Hi Beeps,
Cool, thanks for allowing me to post this. I wrote it up the other day, read it a few times and tightened it up a bit. It's long as usual, but hopefully you can really get something out of this. Was going to pm it to you, but felt a few others may get something from it as well. Before I go on, I didn't mean to sound like I was discrediting anyone that has posted before me with my opinions or what I feel to be factual. I just sort of found it odd that no one had mentioned the things *I* personally thought were important here as well as things that were blatantly obvious to me. Then again....we all know about the subjective part of this field. Anyway, I hope this is useful. :)
A little tough love here, but you'll love me back for this when you've read everything. You know I'd never say anything to hurt you and am always here for you. But let's nail this once and for all. Forget mastering right now brother and either focus on trying to get monitors that better represent what you're recording/hearing or take a step back to a year ago.
The old mix (in my opinion) obliterates the new one. The reason being? The new one is loaded with harsh highs. You totally stripped out the mids, so it lacks body and thickness. You totally stripped out the lows, so you have no bass punch on my end. This tells me your ears or listening environment has changed or your monitors or whatever you're listening on needs to be tuned or replaced. I sincerely believe you are lacking in 2 important areas.
1. I know you've been reading a lot and checking out videos. You may need to be a bit more selective in what you consider "helpful". Try not to always read into the hype people on forums attempt to feed you. Not just this forum, ANY forum...even if it's presented by a supposedly credible engineer. When they do post something, make sure you listen to their mixes and like what you hear before you take any advice they share. For example, don't use a multi-band or any other effect "just because" or because "so and so said you should". Every effect we use in every situation has a cause, an effect and most importantly, a reason. If you are not using the multi-band correctly or are putting it on because someone said you should, or are using a preset or just experimenting, you can easily blow it coming out of the gate. Not every piece needs the same effects in a chain at all times and trust me when I tell you, not everything needs a MBL nor do we need reverb on the master or in the mastering stage.
2. I don't think mastering is your problem unless your final mix of this song is drastically different from your master. The mix needs to be right before you worry about mastering. This is the biggest problem I see with people in this field. They think if they know how to master better that they will suddenly push the black clouds away. One of the big problems I see is the majority of home recordists do NOT understand that their mix needs so much work, it shouldn't even be considered as a mastering candidate yet. This is where people need the most help. Mastering will not help a soul if the mix is jacked. It's like, we can teach people how to master till we're blue in the face. That still won't fix their broken mix. The more stuff people put out via video that others can just take and learn from, the more corrupt and misled some people get. Like, there needs to be a rule that states a person can't download a mastering video until they can post a mix that sounds good enough to allow them to learn how to master. LOL!!!
It's like...these companies sell all these mastering suites, limiters and things that supposedly help mixes/masters. They don't help at all unless you really know what you're doing and the mix has to be right. Slapping a limiter or MBL or some rack full of mastering plugs isn't going to improve a thing if the mix is in bad shape. We do nothing to educate the masses by simply exploiting the art of mastering when the mixes of today sound like muddy compressed @ss before they've even been mastered! Seriously, as a teacher myself, we need to teach people to crawl before they run. Again, that is not said to knock anyone that decides to make a video that will help thousands of people. My point is, there are people that shouldn't be experimenting in certain areas YET and this is why we hear so many bad productions. It's a catch 22...you may teach 500 people that ARE ready for mastering while you may corrupt another 500 that shouldn't be at this step yet, understand? We don't fix the masses if we don't...well, fix the masses CORRECTLY, which is my whole point.
Just to further ram the point home for a second. I know guitarist Greg Howe and his singer Meghan Krauss. I sent them a test mp3 of a part of their song Evergreen off their new album with me singing/playing all the instruments just to make them laugh. Meghan is insane...best female rock singer I've heard in years! But anyway, I sent them this little clip. It's not mastered. For not being mastered, it doesn't sound too bad considering I did this on a stock Dell using cheapo gear and nothing remotely close to what I use in my studio. How much mastering would I do to this? Not much....if anything, the mix needs more work before it would be considered a mastering candidate in MY eyes...errr ears...but the thing took me 30 minutes, so I didn't expect much. It's just for fun, but didn't turn out too bad. If I DID master it as is, I'd add a little low end so that the kick drum and bass guitar would reach down a little deeper into the 50-55 Hz range and I may only implement a sub harm of that using a tight Q. OR, I may decide to push the 130 range and change my game plan so that it's less subby and more rounded. I could do all that in the mix stage really and then have less to do at the mastering stage. But the cool thing about this little clip in my opinion is, it's fairly neutral and leaves you room to sculpt it any way you want. Being "neutral" is what we want before we master something imho.
https://dl.dropboxusercon...9348/EvergreenTest.mp3(The real song with Meghan and Greg is here...whew, what a great tune
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2HmV2lR9KM )
More stuff for your head.....I decline work on a weekly basis due to people sending me mixes that are not ready for the mastering stage. Yours *might* have been one of those I passed on if you would have sent it to me to be mastered. Not because you suck, (you're light years ahead of suck) but because the mix itself would benefit more from fixing it AT the mix stage than having it mastered and me taking your money. I'd rather you have the best mix possible before we master it...especially if I couldn't make a huge difference. So I'd decline to master you and would tell you to fix the mix or tell you HOW to fix the mix and send me another when you're ready. But as it stands right now, you need to find out why this mix today is so much different/lacking (at least to me it is) than the one a year ago. It's either the monitors, lack of tuning them or your ears and you needing to be taught what to listen for. This is another thing I need to stress that people just don't get...
