..:: TAREKITH'S GUIDE TO MASTERING ::..

[Tarekith]

One question I have though, Why dont you like using a multiband comp in conjunction or as part of the limiting process? Personally I've found that a touch of multiband before the limiter gives me a more transparent comp/limiting result...just wondering what your thinking is with regards to that.

Well, I think that people just use it too much to be honest, it's one of those tools that soooo easy to overdo if you're not sure of what you're doing, or if you can't hear something accurately enough to judge what you are doing. Like I mentioned, it's a tool that was created to give mastering engineers more flexibility when working with a stereo mixdown, when they couldn't go back and actually fix the mixdown or the offending part itself.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've needed to use multiband compression out of the 400+ tunes I've done. Almost always it was just to make the low end a tad more solid, when EQ alone wasn't enough. Had I had the option, I would have just gone back and EQ'd and compressed the bassline or kick seperately, far easier and it sounds far better too.

Certainly the stuff I wrote is just my opinion though, I have no doubt that people disagree with me. I think too much emphasis is put on reducing the dynamic range of music these days, to make things seem more 'in your face'. It's tiring to your ears, and it's getting way out of hand, and I think we need to realize how important dynamics can be to crafting a good sounding song.

It's perfectly possible to make a really powerful and full sounding song without squashing it every way possible, it just takes practice, and ear training if you will, to make sure all the parts are sorted prior to finishing the mixdown. My own opinion is that if you need multiband comp to get a full sounding mix, you just didn't balance the instruments right during the mixdown. But, that's just me, there's no way I can argue with someone who feels it sounds right to them.

If anything I hope people just learn that when it comes to any tool that limits the dynamic range of your music, it's better to err on the side of caution and under-use it, versus over-use.

[pixelbox]

Shit hot article Tarekith! This should totally be a big, fat, STICKY!

So...how do you train your ear? I know you said it takes time and practice, and I do know that before I've thought that things were sounding good in my little room, but playing it on a different system made it sound not so good, but there have been times where I thought what I did sounded good, and other (more experienced people) noticed flaws in the mix or they even thought it sounded crappy.

How do you listen in order to train your ear to what is "right"? Just listen to whatever mix you think sounds good?

[Taiis]

Thank you so much for this, I had a tendency to fix everything in the mastering thingy... this makes perfect sense. I can't wait to get in front of live...

[Tarekith]

So...how do you train your ear? I know you said it takes time and practice, and I do know that before I've thought that things were sounding good in my little room, but playing it on a different system made it sound not so good, but there have been times where I thought what I did sounded good, and other (more experienced people) noticed flaws in the mix or they even thought it sounded crappy.

How do you listen in order to train your ear to what is "right"? Just listen to whatever mix you think sounds good?

Whew, that's a tough question. Part of me wants to just say it's something you acquire over time, but there's probably more to it. I think you need to really work on listening not just to a song's emotional message, but to how songs "sound" in many places. You have to learn to distance yourself from the meaning behind the song, and focus solely on the production aspects:

- Does it sound balanced everywhere I hear it? Do you notice that sometimes the cymbals are too loud, or the bassline disappears depending on where you're listening? If you walk aroudn your studio while listening do you hear how certain parts of the room affect what you hear?

- Does it sound loud everywhere, can I hear that there are parts that are quieter in the background, or is everything all up front?

- Does it sound good in headphones as well as on speakers? If not, what parts sound off, and think about how you can fix them.

- Does the song sound good at all volume levels? I usually listen to my music very quietly when I write, mix and master, only occasionally turning it up just for fun. If you can make the song sound exciting even when quiet, you cna bet it'll sound even better when it's loud. Learning to listen at quieter volumes really forces you to pay attention to what you hear as well, you get good at picking out details.

- There's a lot of ear training books and DVD's out there that will help you to identify notes by how they sound. While maybe not the most exciting thing to listen to, it does help to teach you to recognize problematic frequencies in a mixdown too, purely as a side effect.

- You need to learn what fequencies your sounds are sitting in, so that if you do hear a problem like muddy bass, or harsh highs, you know where they are, and how to treat them. Listening to a song you know well while watching a Spectrum analyzer can help a lot. Try and see if you can recgonize which sounds are located at which frequencies this way. You don't want to rely on the analyzer all the time, but it's a great place to start learning this.

- Learn to try and pin point where things are in the mix, can you point to where the lead is coming from, is the bassline in stereo or mono, ae the pads soakedin reverb or long delays to give them depth, did they pan the high hats from the audience or the drummer's perspective?

Just a few ideas. Overall it's almost a curse too, you find yourself critiquing the sound of the song, instead of listening to the message behind it. There's times I'll hear a great song and all I can think is "damn they really killed the impact of the chorus" or "why did they use so much reverb, everything is out of focus and hard to visualize".

