Mastering as a beginning producer

E

engineerdnb

New member
Hi everyone,

since this is my first post, I'll briefly introduce myself. I come from Germany and a couple of months ago I started producing drum and bass. I've been working and reading a lot and I'm slowly getting a better grasp of how music production works.


I recently finished the mixing my first track and I am quiet happy with it (of course it's not a masterpiece but it's okay). However, as you can imagine, the track is lacking pressure and power since it is not mastered. I have been watching a lot of tutorials and reading a bunch of articles on mastering, however I can still not figure out how to do it properly myself.

Of course I do not want to go to a mastering studio for professional mastering since it would just be a waste of money. On other hand though, I do not want to upload my song to soundcloud completely unmastered since it is really lacking punchiness, plus I also want to finish the entire music production process one time.
As you can see, I find it quiet challenging to master songs as a beginning producer.


That leads me to a couple of questions:
  • How do you guys master your tracks? Do you even master them?
  • Do you know any helpful tutorials/books/articles on mastering?
  • Which tools do you use in order to master you songs? And how do you use them?
  • Have you ever had one of your songs mastered by a professional?

Thanks for your replies!

Cheers
 
I'mNoGuru said:
Hopefully you'll realise that you are wrong.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, I should have been more precise at this place.
What I meant was not that professional mastering in general is a waste of money. I'm sure that there are many great people with high-end equipment out there and if you are a professional or a semi-professional music producer there is almost no way around that. I'm 100% with you here. (If I was a professional music producer, I wouldn't even ask the question. I would just send it to a mastering studio and done.)

But as a beginner who is making his first attempts in music production isn't it a bit of an overkill to go to a professional mastering studio?
For example, I'm pretty sure that my song has several mistakes in all areas which should be completely normal considering that this is the first song I created ever.
Do you really think it is a good idea to master that song in a professional mastering studio? And could you elaborate why?

Side note: of course, someone could point out that the mastering should not take place if the song is not 100% perfect. That's true of course but as a beginner, I just need to get a track finished at some point. If I always go back to the start to make all the enhancements then I will never ever finish the first song. And that's exactly the question. How should I master such a song that has some mistakes in order to present it to other people? Should I just upload it to soundcloud unmastered?
I just feel like it doesn't do much good to get it mastered professionally because of the mistakes that were made earlier. But I also have to live with these mistakes because otherwise I can never finish the song.

Hope this makes my question clearer!
 
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the problem is that the youtube videos you are watching are telling you that mastering is something that it is not

mastering is not about making the track louder or punchier or anything else that alters the overall sound in a skewed manner

it is about putting the track into the same sonic context as the rest of your project (leaving aside the issue of single mastering, because even a single has accompanying tracks even if they are simply remixes of the main track)

it is also about ensuring that all of the required information such as isr codes are attached to your files so that the project is ready for distribution (ISRC's are the audio equivalent of ISBN/UBC)

when you start talking about making a track punchier or louder you are talking about late mix decisions these can be achieved in many ways and not necessarily by the methods most youtube vids suggest

have a read of some of the older threads here at fp to get a better handle on the idea of mix decisions vs mastering actions and then come back and ask some pertinent questions
 
engineerdnb said:
  • How do you guys master your tracks? Do you even master them?
  • Do you know any helpful tutorials/books/articles on mastering?
  • Which tools do you use in order to master you songs? And how do you use them?
  • Have you ever had one of your songs mastered by a professional?
Click to expand...

1) Yes I do master my own tracks. I play my track back on a few different sound systems. I've also learned the sound profile of those sound systems that I use, so I believe it helps make better decisions as to what changes I should make.

2) There are tips chilling all over the internet. In fact, this forum may be as far as you need to go in the beginning.

3) If a track is causing havoc to my CPU, I'll render it out as a WAV and start a new project to master. Otherwise, I often do it within the file I'm working on. Once I'm all cool with the mix, I'll start treating it with minor EQ adjustments on the master channel with a few parametric EQs and then load a dedicated mastering plugin, in my case FL's Maximus. Then, I'll add another parametric EQ after Maximus to do some final shaping if I need it. Finally, I'll add a limiter and do the final-final touches.

It's a lot of trial and error, so I'll jump back and forth in the mastering chain until I drive myself nuts.

4) Nope, but I wouldn't be opposed to doing it. I also currently have no need to do it since I'm just doing music as a hobby kind of thing. But if you were to ever take your music serious, an objective opinion from a true audio-head that has spent years honing his craft may be what it takes to make your music more listenable to a broader audience.

I will also add that mastering and mixing often go hand and hand when you're the only person touching your work, which is why it may make more sense to forget about mastering and focus only on your ability to make a solid track.
 
Honestly, I understand that you want to improve your sound on your track and so on, but come on... it's your first track, mastering isn't that crucial for you at the moment.
Sure there's nothing wrong in checking out some things about mastering, but I think you should focus on your craft for the moment and develope yourself as a musician.
 
Don't jump ahead. Your problem doesn't lie in your lack of mastering, rather on your lack of mixing.
 
Alright, thanks to all of you for the tips! It was really helpful for me and clarified my confusion about mastering a lot.

For any interested future reader, here's how I solved the problem:
You guys were completely right, the missing punch and pressure came from a lack of the right mixing, rather than the mastering.
I did as you said and focused on the mixing instead of jumping ahead to the mastering. Applied some compression to the kick and bass line which (in my opinion) really improved the overall pressure of the song, especially the low-end.

For anyone interested, here's the result: soundcloud.com/engineerdnb/engineer-december-day
 
Get your track peaking at around -6 db
Add some compression to glue sounds together
Add multiband compressor and/or eq if you have problems with some frequencies peaking too much to eliminate them
Make everything below 120 Hz mono(You can do that by using Basslane VST for example)
Add some stereo imaging(tou can use Izotop Ozone)
Compare your track to other tracks from the same genre you really like (pay attention to loudness and eq)
You can use a Fabfilter Pro-q 2 or Izotop Ozone EQ to mach the eq of your track to the eq of the track you really like(if that's how you want your track to sound)
Use a Limiter to get the loudness to the level of the reference track(you can use a limiter like Fabfilter Pro-l to measure the RMS)
 
You're a beginner so like other people have said: No need to focus on mastering. It shouldn't be your biggest issue right now. You probably haven't got sufficient equipment to even mix or master a record to a reasonable standard.

But when you do want to get something professionally mastered, I think a lot of people here will agree that you should get in touch with Dave Cooley. I don't know what his rates are but they are apparently very reasonable and I'm very fond of the majority of the work he's mastered.
 
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