When you mix and listen to a song 3000 times...when you hit that export button, you are done. If you weren't done, you wouldn't have pressed the export button. Now, you have the stereo 2-track mix and you are about to master it. Where do you start? Do you even know what to listen for on the same set of monitors, on the same song that you have heard 3000 times? See where I'm going with this? At this point, most people don't know how much mastering they need or don't need. And, most of the issues you THINK can be remedied during mastering...are the furthest from the truth. All your issues I hear in both of your mixes would be better off fixed in the mix stage with the mastering being a little polish.
In your mix of a year ago, you have some body in the instrumentation with the only blatant issues being the highs on the cymbals being way to abrasive, your drum levels needing work and your snare needing more punch and less high end. Some good compression on the kit would work nice as well. The guitars are a bit sharp/high endy, but they cut through the mix in a good way. I can take this tone and accept it even though it's a bit high endy...but it's not to the point of it hurting my ears. A light low-pass would take the fizz right out of it. Control the cymbal sssssssss and make the drums more clear and level adjusted and this mix from a year ago improves ten-fold just as it is with 0 mastering at all.
The new mix is totally jacked in the high end area on everything to where I can barely listen to it without putting my fingers in my ears. Maybe high passed too much? The high end is just way out of control on this. That said, the drum levels seem to be a bit more precise/consistent but the high end, lack of lows and excessive abrasiveness are just too much to even try to figure out what is going on here. Yeah I too hear the pumping. Proof you need a reason to use a multi and need to know how to use it.
What really makes this strange is...you played like a lunatic (meant in a good way) yet because of this last mix, it's very hard to enjoy it. So though the playing and performance is quite good (in my opinion) you have proven to those who always chime in here talking about "your performance is everything in a mix" that they are out of their tree's like I have been saying for 10 freaking years. This is a good performance in my opinion...and the mix ruined the performance to where it messes with the enjoyment factor of the listener. Any other good musicians with a good performance will sound the exact same way if they came up with this mix and eq curve.
So what do we do? We have to go back in time and see why you pressed the export button on the first mix a year ago and why we have what we have today. Some questions for you.
What do you hear today when you listen to the 1 year mix verses what you hear on the new one? Meaning, why do you think the new one sounds better if that is indeed how you feel?
Can you now hear what I hear since I've pointed it out to you and does it change your opinion of the new mix?
Can you understand why the new mix is not to my liking? The old one needs work too, but in my opinion it is further along than the new one by leaps and bounds.
Sometimes less is more. Honest when I tell you that. The more processing we do, the more we sometimes miss our mark. I'm not trying to deter you (or anyone else) from mastering. What I AM trying to say is, you have to know when a mix can be the issue so that you don't blame or waste the time on mastering. Especially when mastering may not be the culprit. Now, there is a good chance re-mastering your final mix of this new version may turn out better. But there are things that *I* personally would do in the mix before this would even materialize into a mastering candidate.
First, your drums need to have an identity. Listen to the music you like. When that drum kit hits, every instrument in the kit is heard at all times. A snare or kick doesn't disappear in the mix at random. The reason being....they remove frequencies that aren't needed and they compress the kick and snare so that it is always audible and remains in the mix. If you are not splitting your drum tracks up to individuals where you can process them, this is a necessity and something you need to always do in my opinion. If you ARE doing this, you need to learn how drums should be processed as well as how compression can be used as an effect for transients, as well as it keeping things in check sort of like a prison guard enforcing the "do not step over this line" law. Sometimes you need both, other times just one form.
That said, sample drum processing differs from REAL drum kit processing. So if you are reading about the processing that goes on with real drums, it can be slightly misleading. Though the way you'd process a real kit as opposed to a sampled kit would be similar, the human feel factor and execution determines how the drums will be processed. On a sampled kit we may want to use a compressor so that it simulates a transient plug so the snare really lashes out. On a real snare with a dude that knows how to play it, he's going to crack that thing where it sounds like a shot-gun blast...so for him, you would use the compressor differently...to compress and condition, not to bring out transients....understand? The same with kick drums. Sampled hits (though incredible technology wise) just need to be processed differently or you literally make them stale, lifeless, over-compressed and downright fake and synthetic.
