Mastering EQ and Compression

[enroe]

This thread is full of the most amateurish comments I’ve read on this forum in like forever. (Not all). OP clearly doesn’t understand what mastering is and then he’s told ‘mastering is for not well done mixes’
Jeez

This is unfortunately true. And I don't think ramsey means anything bad.

Mastering is the least important phase of music production!

Remember that always.

If you were a painter instead of musician, then mastering is like the layer of shiny protective varnish and putting a frame around the picture. It does not really change or improve the picture. Better learn to draw & paint, make a lot of drawings & paintings. Time spent on varnishing & framing is lost time because it was not spent on drawing & painting. You can always do that later.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Not sure is it tape emulation touch on master bus better,than two eq's,but when have more free money will try some of them,softube for now is first in the list.
I've got tone empire Reelight Pro,it's dope on track but on master channel has too much dirt or something...
For now prefer not to overload master channel with more than 3-4 fx.
Ears are best miixing and mastering tool - some fx didn't give me right color,so i am trying demos till find something that fit my taste and what i need to do for me.
For example 232d and bx_2098 are most impressive and 'right' mastering eq i put so far on my master channel for what i wanna do a master eq,that's why bough them,don't care about technical aspects,they sound right on my master bus,that's it...
After year may use something else,but for now these give me right touch and i am sharing here to help other seeking right fx.
Don't think there is so many unbelievable mastering eq plugins so this discussion worth it i guess for newbies and intermediate in mastering.
Cheers

[Michey]

Mastering as a music processing phase... is LONG dead. long (and I ain't BS. read about the mastering phase for Foo Fighters' Wasting Light. that's, like, 2008... yes ?).

With nowadays tools, one can mix, master, do actually EVERYTHING (and we are on the verge of AI ME's era, that would render anyone who engage in "Tech Talk" - as Boy Scouts comparing the size of their you-know-what).

One can buy extremely expensive plugs, moderately priced plugs, use free plugs, or use mortgage expensive hardware. all goes. ALL VALID (pending the taste of the user, of course).

ANYONE with good hearing and understanding the genre aural demands can use ANY TOOL nowadays and achieve "pro level mastered result". same goes with mixing (providing you possess of the right monitoring environment. and as time goes by, it shrinks to the size of one's cans).

This is the cold hard truth (I am from the past AND from the future, BTW )

[plexuss]

My recommendation for a mastering chain is based on what I use myself:

IK Tape Machines 80 [456 / 30ips / clean levels ]

Studer and 456 is the standard for tracking.

But for the 2-bus mix / master tape, try GP9 or 499. 456 saturates nicely for individual tracks, but 499 and especially GP9 are better for mixdown because they're cleaner and more hifi and seem to preserve / bring out dynamics.

Also, try the Ampex 440 model for mixdown instead. The 440 doesn't do 30 ips, so you have to set it to 15 ips instead, but that doesn't really matter since it's not real anyways.

Historically, Ampex recorders has been the standard choice for mixing down rock, because they're known for delivering a lot of punch, and I've found the Tape Machine 440 model captures that pretty well. Tape Machine 80 / Studers are much too polite.

Thanks, but I've always preferred 456 in the tape days for tracking, mixing and mastering. Just a personal choice from the hardware days carried over to ITB.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

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[VELLTONE MUSIC]

CM315 offer IK Multimedia EQP-1A for 4,99 but not sure it is worth it ...?

[legendCNCD]

Yeah I'd think more about the mix sounding like a mastered one. After that in 'mastering' there isnt much left to do anymore, maybe a tad more overall treble or such inside 1-2dB max.

How to get mix sounding like its mastered? Clip/Limit peaks on combined groups/buses if needed(!) etc. Its just basic mixing!

Years ago I left mixing mostly to volume balancing and cutting unneeded crap away with EQ, and fixed the balance in master. God why!? Because I did not know better It was a great ordeal and every time the whole tonality and balance of the mix changed, sometimes so much it sounded like a different tune (when I did not have proper place/speakers etc.) !

