Mastering Question.

[open mind]

ok i have 18 tracks for an album. i finished mastering and they all are limited to 0db maximum.

now the problem they all set to 0db but they have not the same hearable "loudness" because they all processed diffrently with diffrent compression fx and instruments leveling, because every track is diffrent u know.

now the one million dolla question how can i achieve not only 0db for all tracks but also more or less same "hearable" loudness for all tracks? because 0db is not equal 0db i hope u understand what i mean.thanks in advance

ps:i think this should be only possible if i process every beat the same.but its impossible because every beat is diffrent! heeeeeeeeeeelp.

*edit* i tried A/B comparison but it doesnt work because if i gain to much level on the ones that are quite it will sound SHIT! and if i lower the volume on the loud ones it will sound to low.arghhhh:headbang:

 

[thedreampolice]

Sorry man, but you really should pay a real mastering house to do it right. You will get the results you want.

 

[Ash Holmz]

^^^ ditto .. if it was that easy mastering engineers wouldn't have jobs...

if u insist on doing it yourself i guess the best tool to use would be some kindof limiter like a waves l2 or something along that line..

 

[bhunt]

yeah I was gonna say the same thing as everyone here, but this is a long shot, but maybe if you load all the songs up in a long audio file and run the same limiting on all of them they might balance out to the same level.

 

[Formant024]

again, proper eq'ing, compression and levelling of your mix makes mastering easier, you've probably enforced heavy eq'ing to give certain tracks delivery thus trading off headroom and thats what you get. You have to be summier and handle tracks delicately before you can say you've mastered anything. Just shows you that 0dB isnt about loudness but about total used bandwidth, ie; if you have one track with excessive low frequencies it will never come out as loud when you "master" like you do... take such a track, turn down and tweak those low frequencies and then increase gain on that channel and so on for each track/instrument.

 

[Ash Holmz]

^^^ right ....also a balanced mixed will "appear" louder than a unbalanced one .. u will get less phase cancellation , and more seperation between instruments which leads to a "percieved" louder sound even though technically the level may be the same...

 

[open mind]

Sorry man, but you really should pay a real mastering house to do it right. You will get the results you want.

i want to do it on my own.

 

[thedreampolice]

I work with quite a few mastering engineers and they have very different opinions on things, but one thing they all agree on is this. NEVER COMPRESS YOUR FINAL MIX, and send it to them. Let them do all the bus compression. By doing so you are killing there headroom.

"i want to do it on my own."

Thats cool, and I like the attitude. But mastering engineers sped YEAR and YEARS learing what they no and work with multimillion dollar equipment to get the results they do.

 

[open mind]

I work with quite a few mastering engineers and they have very different opinions on things, but one thing they all agree on is this. NEVER COMPRESS YOUR FINAL MIX, and send it to them. Let them do all the bus compression. By doing so you are killing there headroom.

i know that.but i want to make it on my own.

 

[Ash Holmz]

well pick up a book and study .. asking around here isnt really gonna get u concrete answers... theres alot to mixing .. and it comes from a combination of technical knowledge, experince, and most importantly a great set of ears.

 

[NobleWordz]

A lot of ME's are 50+ they have spent a lifetime learning the craft.
Its not something that you can pick up.

Is this an album with vocals? If its just a beat CD that you're sending out there is no real point to mastering it,

~NW~

 

[Relic]

Buy Har-Bal ... And try and learn that,if you dont want to take it to someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[Ash Holmz]

here some advice ... get your room treated correctly ... thats the first step right there cant do anything until thats taken care of.

 

[Hi-Lo]

yeah man if you are gonna do it yourself, i'd definitely buy at least a book or two just to get you to a point where you're comfortable. also, relic is right- har bal is a beast. as a bunch of other people said theres no sub for professional mastering, but har bal helps a lot.


also man, there are different ways to approach this. instead of looking at it like you need to pay a mastering engineer, start befriending some in your area and see what you can offer them...maybe one of them has a rapper he likes, knows, or is working with who needs some new beats. you give him beats, he gives you mastering, that kind of deal. theres a lot of ways to get what you need without $. when you can make beats that people want, thats a commodity just like money, don't forget that.

 

[mp3]

A lot of ME's are 50+ they have spent a lifetime learning the craft.
Its not something that you can pick up.

Its not something that you can "just" pick up. But anyone with a good ear, a lot of patience, and some thin pockets can do it. I did. I master all my own shit. It did take me 3-4 years to get good though, truth be told...

Here's my advice:

1. Finish mixing FIRST. Once you do, bounce down your mix into a 24 bit audio file. Some ppl say 96k, but if you work ar 44.1k don't sweat it too much. Mixing is where you set all your instrument levels and so forth. If you got one song that has too much bass and another one is heavy on the highs, fix it here. Don't normalize to 0dB.

