Problem is with ease of tech tools, reaper and sub projects etc. had none of that going on and still survives the test of time. Most of my favourite music - 50s 60s etc. If i limit/loudness target the fudge out it, entire point of the music is lost. i appreciate a client would expect that to compete, so can't be helped, but for my own material, low priority.Į.g current tune that is entering mastering phase, entirely designed to start quiet and build slowly. Lastly for me would be any loudness targetting. Next would be the media specific tweaks - vinyl optimised, etc. Optional stage 2 is more 'taste aspects' of character/colour - if you want to sound tubey or tapey or gritty etc. Indeed - my view of mastering these days is primarily for 'translation' - if mix translates well everywhere that is well mastered imo - that 99% of the job done. Best we can do is to make educated guesses. Check the mixes on every system you can get your hands on. It's not something you should be blase about, or dismiss the skill and art involved. They probably suck, but whatever - I tried really, really hard! lol! I'm by no means a real mastering engineer myself, but I have mastered a few things that are out there being sold on a small scale. Heck, most people can't even master a mix so that it survives an mp3 conversion without it sucking ass. Just cause your mix sounds fucking sweet in your studio monitors doesn't mean you can normalize it to a certain LUFUS target and call it commercial release ready. Mastering certainly is not dead - look, a good mastering engineer can make a mix sound good on earbuds or some crappy laptop speakers, and also sound nice on a home audiophile setup. If your mixes sound good already, go for the LUFS. Mastering as a craft died in the 2000s and is now redundant. And especially since the Broadcast Standards killed the annoying Loudness Warriors. Unfortunately, nowadays mastering is not as much "sound" as it is opti-/customization for different medias. That way, when we send a link to someone for a potential gig, they can press play and get the idea without it sounding like it's in a tin can at a really low level. All we want to do with this band's recordings is get a decent representation of the sound. So I need to emphasize that point: I am just getting some demos put together. While this may not be true mastering it works for getting a decent sound level for demos I have done. These tips (and some light experimenting on my part)have given me good results in the past with just general rock & roll or light acoustic songs. Then JS:Loser/MGA_JSLimiterST - put stereo link 0, release at 100, then start pulling down threshold until it's loud enough for your taste. Then ReaXComp, maybe start with preset "griz:Supersolid bass, nice opto mids", and experiment. Try ReaEQ and put bands 1,2 & 3 40hz, make all of them high pass (makes a sharper curve). I had found the following advice in an old Reaper thread: That's why I put the 'kind of' disclaimer in my original post. I have to admit that I am one of those people who doesn't really know all that mastering entails. Since vinyl is now very popular people are starting to criticise metal music for being too fatiguing on the ears because of extreme limiting, so I try not to overdo the limiting but at the same time you want the material to sound powerful. There's no bunch of presets or set ways to make a better master. I'll do whatever sounds necessary to improve the overall sound. I mix and master my own music because I don't usually get into trouble with inconsistencies between tracks. He really got all the songs sounding much more similar and everything sounded just right. He had a professional mastering engineer do the final master and he did a much better job of it than I would have. I mixed a friends EP over several years and many of the songs started to sound different because of different guitar tones etc Even though the same mix template was used for the duration. It's about finialising the album as a whole. I think a lot of people who do mixing are not that clued up about what mastering really entails. I work pretty much exclusively deal with death, black and heavy metal material.
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