So, get the mix sounding like a master (without yet using masterbus limiter at least)

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

limiter on master bus is just to prevent blowing your speakers away,wouldn't call it mastering.
Complex mix need specific fx touch on every track, - to create space,to find right 'place' of each instruments to 'feel' it 'right' in the mix,volume increasing/decreasing changes are useful for dymanics or as part of composition,'right' mixing request many hours listening and exeriments...
But my focus now is final touch.
Trying to learn it better - could i make a perfect mix and not to do mastering at all?
I don't think so,it's another part of entire building process,in digital enviroment could go back and change whatever is not convincing as sound in the mix,then to assemble final mix different way.
Final mix and mastering depend on each other.
Like this eq for it's clarity
Cheers

[legendCNCD]

Mainly saying, getting the mix proper there isnt much left to do anymore in the mastering phase.

[Michey]

Mainly saying, getting the mix proper there isnt much left to do anymore in the mastering phase.

Exactly.

Here's an excerpt from SOS article that addresses exactly the topic :

Can mastering plug-ins really take the place of a human mastering engineer?

The short answer to that question is ‘no’, and to understand the reasons why, let’s consider what mastering engineers don’t do. In my experience, they don’t use stereo image wideners, matching equalisers, exciters, microphone modellers or tape emulators. They almost never use multiband processing. They don’t add reverb or delay. Quite often they don’t even use EQ or compression, and when they do, they’re applying half a dB here and half a dB there.

if you buy a mastering plug-in, you’ll find tens or hundreds of processing modules that a human mastering engineer would never use. And you’ll find presets that change your sound way more than a human mastering engineer ever would. These products won’t listen to your mix and explain that maybe you need to go away and turn the bass down. But they will widen it and compress it and EQ it and saturate it and apply lots of parallel processing or whatever happens to be fashionable at the time.

These products are not a safety net. They won’t save you from yourself in the way that a human mix engineer can. But what they do offer is a million ways to change your mix as part of the creative process. So by all means try out the presets in your mastering plug-in. Widen your tracks, distort them, add top end, compress them, de-ess them, process them in parallel. As Joe Meek said all those years ago, if it sounds right, it is right. But in my view, you should think of what you’re doing as part of mixing, not mastering.

One of the most valuable things that a human mastering engineer can do to your music is (to do) nothing at all. If your mix sounds right as it is, a good mastering engineer won’t change anything. And that’s something you won’t find as a preset in any mastering plug-in!

[sobrinN]

Hey! Your master channel really depends on your mix, the mix will make the record, keep that in mind! The master bus should be simple like a EQ, M/S compressor(with internal side chain), Subtle saturation and a stereo tool. Multiband compression if your mix is not really finished yet.

[CrystalWizard]

Mastering? Use xxxx and xxxx and especially xzxx. With those plug ins you can be sure your track will sound like it's mastered by the pros! What i don't recommend is getting the best monitoring system you can afford, treating your room acoustically and don't listen to as many familiar songs as often as possible. One other thing- don't spend any time at all reading the tons of great info on mastering, just watch some "influencer" on YT.
Mastering was a combination of technical and subjective processes to insure that needles didn't jump off of vinyl records, all songs were same volume, freq range, reverb, etc. A "master" engineer to listen and make very small corrections. At this point the technical considerations are covered (inexpensive tools) but the subjective side is still a thing.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Same thoughts here - i can make basic mastering,but interested more to experiment with dynamcs,expressiveness and sweet spot of final mix - that is mastering i do at the moment gaining experience
Cheers

[MogwaiBoy]

After producing a song for hundreds of hours, I can't trust myself to have final say on tonal balance. I use analysis tools to get me in the ballpark against my references with some "mix bus" EQ to help me get there, but I value a fresh (pro) set of ears/monitoring equipment/taste to have the very final say - it's worth the $150+ per song.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

After producing a song for hundreds of hours, I can't trust myself to have final say on tonal balance. I use analysis tools to get me in the ballpark against my references with some "mix bus" EQ to help me get there, but I value a fresh (pro) set of ears/monitoring equipment/taste to have the very final say - it's worth the $150+ per song.

Agree,fresh ears and different monitors are way better that another 1000 mastering sessions
Don't want to admit it,but expensive mastering service is the best solution for well made final master on a track.
I can't trust cheap one cause most of these guys have weird choice of monitors,which do not translate neutral sound and their skills are probabaly useful for total newbies or people with very low budget,but i spend 10 years of experiments with dynamics,reshaping and creating any type of original sound, so i guess my understanding and demands are little bit higher that desire my mix to be balanced by somebody
Cheers