Mastering Questions.

Dude, chill out . For most of us, a home mastering job is just fine. Unless you're with a major (who would foot the mastering bill anyway), as long as you know what your doing you can get really good sound out of a home setup nowadays. I was mentored on mastering in a Pro Tools Mix/24 environ with a $30,000 setup from a Grammy award winning engineer....with the right plugs and decent acoustics, anything is possible within reason.

I recently sent some mixes to be mastered for some cats I work with. They sent then to Odds On Recording, a major studio out here in Henderson, NV. The engineer told the CEO who presented my mixes that they sounded damm near mastered already.....and THOSE were pure flat mixes that I did in Cubase SX/Wavelab. Remember, this is Rap music, not friggin' opera or a live band.

Geez.

Anything is possible under the sun. Proof follows.

Knoxximus wrote:I recently sent some mixes to be mastered for some cats I work with. They sent then to Odds On Recording, a major studio out here in Henderson, NV. The engineer told the CEO who presented my mixes that they sounded damm near mastered already.....and THOSE were pure flat mixes that I did in Cubase SX/Wavelab. Remember, this is Rap music, not friggin' opera or a live band.

man i think people get caught up in all this hype about pro tools, compressors and all this expensive sh!t that they forget whats really important. EYE'S EARS AND YA BRAIN! most of the general public thats listenin dont kno this sh!t. if you have a decent set up rather it be CUBASE OR LOGIC OR A MULTI TRACK WORKSTATION you can master ya own shit. and i kno that steinberg has tools for that in the programs. phuck all the hype. unless your terrible at mixin your sh!t, do it yaself to atleast learn what it is. i learned a little bit about mastering by experimenting (for months and years) and i had kno idea i was lightweight masterin sh!t until i start doin homework about it which let me kno what tools to use. no im not an expert but i can pull it off. im masterin my own ep at this time cause i got more time and knowledge than money.

Rob_10304 wrote:Binger0!!!! a word of advice, DONT TRY AND MASTER YOUR SH*T!!!

people who master music are called master'ers for a reason!!!! because they are very experienced in thier field, theyve had years of experience and most mastering studios cost millions of dollas for a reason!!! because of how they represent the sound and how they help people to master efficiently and properly!!!

people who post dumbass sh*t like 'I WANT TO MASTER IN CUBASE!!' and 'HOW DO I MASTER MY SH*T IN REASON' are idiots!!! and dont know wot theyre talking about!!!

people!!! dont be fooled into thinking you can master your stuff in ordinary Audio/MIDI sequencers like Logic, Cubase etc because thats plain stupid!!!! and it cant be done!!!

you can mix in those applicatons, but dont try 'Mastering' or anything like that yourself at home in your bedroom! cuz by default, if you think you can master like that, at home in your bedroom! your very confused!!!!

FACT ->> Most mastering studios use mixing consoles that cost more than your house!

rob

p.s Expanders, Gates etc arent just mastering tools, theyre just standard dynamic processors! theyre not exclusive to the mastering process!

well unfortutatly most people on this forum dont have money like that. we workin with what we got. have u ever used a coat hanger for a antenna?

hey, Rob_10304
that's the dumbest comment on mastering I've ever heard...
I also "master" (forgive me if I call it like that ) my sht in cubase and I really get decent results. For shure it won't sound like the sht you hear on mtv; but as said before: this is hip hop! I don't even want my beats to sound like p-diddy sht. listen to 'enter the wu tang'! I'm shure they haven't spent much on mastering (if they have at all) and there's no doubt that this album is one of the greatest hip hop classics!
another point is that if nobody should try to master his music in his bedroom studio, who will master your beats in thirty years? when all the great mastering engineers are dead or def, who will master your stuff if nobody ever tried to master?!
so just because you don't have a clue of how to master in cubase, it's not said that it ain't possible...
anyway; go on spending your cash on "master'ers"; I'll go on mastering in cubase.....

binger0, definitely check out the iZotope's mastering guide, also if you're not even planning on using their Ozone plug-in.

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/guides.html

hey to save argumnets why not call these 'cubase' process premastering as its not strictly mastering as a mastering engineer would call it, therefore peeps wont get all anal- and argue about stuff which is essentially off point...

greg

Fine.

I premaster in Cubase SX.

I MASTER in Wavelab 5.0.

