Hi everyone,
I'm learning to master, I'm an absolute beginner so could someone tell me in what order to put my modules. At the mo I have STW vintage EQ--> Optimaster-->PsyQ-->STW compressor soft +/- limiter-->Wav dest. I dither with the STW comp and use the de esser in SX. The real reason I ask is that everything sounds so reverby, even though I use minimal or short verbs..I must be doing something wrong somewhere.......
Hope you can help
weellll,a hint is found in the way a compressor works.a compressor makes the quiet sounds louder and the louder sounds quieter,so things that were mixed in the backround can often jump to the front if you're not careful.the problem could be in the mix or in the final processing,it's hard to say,keep at it!there is no absolute formula for mastering,it's all about what sounds good....
As a general rule of thumb, though, I'd put Optimaster (or another multiband compressor) as the last device in the chain as it's most transparent and only boosting the overall volume to the max. (Of course, Optimaster can be used to color the sound, but... )
On 2003-09-08 10:59, Richmo wrote:
......The real reason I ask is that everything sounds so reverby, even though I use minimal or short verbs..I must be doing something wrong somewhere.......
Hope you can help
Yep, compression will bring up reverb. Compensate for this in the mix and you'll be ok.
I kida like that effect tho.. makes things sound very saturated and makes the mix "over" crunched. Of course, it only works as an effect up to a certain point anyway.. but ya, drop it in the mix if it doesn't work for the tune. You can also try cutting out some of the highs on the reverb
Hey thanx to all of you for sharing your knowledge. May be you can help me on using expanders. Is there a definite place for this in mastering? I've read numerous articles saying an expander is a must, but I've been finding it difficult to use without ruining the mix. Is it better to use it when it is set to be certain fequencies i.e. a side chain?
May be someone could do a tutorial in the Pulsar study pages.
Planet Z forever
I know what an expander does and how it works but to be honest, I've never seen much need to use it during mastering. The only few times I've felt a need to apply expansion during mastering was on some old noisy analog stuff I was restoring. The expander is great for reducing low-level noise. That's typically how I use it. As long as you pay attention to your dynamics and the quality of your recordings up front, you shouldn't really need to use any expansion.
Anyone else care to comment?
Bottom line: try it and if you think it makes an improvement - then use it. Otherwise, leave it off. Trust your ears.
btw: there are plenty of threads and links scattered all over PlanetZ on this subject. Do a search. There are so many aspects to mastering it would be quite an undertaking to address them all. There are almost as many psychological aspects to mastering as there are purely technical. At the end of the day, it all boils down to "listening"! Are you a good listener? Please share anything you find on the subject. I'm always interested in other people's take on this.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: krizrox on 2003-09-10 05:21 ]</font>
Yes, you're probably right about all that. There is endless papers written on the subject, and this is what confused me about expanders. I like to not use it, whereas all the tutorials say it is an essential part of mastering.......
Like you say, your ears are the best judge.
Thanks Krizrox for your input.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Richmo on 2003-09-10 09:33 ]</font>
Well, I don't know what you're reading but an expander is an audio tool just like a compressor or equalizer. If you need it, use it. If you don't need it, don't use it. Get to understand the expander on it's own and once you realize what it can and can't do, you'll be better equipped to decide if and when it should be applied during mastering. Try it out on some old analog material. Record some stuff from the radio and run it through the expander to recover some of the lost dynamics.
Think of the expander as an anti-compressor. If you're dealing with audio material that is lacking dynamics (or if you want to reduce low-level noise) then the expander is the right tool for the job. My advice is not to use it on a naturally good-sounding mix but let your ears be the final judge.
btw: there are times when I'm mastering material where I turn the compressor off. That's right! You read right. I turn the multi-band compressor completely off. When might I do this? Well, I do a lot of karaoke recording here in my studio. Karaoke clients will come in to record a CD and I rarely use compression on the final mix. Why should I? The vocals are already being compressed through my outboard preamps. The karaoke music has already been mastered so why master it again? The only tool I typically use is the normalizer (and maybe a little bit of limiting on the vocals). I'm sure there might be many typical scenarios like this (not just karaoke but many DJ mixes). Have fun learning! And remember to share ideas!
I think of the Expander as more of a tracking stage tool.
I use it when recording guitars to cut out the constant pickup noise when the instrument isn't being played.
this maybe typical, but I've recently started to experiment with an eq/overdrive combo at the end of the mastering chain. I guess this isn't really a practical trick, but it does make for some good over saturated tracks.
Have the mix just as you want it, or in a "healthy" state, and then feed that into eq/overdrive. Then, adjust the eq/overdrive combo so that you're overdriving only the bands that you want to affect. You can especially overdrive the higher frequencies cuz they don't cause too much of that "rattle" you get at low frequencies. In contrast, keep the low frequencies ultra low so that it does'nt rattle up the rest of the sounds.
The end results should be interesting. I'm was trying to simulate an old TV set, but in the process I found that I could do all sorts of stuff from analog tape style saturation to simple polishing of the high end on a standard mix.(which could be called a brute force "enhancer" effect) You can also do a "warmth" treatment and just saturate the lows a bit. Anyhow, I think there's much more to be explored.
The point is, you can control how different bands are effected by the overdrive, so that the overdrive reacts non-linearly. Lots of amp sims do this. Now you can do this to the entire mix. Some might say this will KILL the mix... I think it's a good way to colorize your sound. Especially when the "texture" of the sound is at question.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-09-11 07:39 ]</font>
Well, after reading some of your comments everything is sounding much better. It seems hard to judge exactly the right amount of reverb on the mix, but a bit of trial and error and all is well. I tried the expander on the lo frequencies only, of an orchestral mix and hey, all the wooliness went out of the room. So now I'm beginning to control my mixes and masters better.
And great to hear some personal tips and tricks.
Again, lotsa thanx, you're all very helpful.
