Paco Del Stinko wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 7:34 pm
Anyone care to describe their process?
I "master" two separate ways. For songfight or.. well, anything other than something going to spotify etc.,
I use Reaper for my DAW. I almost always track on a Boss BR-900, usually using on board effects for guitar etc., Sometimes I use real amps/cabinets etc., but it's rare. On my master bus I have the following plugins loaded by default but all the effects are off by default.
Kjaerhus Classic Compressor
Klanghelm MJUC
ReaEQ
Voxengo Span
Audio Assault - HQ-2 Hybrid EQ
*Voxengo Tube Amp
*Ferric TDS
*Audio Assault RM-2 analog channel
*Blackwater Reverb
Ozone 8 Elements
Loudmax limiter
*Youlean loudness meter 2 (free)
After I'm done mixing, I will click the master bus effects to on which only turn on those above there with the asterisk. I've been using Ozone 8 a lot recently as there is a a couple of presets that sound pretty good stock (and of course, I can tweak from there) but it also has that mastering assistant. For songfight of late, I've just been letting the assistant do it's thing, adjusting the level to get pretty close to -14 LUFS (even though I've not released anything to spotify this year, I use that level) and then I'm usually done.
Further notes: I use a very light hand on most of these plugins. If I can hear the effect I back it back a bit. Including the tube amp, Ferric TDS, RM-2. The idea is to add a bit of saturation/thickness/warmness/whatever other buzzword that won't quite capture what I'm going for to the mix. The sum of the parts should be noticeable but the individual bits not so much. That RM-2, for instance, has just a bit of drive with all the other settings level (bass,mid,treble) and the output down enough to make the volume level the same as with it off. I also sometimes like to use multiple compressors or different compressors. So the Kjaerhus and MJUC are seldom used but usually when I'm needing something specific. (I like the MJUC a lot but it does tend to darken the track a bit... maybe more pronounced on the bottom end.)
For a while I was using the Waves AR TG Mastering plugin but I found it to be a bit harsh. I'm sure mostly due to my impatience and inability to find the sweet spots quickly.
For tracks going to Spotify, I will never turn on the master bus effects. I'll mix down and export as a WAV file then start a new mastering project and use a very similar method as stated above except I tweak the plugins. A little more or less drive from the RM-2. I'll tweak the (relatively) small amount of reverb I introduce at the mastering stage. (It's been mentioned my tracks are relatively dry before.) But I'll be using a reference track (which I should probably do more of for the songfight entries, but I'm lazy) and try to hit a sound. Also, probably the one biggest improvement I made was using reference tracks. I aim my mixing to it then I aim my "mastering" to it and I almost always have a much better sounding track when I compare it to what I usually do.
And now that I've typed all that out, I'm sure that I'll be embarrassed when someone points out an obvious flaw, but maybe that'll get me to reexamine what I do and experiment with other techniques... Ah, who am I kidding?