mastering questions (2 doubts)

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dylanf

Guest
1. hey guys sometimes a muddy final master is due to a bad mixdown right , meaning the muddiness becomes noticable obviously because of higher volumes ?


2. and also is it normal for stuff like white /pink/ noise to be real strong on your final master because compression brings whats on the low to sound on your face kind of ?

2 doubts i have , hope youre able to help professionally
 
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1. Mastering can't fix obvious errors with the mix. It can enhance the good somewhat, but yeah, if it's muddy...it'll probably still be after mastering.

2. No, of course not. If someone's compressing the master in such a way, then that someone doesn't know what he/she is doing.
 
Both of the things you mention seem to be flaws in mixing. You can "fix" those issues, but it would likely come at the expense of something else.

For number 2, I've never been able to compress something that much and have the music sounding decent. That example sounds like a mixing issue made worse through mastering.
 
dylanf said:
1. hey guys sometimes a muddy final master is due to a bad mixdown right , meaning the muddiness becomes noticable obviously because of higher volumes ?
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Yes, the gain processing causes a multiplication factor on the samples, which means that everything is zoomed in - loud samples become extra loud, not so loud samples much less so. It is for this reason you apply brick wall limiting - the more you limit compared to just gain, the less of a zoom in effect you will have. The gain knob is kind of an expander. The sooner and closer to the final mix amplitude you balance the mix, the better. You do not want to record quiet and then bring up the volume, it unbalances the sound sources. You want it recorded as closely to the final levels as possible. Having a sound source playing at full expression at low volume, is not the same as having that sound source being played softly up to the same volume. One is musical sounding, the other one is not. It is also great to be able to adjust the comp to non-comp balance on all each sound sources on two faders, so that you can adjust the dynamics to a level that makes it easy limit and gain. If you are using split tracks it can help to use certain gain ratios on certain bands.

dylanf said:
2. and also is it normal for stuff like white /pink/ noise to be real strong on your final master because compression brings whats on the low to sound on your face kind of ?
Click to expand...

It happens that noise becomes an issue that accumulates during mastering, it is for this reason the mastering engineer must send those mixes back to mixing and if the noise was created during recording the mixing engineer must send it back for recording. Some plugins for instance are incredibly noisy on certain configurations and sometimes that's even the default configuration.
 
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1. Agree with everything already said completely, but...the mix has to be pretty bad for an M.E. to be incapable of using the tools at his disposal to brighten a muddy mix to the point it sounds much better than you'd expect if you go in thinking the "muddiness" isn't fixable. A "muddy" mix should come back sounding so 'cleaned up" that you know you made the right decision getting your song mastered.

2. Again, M.E.s have specific sets of tools to fix problems like these when they arise. However, it is not uncommon to leave a certain "rust" to a full body of work for consistency from one song to the next. The "noise/air" left in these situations should be pleasant to the ear, not an annoyance.
 
Mixing is often a case of compromising the quality of one (or more) sound in order to boost the quality of another; or the whole...

That said, I'd argue that the main bass part is something you need to get right - any other sound that infringes itself upon it (creating that muddiness); that can't be somewhat fixed with panning or reverb gets a frequency cut (and is then up for possible compression)

I always kind of imagine my mix as if my head is in a large fishbowl and I try to place items within that space in such a way a to give them all a bit of room.
Starting with drums, then bass, then other items; volume, pans and reverb (find it can effectively mess with the perception of distance) are the fist things I mess with - EQ (and mostly I'm looking for cuts rather than boosts) and then compression (if nessecary - compression IMO is the most overused tool in the average producers arsenal) follow on.
 
I skimmed through so I apologize if someone addressed this already.

For question #2, any chance you're using an analog emulation plugin that adds noise? I know some add noise, which I honestly don't understand. If you had little to no noise before and you have some after, that's my guess.

Edit:

I'll address #1 also. Bad compression or limiting is an easy way to muddy up a mix. Did the mix sound okay before the "mastering"? If so, it's probably one of your processors that is screwing things around so you'll have to adjust further. Could also be that your mix is muddy and you're bringing it out more during mastering.
 
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I'll adjust my "not fixable" answer to "yes it can be somewhat fixed but shouldn't be something to do during mastering" :)
 
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