Hey,
Still being tempted heavily by the ozone stuff. I kind of feel like I could get similar results with all those other freeware multi-band compressors and using nyquist 5eq and buzlimiter or tls maximizer. In that order. I dont know am I going crazy? I just been playing with the ozone demo and I feel like I get a more "real" sound when I do it with those freeware plugs... Can someone help me figure this out. I know like a year from now ill be regretting not getting ozone... I just freaking am crazy and want some help in figuring this out.
RonC
Mastering - personal issues. sugggestions?
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- KVRAF
- 6740 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from sheffield, england
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 6490 posts since 14 Jun, 2004 from Rochester, NY
behringer truth B2031's
the thing is I dont crank them up all the time, because my freaking parents. I have it at "listenable" levels often.
RonC
the thing is I dont crank them up all the time, because my freaking parents. I have it at "listenable" levels often.
RonC
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- The Teach
- 8273 posts since 23 Jul, 2002 from flatness
why not just use final mix ???
(apologies in advance if youre a machead)
slainte
rob
(apologies in advance if youre a machead)
slainte
rob
Last edited by pHz on Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 6490 posts since 14 Jun, 2004 from Rochester, NY
I dont know... I dont really trust final mix. It doesnt sound good to me. All the finalmix cd master preset does really is limit it right? Otherwise I dont really sense anything that nice, the other presets sound horrible to me.
RoNC
RoNC
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- KVRist
- 212 posts since 23 Feb, 2003 from Charlotte, VT
I've got Ozone and two of the Voxengo plugs: Curve EQ and Soniformer. Love them both but it's very easy (for me)to over-do Ozone and end up with something that sounds forced or kind of clinical. With the Voxengo plugs. as long as I go easy on the optional cute effects in Curve EQ, I get something that sounds more natural; musical. But it's up to what you're doing and what you're hearing: some people don't get Aleksey but he blows my mind. If I found a chest full of doubloons, I'd get everything he's made.
Pythagorean perennialist.
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- KVRian
- 755 posts since 12 Mar, 2004
Why don't you try HarBal. There' s nothing out there that could really compete with it. I prefer using it instead of a mastering eq and a mastering multiband comp. It just modifies your spectrum as you wish, by dragging the frequencies 
, all you have to do is adding a imiter after this, and you're done. This costs around 100$ and if your budget is tight you can try yhe W1 limiter which sounds really good and 
it's free. 
. Good luck.
, all you have to do is adding a imiter after this, and you're done. This costs around 100$ and if your budget is tight you can try yhe W1 limiter which sounds really good and it's free. . Good luck.-
- KVRAF
- 6740 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from sheffield, england
Until you have really decent monitors and a room that sounds reasonable, you really are wasting your money on any mastering tools.
Using presets for mastering is a really bad idea for a start.. the whole point is to correct the specific problems with that recording, and to match it others that will follow it on the CD. You can't do that by blindly applying the same presets all the time.
My advice would be this: Save your money up for better monitors (these will make mixing a lot easier too) and work on optimising your room layout to get the vest possible sound from what you have.
Now, the mastering approach I would recomend is this: mix your track as best you can, and master it with nothing more than a limiter just to shave the loudest peaks. Now burn that to CD and play it on every sytem you can get your hands on: your dads stereo, your sister's ghetto blaster, your mate's stereo, your mates car system etc.. if you hear the same things wrong on several systems, go back to your mix to correct them!
If you consistently find they are too bassy / bass-light you need to work harder on your monitor set-up.
Once you have all your songs sounding as good as you can get them on other people's systems use your mastering tools to even them out with each other, so there aren't any dramatic differences in volume or brightness between numbers.
Until you reach the stage where your mixes sound pretty much as you remembered them no matter what sytem you play them on, the mastering tools you have already are more than good enough IMO.
Using presets for mastering is a really bad idea for a start.. the whole point is to correct the specific problems with that recording, and to match it others that will follow it on the CD. You can't do that by blindly applying the same presets all the time.
My advice would be this: Save your money up for better monitors (these will make mixing a lot easier too) and work on optimising your room layout to get the vest possible sound from what you have.