Any questions

hey i dont care what anybody does or uses, its just that every forum convo about mastering gets some dude coming in saying 'oh its not real mastering' and taking things off on a tangent even though everybody knows what each other is getting at- ie making the tune sonically 'ready' for release....

why the eye roll?- weren't you having to justify yourself earlier? what im saying is to try and stop people having to do just that- if i post a thread about snare drums i dont wanna an argument about what defines a snare drum started by some anal git who wont answer my original thread...dont be so defensive knox it weren't directed to you...

greg

i think forum mastering threads are always a bit ... how to say ... not uninteresting but superficial ... i mean there s obviously a point in mastering and ya can learn alot from mastering engineers, their techniques and books ... comps, limiters and such are all good but imo one thing is to master an orchestra, another a fock band and another sounds comin out of a drummachine and some synths where most sounds are hyperclenan (or intentionally lofi) already ... not to mention samples taken of records which most of us use all the time and are mastered already ... well to each his own but imo mastering aint that important for most of us ... i d even say that a great hiphop or dnb mix doesnt need any mastering at all ... just my 2 cents

dubmunkey wrote:hey i dont care what anybody does or uses, its just that every forum convo about mastering gets some dude coming in saying 'oh its not real mastering' and taking things off on a tangent even though everybody knows what each other is getting at- ie making the tune sonically 'ready' for release....

why the eye roll?- weren't you having to justify yourself earlier? what im saying is to try and stop people having to do just that- if i post a thread about snare drums i dont wanna an argument about what defines a snare drum started by some anal git who wont answer my original thread...dont be so defensive knox it weren't directed to you...

greg

I wasn't directing it at you either, Dubby. I was just clarifying. I really wasn't justifying myself, I was just trying to show dude that nowadays, with technology the way it is, and if you posses the "golden ear", then mastering on a home rig is not far fetched, that's all.

and i agree- i just get bored of the peeps who jump in on already very active threads just to pick them up on something small and in the context of the thread unnessary...that wasn't you so wondered what was up...

greg

I'm pre-mastering and mastering my own sh*t on my 1680. F*ck dat...

hey, Rob_10304 Shocked
that's the dumbest comment on mastering I've ever heard...
I also "master" (forgive me if I call it like that Rolling Eyes ) my sht in cubase and I really get decent results. For shure it won't sound like the sht you hear on mtv; but as said before: this is hip hop! I don't even want my beats to sound like p-diddy sht. listen to 'enter the wu tang'! I'm shure they haven't spent much on mastering (if they have at all) and there's no doubt that this album is one of the greatest hip hop classics!
another point is that if nobody should try to master his music in his bedroom studio, who will master your beats in thirty years? when all the great mastering engineers are dead or def, who will master your stuff if nobody ever tried to master?!
so just because you don't have a clue of how to master in cubase, it's not said that it ain't possible...
anyway; go on spending your cash on "master'ers"; I'll go on mastering in cubase.....

wot?

the thing is! people like you get confused with mastering and mixing!!!!

Enter the Wu Tang [which is one of my fav rap albums of all time], was probably mastered very little!

Its down to the way it was mixed!

if it was mastered it was probably limited and compressed very severly before it was printed to C.D! and thats about it! hence the fact it sounds awful! but awful in a good way! because that was the RZAs mixing style, to make things dirty and grimey!

Mastering is all about bringing out the best points of the mix, to a so called "industry standard"! thats why so many produces who like things grimey and dirty, rarely pay anyone to master for them!

Eqing drums, compressing the vocals, the filtering the RZA did on the bass! thats all Mixing! creative mixing! it has nothing to do with mastering! mastering is the final link in the chain, the end of the whole production process where the Music or Audio is "finalized" or "sweetend" to an acceptable industry standard before it is printed to C.D!!! all you people saying "i can master in Cubase, Cubase has rele nice plugins for mastering"! no it doesnt! Cubase is Sh_t!!! if your trying to get your sh_t to sound more like th RZA and less like Puffy, then thats down to the way you mix!!! it has nothing to do with mastering!!!!

Mastering as i sed before is final, the last part of the mixing process! where, the masterers job is to bring out the audio, compress it suitably for commercial C.D release, add some shine to it, bring out the way youve EQ'd the drums!! but only very subtly!!!!!! someone once told me that if a good mastering engineer has to boost by more than about 3dB anywhere within the mix, hell give you it back and make you remix it!!!!

do some research, get your facts strait!!!

and you cant master in Cubase, contrary to popular belief!!! lol.

"anyway; go on spending your cash on "master'ers"; I'll go on mastering in Cubase" ......lol! thats the funniest thing ive ever heard! you walk in to a room full of Pros and say that, youll get laughed out the door!

fool!

RoB

I MATSER my shiz in Pro Tools How you ask? Mix the session, bounce down to 2 track(stereo), import two track mix back into PT, apply mastering techniques

Rob, while some cats are confused about the difference between mixing and mastering, the cats in this thread are not. You CAN master in cubase(or Sonar, DP, Logic,etc.), can you master in Cubase to the same degree that a mastering house will ba able to, no but you can get decent results.