we don't need anything below 80 Hz in a guitar tone. Sonitus is an awesome tool for just high passing and low passing if you use that eq for nothing else. Anything below a Q of 1.6 will start to remove low end. Anything above 1.6 will raise lows. Most dirty guitar usually need to be high passed from 120 Hz on down. I've had to go as high as 150-200Hz at times. It all depends what works best as well as how bad off the tone is. This is another problem with guys that create these monster guitar tones "all alone". They sound great by themselves, hideous in a mix.

Also, in certain clean sounds...if you don't compress the right way, you can easily have a high note leap out at you. Don't be afraid to compress these things a little more than normal. As long as you don't lose dynamics or hear any pumping or breathing, you're ok. Acoustic guitars...same thing. However, the key with this animal is...it's all in how the player executes. If he bangs on it, you'll need more compression which of course could affect the expressiveness. It's best when you have a guy that is focused on how he executes his playing. This way it remains dynamic at all times.

If you pay a bit more attention to the above instruments and treat them differently, you'll notice you have way less peaks going on. You can even use a little compression glue on your master bus if you feel the need. Just don't go nuts if you'll be sending your stuff out to be mastered. However, if you do what I said on all the other instruments, you'll notice a drastic improvement in those peaks and may not need any 2 bus glue at all. I rarely use any over here other than the UAD Fatso Jr once in a while. But I'm talking glue...not cement. LOL!

As for final levels, everyone has different opinions on the final export numbers for mixes and masters. It depends what school you come from and what works best with the material you're dealing with IMHO. 

For final mixes: I like to see a final peak on my master bus at -3dB. For some reason, I've always done it like that. Then I read Bob Katz book and saw he recommended it too...so I've always stuck with it. 

In the mastering stage: I still try to do all my work at -3dB and most times will allow things to creep up to about -2.5dB while using a very light limiter just in case but I try to keep things at -3dB. When the REAL limiter finally gets put on, this is where the volume will change. I like to have my final masters hit at -0.1dB and usually adjust the limiter volume/threshold based on the genre of the material. Hope this helps a bit. :)

-Danny

bitflipper

Anyone care to give us neophytes a rundown on the process you use to master? Including the software involved? Not so much the hardware because I will never have access to the expensive products.  I'd like to to experiment with some of the given methods. 

Nobody's going to address Chas' request? Too big a subject, maybe? Or too many possible answers, perhaps. 


I'd give it a shot, but my process would likely be different from everyone else's and might not be good general advice for everybody. It also depends on the genre, instrumentation, and ultimate goal. What works for my classic rock might be totally inapplicable to your ambient punk dixieland.

Chas, a valuable tool for me is Har-bal. It is great for seeing what you hear (or don't hear). I usually will "bounce to track" a mix, drag it to my desktop (I don't use export) and load into HB to see what's going on. I will usually do something to it in HB, usually just smooth out a few peaks, drastic low and high pass. Save it, drag back into Sonar (or maybe wavelab) and take it from there. Taking it from there lately is, using Waves L3 to bring the volume up. I don't limit that much unless I really need to or the type of music "requests" it. I might try a multiband or regular compressor in front of the limiter but not much. Usually a ratio of like 1.5 and a hit of maybe 1or 2 db. 


As I said earlier, I think "mastering" is really all a part of mixing in this day and age. That said, most of my tracks have 1) the sonitus eq and 2) a waves compressor. That's about it. What I do with those depends on what I hear. Like has been said a lot here, using high and low pass and high and low shelves is great for cleaning up stuff. maybe 150hz down on guits and even voc sometimes. For bass, I don't care much for any of the highs. I usually dramatically get rid of all of it. Compressors are usually at a low ratio unless I really want to smack something. However, I usually find that if that is the case, I need to go in and work it out with gain envelopes (I do a lot of "riding" with clip envelopes) . So then, ration of 2.5 - 5 and gain reduction (via the threshhold) of usually no more than 3 or 4 db at the hardest hits. Usually more like just touching 3 db).


As far as effects go, I don't like reverb much except very lightly. If I hear it, I roll it back. I've been using waves verb and their impulse verb and the Sonar impulse verb mainly with just a preset I pick. I do like the waves delay on a buss and lately a teeny tiny touch of the waves doubler on a buss for whatever just to widen it up a bit.


I do feel that this is all a pretty homoginized way of doing things as it is nothing special or dramatic. I've never gotten good results when pushing anything too hard. To me, the best "mastering" is accomplished by a clean well played parts.
Keep in mind that most of what I do is to just get the song across.


Hope that helps.