[stjohn]

That's a mixing tip, not a mastering one, you learn well!

i suppose its somewhere in between.... just be careful to anyone adding Reverb to the final premaster, which is often done to a number of tracks on an album or something to make them sound cohesive... you may want to remono this region if you are adding a stereo Reverb!!

[pixelbox]

Awesome. Exactly the answer I was looking for.

- You need to learn what fequencies your sounds are sitting in, so that if you do hear a problem like muddy bass, or harsh highs, you know where they are, and how to treat them. Listening to a song you know well while watching a Spectrum analyzer can help a lot. Try and see if you can recgonize which sounds are located at which frequencies this way. You don't want to rely on the analyzer all the time, but it's a great place to start learning this.

Do you recommend any of these? http://www.mymusictools.com/download/spectrum-analyzer/

[Tarekith]

Not familiar with most of those sorry, but Voxengo stuff is always well done.

[laird]

Excellent article!

You touched on this concept multiple times, but for me its an important one:
don't be afraid to turn the volume down.

Takakeith mentions several less-than-ideal ways of making your kick drum (for instance) loud enough. EQ boost. COmpressors on individual tracks. Multiband compressor on the master track. I did that all for years, its much easier to just turn the volume of everything else down-- and with VSTis and Live's 32-bit mixing, you aren't losing resolution nor signal/noise.

Also, let me add this . Tarakeith mentions a number of crutches/techniques to avoid.

I say: No, do it all. Do it wrong. Bad mixing/mastering are like that akward goth phase you went through in high school. You gotta do it and get over it.
Run your songs through a brickwall limiter until they sound as good/loud as the CDs you own. One week later, does the loud one really sound better (use the volume knob on your stereo to even their volume out)? Sometimes you gotta do it wrong, over and over again, until it sounds wrong. I'll bet you $10 there's more than one horrible mix that Tarakeith's done in his past, and we wont get to where he is by skipping those steps.

Use all the quick fixes. Just be sure to save an "unfixed" version for later.

[Jonny B]

great read.

bump!

[Daim]

very nice

[friend_kami]

i was told once that you should never (as a general rule of thumb) boost a signal with your eq, you should shave off the other bands instead, leaving the one you want to boost at 0 gain.

i tend to disagree on that, it all depends on what you are looking for with your desired "boost".

why am i talking about this then? well, i thought that you could perhaps add some info on technical eqing, i never thought about that so much but after reading an article about eqing somewhere (lost the link), i started to incorporate this into all my eq tests/finishes/whatever, just for learning how it works (or, sounds heh), and why i should use it, aswell as when it should be used.

for example, if your mix is too muddy you could either sptially separate your sounds, or you could find the exact frequency that makes your X muddy.

grab your eq8 for example, and add another node, pull it straight down to as low gain as possible with the highest q possible (eq8 isnt ideal for this, since the q isnt narrow enough sometimes heh), then scroll through the frequencies to find what needs to be cut.

now, there are charts that lists frequencies that are typically problematic and can dull your mix, mud it or in some cases make it to much of a headache to listen to, cant find those though. figured you might know more about this, seeing your resumé you posted at the start of this topic.

im not sure the correct term is called technical eqing though, but thats what they called it anyways.

this is anyways a pretty failsafe way to find things that evens out certain tracks, without changing much at all of the original signal

[laird]

http://www.neurofunk.co.uk/images//frequency_ranges.pdf

a useful guide, not the bible.

its usually easier to use a notch EQ to boost, locate a "bad" range, then cut that range, than it is to hear sweeping EQ cuts.

[Tarekith]

I've had a few people ask me about doing an eq article, so I imagine I'll tackle that shortly. Thanks everyone for reading and posting your comments!

[Jonny B]

I've had a few people ask me about doing an eq article, so I imagine I'll tackle that shortly. Thanks everyone for reading and posting your comments!

EQ article, EQ article

[Khazul]

great read sir! Quite enjoyable.

Here's a question for you, and I know it's very subjective... but you thoughts on a plugin like Ozone? I like the fact that it has a Limiter, Multi-pressor (which I dont necessarily intend to use, but is a nice thing to have available), EQ, AND dithering, at a very modest price. Does the "you get what you pay for" message apply here?

I keep going between wanting to get Ozone and a UAD card. Big difference in price, I know. But I'd be willing to pay for quality

If you can go for the UAD card - then do so - Im with Tarekith on this - its one of my favourite software limiters, in fact the whole 'precision mastering suite' is pretty good for gentle application. The limiter can be pushed quite hard - easy to get a clean 6dB of peak reduction/overall gain increase if you need it, but if you are going for higher reduction, then also decrease the peak level a little more - say down to -0.3dBfs as hard limiting close to digital full scale and then applying mp3 encoidng can cause heavy distortion on some playback devices.