Now, the mastering approach I would recomend is this: mix your track as best you can, and master it with nothing more than a limiter just to shave the loudest peaks. Now burn that to CD and play it on every sytem you can get your hands on: your dads stereo, your sister's ghetto blaster, your mate's stereo, your mates car system etc.. if you hear the same things wrong on several systems, go back to your mix to correct them!
If you consistently find they are too bassy / bass-light you need to work harder on your monitor set-up.
Once you have all your songs sounding as good as you can get them on other people's systems use your mastering tools to even them out with each other, so there aren't any dramatic differences in volume or brightness between numbers.
Until you reach the stage where your mixes sound pretty much as you remembered them no matter what sytem you play them on, the mastering tools you have already are more than good enough IMO.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 6490 posts since 14 Jun, 2004 from Rochester, NY
i just dont get it because sometimes people post stuff they got "mastered" by some people and it sounds so much less lively than their original mixes. It's like... I'm going to be doing some "post-processing mastering" for some kids for money and I just want to be sure I'm not going to screw it up
RoNC
RoNC
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- The Teach
- 8273 posts since 23 Jul, 2002 from flatness
i think ron (as many of us jack-of-all-trades do) doesnt mean mastering in the preparing for CD or vinyl pressing sense (ie - when you ARE trying to get a disparate set of tracks to sit in the same volume and frequency context) when youre right - you would need to treat every individual track in its own right ...
... im guessing what hes talking about is better called post-mixing or pre-mastering ... where youre arrangement is done ... youre happy with your mix ... ready to render a 'final' version ... and want to add some 'sparkle' or 'polish' to the track as a whole ...
slainte
rob
... im guessing what hes talking about is better called post-mixing or pre-mastering ... where youre arrangement is done ... youre happy with your mix ... ready to render a 'final' version ... and want to add some 'sparkle' or 'polish' to the track as a whole ...
slainte
rob-
- KVRAF
- 3345 posts since 8 Nov, 2003 from Amsterdam
This is scary, like Rob reading Ron's mind...
Ron, not to piss you off, I really like what you're doing, but... in a way it's funny that you're making money with mastering / audio processing and apparently still are finding out what to do.
--HansM
Ron, not to piss you off, I really like what you're doing, but... in a way it's funny that you're making money with mastering / audio processing and apparently still are finding out what to do.
--HansM
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- KVRAF
- 6740 posts since 25 Mar, 2002 from sheffield, england
My points still apply. You need to know that you are actually improving the recording, not just correcting the deficiencies of your speakers / room.
My advice is this case would be: don't do anything without knowing why you are doing it.
Eg: if you apply a compressor or limiter, be sure it is because the average level is actually too low, not because "everyone always uses a limiter when mastering"
Likewise if you use EQ, trust your ears and correct problems that you hear: you will need to use all your knowledge of how well recorded pro-mixes sound on your system, and adjust the eq to suit. Don't just apply a preset that has a likely sounding name.
If in doubt about a process, leave it off.
this is the link I usually give people on the subject, but it seems to be down atm. However if you really want to get into mastering I highly recommend Bob Katz's book "Mastering Audio": it would be a wiser use of your cash atm than Ozone et al IMO, especially as you have Final Mix already..
My advice is this case would be: don't do anything without knowing why you are doing it.
Eg: if you apply a compressor or limiter, be sure it is because the average level is actually too low, not because "everyone always uses a limiter when mastering"
Likewise if you use EQ, trust your ears and correct problems that you hear: you will need to use all your knowledge of how well recorded pro-mixes sound on your system, and adjust the eq to suit. Don't just apply a preset that has a likely sounding name.
If in doubt about a process, leave it off.
this is the link I usually give people on the subject, but it seems to be down atm. However if you really want to get into mastering I highly recommend Bob Katz's book "Mastering Audio": it would be a wiser use of your cash atm than Ozone et al IMO, especially as you have Final Mix already..
