Mastering tricks pls?...

[Danny Danzi]

For sure...Steelers will always be gods to me. I was around to see Franco, Bradshaw and Swann light it up man....Steel curtain....man, talk about vicious! Them playin Dallas was always a blast of a game. Staubach and Dorsett made it interesting.

Yeah man, those monitors rock. Put it this way Will, if it takes you more than one day to mix a tune and you do not feel the issue is due to improper tracking, ARC is going to fix you right up. You'll be amazed at what you hear. Honest man, I'd not even attempt to talk you into it if it weren't going to make a huge difference for you.

The key is setting it up using symmetrical mic placements though or it will not work properly. At least 18 placements though they say 13-15. I use it on my Adam A 7's as well as Yamaha NS 10's, a set of old Tascam speaker that could go in the package tray of a car and some Tannoy's and even Radio Shack Optimus speakers for comsumer type monitoring. Another thing that is really important since we're talking mastering a bit...it's not wise to master on the speakers you mixed on. The reason being...you've already pretty much maxed out what your abilities are or you wouldn't have rendered the audio, right?

So what would you even touch when you went to the mastering stage? This is where people fail horribly bro. It's very unwise because you can't make the right calls. You need different speakers for that, but some people just don't wanna believe it. As time goes on and we talk more, I'll get super in depth with you on some of this stuff man. I honestly don't want to come off like a know-it-all or anything man....but I have had some success in this field with credible situations. I can only share what has truly worked for me to the best of my ability. That said, I'm not totally stuck in my ways and am just as interested in learning from others. So it's all good really. But we'll sort you out with all this stuff man....I promise I'll help ya out with whatever you need. Thank YOU for the awesome conversation man. Talk soon.

[marymark]

Hey Dan, tnx so much man! owe u one!! tnx again1

[brandondrury]

I think the #1 Mastering Trick is that it's the kind of task where you don't really want to employ tricks. That's for tracking and mixing....where trickery is the name of the game.

Brandon

[Danny Danzi]

Totally agree with that 100%....however, every once in a while you have to pull a rabbit out of your butt and it sure does help to know a few of those tricks. LOL!

[frnkhustle]

I've let some great mastering engineers here my masters and I got very good responses from them. I never tell what I'm using so they won't be prejudice in there decision. What I mean is I've taken a two track from a customer of mine and let him do a A/B comparison of the song he sent out to be mastered and did a blind test and couldn't make a decision on which won was better. Now both had different charateristics but ended up choosing the one I did. Now you may think maybe he doesn't know good mastering when he hears it but he's had lots of song professionally mastered. The studio he uses is Studio B in Charolette NC check out the site to see that its legit. Tools used in my room are mutiband compressor, multiband limiter, stereo widening enhancer, hormonic enhancer, multiband expander and parametric eq also some good stereo compressors and reverbs.

[newkid]

Originally Posted by Danny Danzi

Totally agree with that 100%....however, every once in a while you have to pull a rabbit out of your butt and it sure does help to know a few of those tricks. LOL!

I have heard of fix it in the mix
never fix at mastering time


SISO

[newkid]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I think the #1 Mastering Trick is that it's the kind of task where you don't really want to employ tricks. That's for tracking and mixing....where trickery is the name of the game.

Brandon

+1


fix it in the mix

mastering makes all the pieces fit as a whole
not the place to fix problems

SISO

[Danny Danzi]

Originally Posted by newkid

I have heard of fix it in the mix
never fix at mastering time


SISO

Sometimes you have to fix it in the mastering stage unfortunately. Here's a scenario...

You record your stuff at a studio...once the session is done, the session files are usually deleted off the pc of the studio...some have back-ups, some dont...or may not have complete or current back ups. People are really lazy when it comes to this.

So, you got your mix from the studio, and they gave you stereo stem files of all the tracks for a safety net. You decide there are things about your mix that you don't like level wise....it's the ME's job to try and see if the project is salvageable....so realistically, he flies the stems in and attempts to re-level everything or just those parts that may need leveling. You sometimes don't have a choice if this is the only mix they have or if the studio doesn't have back-ups or the time due to other sessions to fix the stuff the right way. The only other choice is to decline the work.

Also, some guys decide AFTER their tunes are done, that they want sound effects flown in...most ME's will not do this, but I do if I have to. Sometimes you also have a mix that is good level wise, but the eq curve on the mix may suck horribly. In this case, you're a surgeon but as long as the levels are all there, you can usually save the mix. It will sound completely different than what was originally there, but as long as you improve/fix it and don't change for the sake of change, you're again fixing it at the mastering stage. But like I say, some guys just walk away if there's too much work to be done. We only have so much power really...then again, when you get someone begging you and you tell them it's gonna be time consuming and cost big bucks and they pay you anyway, you at least take a stab at it.

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by newkid

I have heard of fix it in the mix
never fix at mastering time


SISO

Sorry, but I do the best I can to "fix in the mix" but sometimes little things get past me.


I PAY the ME to catch those little things that I (as a human being who makes mistakes) happened to miss, especially on large projects with a short deadline.

It's called TEAMWORK in my book.

Yes, the mixing engineer should give the ME the best possible, complete, finished mix. It doesn't happen in the real world.

However, sometimes I forget a crossfade on a track which I didn't hear, but the ME did. ME can either work some magic to fix it on the spot (thus saving time and money) or if it can't be reasonably fixed, sent back for a remix (costing money and time). In either case, the customer gets a better product.

BTW, the more the ME does to help the final product, the more I pay (call it a tip)!

[TonyB]

Originally Posted by Danny Danzi

Sometimes you have to fix it in the mastering stage unfortunately. Here's a scenario...

You record your stuff at a studio...once the session is done, the session files are usually deleted off the pc of the studio...some have back-ups, some dont...or may not have complete or current back ups. People are really lazy when it comes to this.

So, you got your mix from the studio, and they gave you stereo stem files of all the tracks for a safety net. You decide there are things about your mix that you don't like level wise....it's the ME's job to try and see if the project is salvageable....so realistically, he flies the stems in and attempts to re-level everything or just those parts that may need leveling. You sometimes don't have a choice if this is the only mix they have or if the studio doesn't have back-ups or the time due to other sessions to fix the stuff the right way. The only other choice is to decline the work.

Also, some guys decide AFTER their tunes are done, that they want sound effects flown in...most ME's will not do this, but I do if I have to. Sometimes you also have a mix that is good level wise, but the eq curve on the mix may suck horribly. In this case, you're a surgeon but as long as the levels are all there, you can usually save the mix. It will sound completely different than what was originally there, but as long as you improve/fix it and don't change for the sake of change, you're again fixing it at the mastering stage. But like I say, some guys just walk away if there's too much work to be done. We only have so much power really...then again, when you get someone begging you and you tell them it's gonna be time consuming and cost big bucks and they pay you anyway, you at least take a stab at it.

Agree 100%. There has to be a working relationship between the producer, AE, and ME.

I pay the ME for an independent listen with an objective perspective. The ME will hear something that the AE didn't quite catch because the AE is so deep in the weeds that all the AE sees is SNAKE SHIT!