If I played my V-Drums kit verses something someone programmed using the same kit, you'd process the kits differently because one is programmed, the other has a human element even though it's still the same sampled kit. Stuff like this really can make a difference. Real bass as opposed to a sampled bass...again, huge factor here in how your outcome will be as well as how you would process the bass. When I use the SI Bass in Sonar, even though I get a killer tone out of it and think it's one of the best kept secrets in Sonar that should be more popular than it is lol....my real bass is processed way different because of my human element and my execution on the instrument. So learning how to deal with these in different situations can really make an incredible difference. Remember....sampled kits and instruments come out of the box fairly processed other than BFD 2 or 3. The more you process some of these things, the worse they sound. So be careful and remember less is more because someone did the work for you. Eq, lightly comp and go unless you are shooting for a specific, processed sound.
Your guitars are decent. I can't comment on another man's tone because that is just too subjective. I personally like a bit more mids in high gain tones with a bit of rasp so they cut through the mix. Yours seem to have very little low end in them (which is GOOD practice but you took out a bit too much imho) so to me they lack body and definition. However, the ones in the mix a year ago are more along the lines of what I prefer. This new one is just killing me with high end to where I can't tell if the mix went bad or the master went bad.
The key here in my opinion is your listening environment. I know most people don't have thousands to shell out for monitors etc. However, you have to either get lucky with some set of Logitech's or cheapo gear that just magically has the right sound that is accurate, or you have to get some good stuff that makes a valuable difference.
These songs are so drastically different in tonality, I'm a bit surprised at how different they are. I say this because they are so different, it almost sounds as though you may have lost sight of what good tones and frequencies are. Some of it due to your monitoring, the rest due to reading/experimenting too much without really having the right knowledge perhaps? Something made you suck the life out of these tracks and replace it with harsh high end. We need to find out what it was and why that sounds good to your ears now.
The key (besides a good monitor environment) is to know how and what to listen for. Once you can do that, all those black clouds that make this so frustratingly challenging, go away. Trust me when I tell you. I'd be willing to bet you are actually a good engineer. But because you may not know what to listen for or have a good monitor representation to listen on, it's totally messing up your experience in this field. I sure can't use those Sennheiser's bro. Too much low end for me, so I would do the same as you...strip it out.
So in closing, if I were you, I'd forget about mastering right now and concentrate on mixing, your listening environment, identifying what justifies a good sound/bad sound and knowing how and when to process with certain tools. Having this knowledge alone will blow away any mastering you could learn in your particular situation. Mastering should just about NEVER sound completely different from the mix you exported out of Sonar that you considered a mastering candidate.
The only times mastered versions sound drastically different from a mix:
1. The client messed up the mix so bad, the ME performed surgery.
2. The client messed up the mix and did not have the work files to remix, so the ME is stuck with it and must work with it as is.
3. A mix engineer through the advice of a producer, left the mix neutral so that it could be molded further at the mastering stage by the producer and the ME.
4. You're experimenting and just want to see how much you can compress for loudness/change/improve/ruin/your mix.
Other than the above, a mastered song should not need surgery to where it no longer sounds like that mix that made you press the export button. I'd be a raging lunatic if I sent a mix to be mastered and it came back sounding completely different than what I sent. That's not how it's supposed to work.
So try to concentrate on the following and see if it makes a difference for you. I should have put these in a specific order, but they are all equally important and some just may not be feasible right now. But work on this list:
A. Tracking: Don't track it if you don't love/believe in the sound from the beginning. The more you do this stuff, the more you learn when a sound will work and when it will be something you mess with for hours that never works that wastes your time.
B. Identify, identify, identify! Tones/frequencies and when/what/how to listen for things. If you cannot do any of these things correctly because of your monitor situation, you will NEVER be able to unless you fix your listening environment. I can't stress how important this is.
C. Room tuning, ARC, new monitors, sub, whatever you need...try your best not to procrastinate getting these things. With each one you implement, another black cloud leaves, I promise you.
D. Judge the advice you get from others by the material you have heard from them at all times. I don't give a rats @ss who tells you this that this that or this....if their material sounds terrible, they are not someone you want to model off of. If by chance you or anyone else feels that way about me, please disregard everything you've read. Seriously, that's not said sarcastically...if you do not like how I mix, do not listen to me. Listen to the person that has posted material that you admire sonically before you just listen to someone that can share text that talks a good ballgame. Would you take LEAD guitar lessons from Neil Young? Me neither. ;)
E. When you read about something, if it doesn't give you examples on how it is used, you have learned nothing. Any teacher that cannot give you examples in actual audio or video that literally sound good....is not a teacher you need to listen to. Live and learn by example or search until you find the examples with the correct teaching.
So anyway, I really hope you find some of this helpful Beeps. I think the world of you or I wouldn't have put the time into this. You put the time in too, it's only fair you get a serious and in depth critique from me. Not to mention, you've helped me quite a bit in the past so I owed ya one. :) If If you have any questions, feel free to ask man. :)
-Danny