right, once a tracks finished

[eyes without a face]

just wondering, when ive finished a track wot sort of mastering/touching up etc shud i apply? ive got Soundforge but not really sure how to go about using it to give the tracks ive done that final boost.

wot do some of u guys do?

[MARKEG]

do your edits, eq it, compress it, maximise it and you're away.

[Basil Rush]

We run the average track through a Renassance Compressor, C4, RenEQ and L1 Ultramaximzer before bouncing it down, although if you've got more dramatic eq to do on the entire track I'd go with Mark EG's list and do the EQ first.

Releases go to labels processed like this, because we can't guarantee to attend the master/cut and if you are after a particular sound then it's best to get it approximately right on the way out. If we were going to the cut then I'd take a copy with and without the processing.

We usually use a very low ratio on the RenComp unless we are after a really pumping effect - and if you are going to a really heavy effect then this kind of compression is best done on a bus so you can have some uncompressed sounds if you want to.

The C4 is usually set to Multi-Electo Mastering preset and then the Range setting backed off until it sounds good. Some tracks sound better without this, most sound better with it.

The ReqEQ is used to tweak any harshness in the middle, particulary if the track is a little cluttered, although only 2db or so of changes maximum here, if it's worse than that go and tweak the mix itself.

Finally the L1 set to output at about -0.5db and doing a maximum of around 1-3db gain reduction - this isn't to make it as loud as possible, just to clean off any really peaky bits that might occur occasionally.

Always master when you are feeling fresh in the morning after you've had a coffee, never late at night.

And this assumes you have some decent speakers and know the limitations of the room you are doing it in, if not then you are going to need to do some real careful listening on different systems.

[eyes without a face]

do your edits, eq it, compress it, maximise it and you're away

could u elaborate a little mark? im just using software Fruity. Reason etc, doing all my sequencing in Fruity for now. wot u mean exactly by EQ itm maximise etc?

[Nomak]

I ahve some questions, firstly what does maximising do and does it apply to the whole track?

Second when you refer to bouncing down basil do you mean to 2 stereo tracks on your pc after recording each tracks audio separately, or do you use a multitrack recorder?

[Basil Rush]

We do it inside the computer. When we used to use a DAT before the computer got fast enough we'd bounce to DAT without processing, copy the thing back into the computer and do it all in soundforge.

The UltraMaximizer is actually just a fancy hard limiter turning down any excess peaks in the music without adding too much distortion. If you hit normalize in an audio editor without running this kind of processor you'll usually find that it doesn't look anything like as loud as it could and there'll be a few little peaks that if they were leveled off a bit wouldn't make much difference to the sound but would let you get a good wack more volume out of the thing. A clever mastering limiter will sort these out without adding too much colour.

If you are mastering pop or something for CD mastering engineers or whoever will push these things quite hard for extra volume sometimes, but if you are going to cut some vinyl I reckon keep it backed off to just deal with any real excess levels.

[MARKEG]

Nuff said. I think Mr Rush covered that nicely!

[DJZeMig_L]

Also This is sort of an odd trick... After the all thing described by most of the guys U can run yer mix thru a nice sounding dj mixer (or even prod. mixer), wack the gain a little so U get just a little bit of saturation/ comp... record.. run 2 audio editor.. dc correct normalize to 0,5 db!!

Major tips by Rush! :)

(I always get the feeling that C4 kills some high freq.!?! DO u agree?)

Z

[Basil Rush]

What overall, kills the HFs - tweak the range/gain/threshold on teh top band till it sits well against other stuff in the same genre

[DJZeMig_L]

Yeah I know... but I always have this feeling that if I had a resonable good balance between freq.s that I might kill it later! :(

What freq xover do U use?

Any1 tryed the soft quadcomp/ exp. by Akai?

Thankz 4 yer help!

Z

[Jimfish]

Staffan gave me a great tip the other day....

he said to load up tc native graphic eq, and try pulling single frequencys toward the top end up...some of em just sing!

its great, can really liven up a dull track, or even totally change its feel...

and then balance it from a bit of bass from the parametric....