Hello rec.audio.pro world.

I've finished my magnum opus (ok ok my collection of weedy songs) and
decided that I'll get it externally mastered.

To get a feel for the process, I thought I'd try it myself to see what
results I could benchmark and settled on a work pattern that may or may
not have been useful - I'd welcome any comments about this.

Using Adobe Audition (1.5), I mixed everything down to stereo, then used
a variety of things (group normalise, compression, expansion and eq
etc.) to see what affect this had on the overall sound. One of the
things I noticed most was the way different instruments 'reacted' to my
tweaking - and this caused me to go back to the mix and adjust
individual levels and eq. I got bored with this pretty quickly, so I
figured out a system where by I would have a 'mastering' bus as the
final out on each song - so I was mastering at the same time as mixing.

The mastering bus basically added a little bit of compression, a smiley
EQ and expanded to 200% (I know there is more to mastering, this was me
trying to understand a benchmark)

With the bus, the tracks sound pretty good to me, but I'm sure that a
pro can take it to a different level. If I take out the bus, the tracks
sound pretty flat.

My question is, what should I take to a mastering session? What will the
mastering engineer find most useful?

Thanks & regards

--

John Robin Devany
http://www.devany.com

Devany wrote:

With the bus, the tracks sound pretty good to me, but I'm sure that a
pro can take it to a different level. If I take out the bus, the tracks
sound pretty flat.

My question is, what should I take to a mastering session? What will the
mastering engineer find most useful?

Everything you can. Take the flat mix, take the processed mix. Make a
couple extra mixes with a little more and a little less vocals. Take them
_all_ to the mastering house.

Use the processed mix to show him how you like it to sound. Give him all
of the mixes to play with. Listen and watch what the mastering engineer
does.

Oh yes, and be sure to label all the mixes carefully so you aren't wasting
time while the clock is running trying to find the appropriate one.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

My question is, what should I take to a mastering session? What will the
mastering engineer find most useful?

Everything you can. Take the flat mix, take the processed mix. Make a
couple extra mixes with a little more and a little less vocals. Take them
_all_ to the mastering house.

Use the processed mix to show him how you like it to sound. Give him all
of the mixes to play with. Listen and watch what the mastering engineer
does.

Oh yes, and be sure to label all the mixes carefully so you aren't wasting
time while the clock is running trying to find the appropriate one.

I agree 100% with Scott.

One more thing to add to the list: call your Mastering Engineer and ask
him/her what he/she wants!

Your ME will be able to help you out with the details. If they won't take
the time to help you, then find a new ME that will. (And let them do the
mastering, of course!)


Allen
--
Allen Corneau
Mastering Engineer
Essential Sound Mastering
Houston, TX

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On 2005-05-03 said:
I've finished my magnum opus (ok ok my collection of weedy songs)
and decided that I'll get it externally mastered.
To get a feel for the process, I thought I'd try it myself to see
what results I could benchmark and settled on a work pattern that
may or may not have been useful - I'd welcome any comments about
this.
snippage
was mastering at the same time as mixing. The mastering bus
basically added a little bit of compression, a smiley EQ and
expanded to 200% (I know there is more to mastering, this was me
trying to understand a benchmark) With the bus,
snippage
What will the mastering engineer find most useful?

Leave out the mastering bus, mix so it sounds good to you, then burn a
reference copy and listen to it on a few other systems. WHen it
sounds good on a variety of systems without the smiley eq and you
mastering twaeks at home you're ready to put it in the hands of your
mastering person. THat's what these folks do, they'll finish
polishing it up for you. YOu're going to get in their way if you do
much more than that.

IF you haven't read much on the process read Bob Katz on the subject
at www.digido.com and govern yourself accordingly.

GOod luck with your project.




Richard Webb,
Electric SPider Productions, New Orleans, La.
REplace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real email

--



agood captain is one who is hoisting his first drink in a
bar when the storm hits.