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- KVRian
- 1045 posts since 23 Jul, 2001 from Jersey Is Where America's At
Ok, while I agree that mastering yourself is a bad idea, I don't think it's a bad idea if it's for what most of us do, when we're making a CD for ourselves in the car or for our friends. That being said, keep in mind that every single time I've worked on something that was getting a professional release I've had the stuff go out and get mastered professionally. I want that other set of ears there, and know that there are people far more trained for mastering than myself. The only problem is that who the mastering engineer is ends up usually being up to the band/label, and a few times I've had things come back sounding worse than they left, knowing I could have done a better job. One master was so over compressed it actually pulled a lot of important guitar lines down and come back with audible pumping (of course the band didn't hear these things and was pretty happy, soo...).
That being said, I'm a lot bigger on using independant plugs when mastering stuff for myself than any suite. Ozone has a very distinct sound to it, that I thnk sounds quite artificial even when I'm not using presets. Instead I opt for plug-ins like Elemental Audio's Firium or sometimes PSP's MasterQ depending on how much color I want in an EQ. Sometimes I'll use gently use Kjaerhus' GPP-1 to smooth out some peaks and get a little extra volume before using something like TLS Maximizer (or a very nice master limiter I'm beta testing right now). If I need stereo widening PSP's Stereo Controller does the job. If I need a multiband compressor, well, I'll go in and fix the mix, but if I really needed one, I'd use one. I think the trick to getting pretty good sounding masters at home is to be flexible in your tools, have good mixing skills, and knowing your monitors. I personally wouldn't recomend Ozone, but that's not to say you couldn't get great masters out of it, or couldn't just use bits and pieces of it in your mastering chain. But I still prefer to try and use the best plug-ins I can find instead of looking for an all in one solution.
BTW if I didn't have Firium and wasn't beta testing this new limiter (which I love as of the newest beta), I'd look into Voxengo's CurveEQ and Elephant 2. You'd probably be able to get really good masters at home with just these two plug-ins and it'd be cheaper than buying Ozone. RPC9943's smart in looking for options and alternatives as opposed to an all in one solution. And while a good mastering engineer can really make a mix come to life in ways most of us around here can't, if your looking to just level out some mixes of yours for personal use (i.e. not for a pro release) I don't see the problem at all in trying to master at home. Once you learn to identify problems in the masters, you'll actually learn to train your ears and mix better to begin with.
That being said, I'm a lot bigger on using independant plugs when mastering stuff for myself than any suite. Ozone has a very distinct sound to it, that I thnk sounds quite artificial even when I'm not using presets. Instead I opt for plug-ins like Elemental Audio's Firium or sometimes PSP's MasterQ depending on how much color I want in an EQ. Sometimes I'll use gently use Kjaerhus' GPP-1 to smooth out some peaks and get a little extra volume before using something like TLS Maximizer (or a very nice master limiter I'm beta testing right now). If I need stereo widening PSP's Stereo Controller does the job. If I need a multiband compressor, well, I'll go in and fix the mix, but if I really needed one, I'd use one. I think the trick to getting pretty good sounding masters at home is to be flexible in your tools, have good mixing skills, and knowing your monitors. I personally wouldn't recomend Ozone, but that's not to say you couldn't get great masters out of it, or couldn't just use bits and pieces of it in your mastering chain. But I still prefer to try and use the best plug-ins I can find instead of looking for an all in one solution.
BTW if I didn't have Firium and wasn't beta testing this new limiter (which I love as of the newest beta), I'd look into Voxengo's CurveEQ and Elephant 2. You'd probably be able to get really good masters at home with just these two plug-ins and it'd be cheaper than buying Ozone. RPC9943's smart in looking for options and alternatives as opposed to an all in one solution. And while a good mastering engineer can really make a mix come to life in ways most of us around here can't, if your looking to just level out some mixes of yours for personal use (i.e. not for a pro release) I don't see the problem at all in trying to master at home. Once you learn to identify problems in the masters, you'll actually learn to train your ears and mix better to begin with.
I'm sorry this post wasn't about techno.
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- KVRAF
- 2277 posts since 2 Dec, 2003
Buyware I love the Ozone, freeware, I love the Endomorphin, and other things:
http://jackdark.proboards39.com/index.c ... 1106143952
http://jackdark.proboards39.com/index.c ... 1106143952