2. Open up whatever you're gonna use as your mastering software and set up all your plugins. I normally do parametric EQ -> reverb -> multiband compressor -> limiter.

3. Line up all your tracks one after another so they play back to back.

4. Pick the one that sounds best, and make it sound better. Be gentle with the effects. The idea is not to radically change it (you do that in the mix) but to sweeten it. You shouldn't have to adjust the eq more than 1.5dB up or down. If you do, go back to the mix and fix it there. I like to use a bright plate reverb set to a release of 1-1.5 seconds and waaayyy in the background like 30-35dB, but you should experiment, that's what works for me. Compress to taste, but try not to make it sound like its compressed (that's the hard part), highs get harsh real quick with a lot of compression so be careful. You don't want more than 2-3dB of limiting hapnin. I'm not gonna get into all the settings because it varies so much depending on the music. Refer to eq and compression guides at SOS or elsewhere.

5. Bounce that track down (with dither) to a 16 bit file after you're done, and save your effects settings.

6. Move on to the next best track. It will require a little more tweaking but you basically wanna ear-match the sound, the balance, and the volume level.

7. Repeat step 5 for this track. Make sure you save all your effects settings for each track so you can go back later if you don't like a particular track.

Good luck dog.

Oh and keep your ears fresh, take breaks, cross reference commercial music, etc. That shit does help.

Here's some good articles on mastering: http://www.soundonsound.com/search?url=/search&Subject=71

and there's plenty more out there, matter of fact, look in the resources forum here for more

 

[open mind]

Its not something that you can "just" pick up. But anyone with a good ear, a lot of patience, and some thin pockets can do it. I did. I master all my own shit. It did take me 3-4 years to get good though, truth be told...

Here's my advice:

1. Finish mixing FIRST. Once you do, bounce down your mix into a 24 bit audio file. Some ppl say 96k, but if you work ar 44.1k don't sweat it too much. Mixing is where you set all your instrument levels and so forth. If you got one song that has too much bass and another one is heavy on the highs, fix it here. Don't normalize to 0dB.

2. Open up whatever you're gonna use as your mastering software and set up all your plugins. I normally do parametric EQ -> reverb -> multiband compressor -> limiter.

3. Line up all your tracks one after another so they play back to back.

4. Pick the one that sounds best, and make it sound better. Be gentle with the effects. The idea is not to radically change it (you do that in the mix) but to sweeten it. You shouldn't have to adjust the eq more than 1.5dB up or down. If you do, go back to the mix and fix it there. I like to use a bright plate reverb set to a release of 1-1.5 seconds and waaayyy in the background like 30-35dB, but you should experiment, that's what works for me. Compress to taste, but try not to make it sound like its compressed (that's the hard part), highs get harsh real quick with a lot of compression so be careful. You don't want more than 2-3dB of limiting hapnin. I'm not gonna get into all the settings because it varies so much depending on the music. Refer to eq and compression guides at SOS or elsewhere.

5. Bounce that track down (with dither) to a 16 bit file after you're done, and save your effects settings.

6. Move on to the next best track. It will require a little more tweaking but you basically wanna ear-match the sound, the balance, and the volume level.

7. Repeat step 5 for this track. Make sure you save all your effects settings for each track so you can go back later if you don't like a particular track.

Good luck dog.

Oh and keep your ears fresh, take breaks, cross reference commercial music, etc. That shit does help.

Here's some good articles on mastering: http://www.soundonsound.com/search?url=/search&Subject=71

and there's plenty more out there, matter of fact, look in the resources forum here for more

thank you very much.iam a try this.

 

[Equality 7-2521]

...and your track levels seem different (even though they are all at 0dB) because you are looking at peak metering not RMS metering.

 

[open mind]

...and your track levels seem different (even though they are all at 0dB) because you are looking at peak metering not RMS metering.

i use fl studio how can i set it to show me the RMS level? instead of db level???

what sequencer shows me the RMS level. i need to see the real volume level not the ******** peak damn.

 

[open mind]

ok i scanned some audio files i mastered with adobe audition and i got an RMS level of -11.27 and db level of 0 is that ok for a mastered track? or should i get more RMS level?

*edit* i scanned dr.dres produced track called "Imagine" from snoop doggs album and it has an RMS level of -13.95 so i should be ok with my -11.27? dres track had 17476clipped samples!!!!! mine had zero AHAHAAHAHAH iam gettin more level without clippin heheheh watch out dre iam coming.

 

[NobleWordz]

Its probably due to the Dre track being MP3.

~NW~