Thanks Danny. Could you explain more about the dc offset and what you are doing there?

Brconflict, happy upcoming birthday and thanks for your posts too.

cparmerlee

dcumpian
Precision EQ
Maxbass or RenBass
Aphex Aural Exciter
Linear Phase Multiband Compressor.
Linear Phase EQ.

Do you find that you use these particular tools only at the mastering stage, or do you use some of them earlier during mixing as well?  I'm thinking in particular that the bass and HF enhancers could go on individual tracks.
 

Absolutely! While I generally don't use the Linear Phase tools on individual tracks, I do use 2 and 3 on tracks that need them.
 
Regards,
Dan

With respect to Danny's comments, my process is for my stuff. I don't mix or "master" anyone else's work. My process fits my recordings. He is right that there is a lot more to it than we usually talk about.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

Great Post Danny some excellent stuff there. So good in fact I have copied and pasted that into my sound engineering book to be. (Along with every post I have made too!) Sorry dude I own that now! LOL Danny has really helped me with my mastering too.
 
I do a lot of pre mastering prep in the editor. You can achieve about 20 to 30% of your mastering there before you even start mastering. After taming rogue peaks and things I can usually lift the rms level of the pre master 2 or 3 dB before mastering begins.
 
The better the mix the less the mix changes under mastered conditions, I am totally with Danny on that one. If you are only working with great mixes often then this is not an issue for you as a mastering engineer. I send mixes back that change too much and they are usually quite wrong somewhere. My own mixes never change under mastered conditions. It is nice to be able to mix with mastering in mind. That is the advantage of mastering your own mixes. You need the time off in between though.
 
Mastering stems is more common and I quite like it. I can usually do a better mix with the stems than the mix that comes in with the stems. I still master more two track material though by far.
 
I did sit in with a top Melbourne mastering guy once and while I did learn about the EQ and compression stuff I got a few other things out of the session I did not expect. First he used a lot of great reference material and he was switching to it quite regularly. All the levels have to be perfectly matched to make this work properly. It takes the speakers and the acoustics of the mastering environment out of the picture to some degree. (Quite a lot in most cases, anything that can push speakers and acoustics back a bit is good in my opinion) If you know how to use quality reference material you can master anywhere.
 
Also when doing the album he picked the biggest and best track and mastered it first and then used it as a reference in conjunction with all the other tracks on the album. This really helps setting the EQ for the other tracks using your first mastered track to compare them all to. This helps bring all the tracks together a bit more making the whole thing more coherent. I need VU's at least to get the level between tracks perfect. Ears are a good start but VU's can make it even better. VU's dance in a certain way too when the compression in your mastering is spot on. They definitely dance a certain way on well mastered commercial material.
 
The bass end is the thing that has taken me some time to get right. You have to do this. Everything else almost revolves around it. Too much bottom end ruins the rest of the spectrum and you will never get the rest of it sounding right. Once the bass end is sounding great everything else seem to fall into place a bit easier.
 
 

Jeff Evans
 
The bass end is the thing that has taken me some time to get right. You have to do this. Everything else almost revolves around it. Too much bottom end ruins the rest of the spectrum and you will never get the rest of it sounding right. Once the bass end is sounding great everything else seem to fall into place a bit easier.
 

Yeah, the kick is by far the most challenging for me. I'm usually asked to make a Master loud as hell, but the two things I have to try and keep punchy are the kick and snare, meanwhile, letting the cymbals sound as if they are not affected by the punch. It's a fight in some cases, but when it's done, more requests come in. I don't get why people insist, but they do.
 
EDIT: To get the kick and bass to glue together. That's the big challenge, meanwhile retaining as much punch as the original had. We typically lose some punch for volume, but no more than say, the Foo Fighter's latest album.

Dumb software.

Part of the disconnect here is the difference in giving a simple and direct basic answer versus explaining the complex details handled by a professional mastering engineer.
 
I am a decent engineer, but my function in life is writing songs and I will often call in someone else to remix my work; and I do not attempt what a mastering engineer does.  I don't have a fraction of the technical expertise CJ, Danny, or some others here have.
 
Whether that is required to produce an enjoyable and marketable product is something we could debate endlessly, and it is in some ways similar to comparing the $250MM blockbuster motion pictures to those surprise hits that cost $800,000 and packed the theaters..

konradh
Whether that is required to produce an enjoyable and marketable product is something we could debate endlessly, and it is in some ways similar to comparing the $250MM blockbuster motion pictures to those surprise hits that cost $800,000 and packed the theaters..

That's an interesting analogy.  I'm not sure this thread was really about the career of professional mastering engineer versus DIY-ers trying to achieve a commercially competitive sound in the basement.  But it is all good information to know.  I surmise from the discussion that the job of professional mastering can roughly be divided into two parts (*): defect correction, and sound "contouring/maximizing".  Danny made a strong argument for the profession with regard to defect correction.  The other part, I think, might map very well to your analogy.  I mean, once one person made a hit with Auto-Tune, everybody had to do that.  I realize auto-tune wouldn't come at the mastering stage, but my point is that there are fashions in the sound people want to hear, and maybe that drives some MEs the same way picture studios are driven to the tried-and-true $300M action thriller.
 
Speaking of defect elimination, does anybody have a tool that can get rid of cicadas?    This year hasn't been bad, but last year, recording outdoor concerts in the evening was futile.
 
====
 
* The world consists of two kinds of people: Those who insist on dividing everything into two sets and those who don't.  Count me as a bifurcationist.

Konrad. Well-timed.