Noob question

[mswilson2007]

Iight so here's the deal...I need like a specific set of start up directions for mixing and mastering. I'm a rapper, so i mostly deal with just vocals, and I have nooooo earthly idea what mixing and mastering entails. So if someone could just give me a start up on what to do. I can sit down and figure out my own style or whatever, so not to bite anyway. But I guess my point is I dont really know where to start. So if someone could help me out with that, it'd be muchly appreciated. I have, cool edit pro, fl studio, adobe audtion 3.0, and sony acid pro. So if either of those is easier to use, or easier to explain what to do...just let me know.
Again any input would be muchly appreciated.

[boo]

Try reading the Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski and
Mastering Audio by Bob Katz.

[higgsy789]

Originally Posted by mswilson2007

Iight so here's the deal...I need like a specific set of start up directions for mixing and mastering. I'm a rapper, so i mostly deal with just vocals, and I have nooooo earthly idea what mixing and mastering entails. So if someone could just give me a start up on what to do. I can sit down and figure out my own style or whatever, so not to bite anyway. But I guess my point is I dont really know where to start. So if someone could help me out with that, it'd be muchly appreciated. I have, cool edit pro, fl studio, adobe audtion 3.0, and sony acid pro. So if either of those is easier to use, or easier to explain what to do...just let me know.
Again any input would be muchly appreciated.

Bassically mixing is getting the balance between all the different parts of the song e.g. drums, synths, bass and vocals and making them sound all nice and shiny by using different means of processing like compression and equalisation.

Mastering is when you make it as loud as you possibly can without making it sound flat and lifeless this almost always (if not always) involves a limiter at the end and things like EQ, compression and exciters before.

[garageband]

One of the neglected points of mastering is to smooth the mix out spectrally as well as amplitudinally. Use a plug-in (hopefully one of your good EQs will have this built-in) that has a FFT display. This will especially help in the far ends of the spectrum where you are wasting energy. Failing that, I have had amazing success with the "jet blast" method of mastering. Turn is up as loud as you can stand in your good monitors and pull out peaks and areas that are shrieking/booming/honking at you. Lastly, do as much as you can EQ-wise before setting the limiters in motion. Do as much buss compression as you think you'll need in the middle of the jet blast process as this moves the frequency content around a bit. If everything falls apart, don't be afraid to start over in the mix arena and fix things that are out of hand.