Hot answers tagged mastering
12
There are a few misconceptions here. Normalization, in the most basic sense, raises the gain of the ENTIRE track to a nominal level. What you are trying to do with normalization is maximize signal. The relative dynamics of the track are not changed. There are actually two types of normalization, but the most common is peak normalization, where the loudest ...
7
There are two questions here that I think should be addressed separately:
Question 1: "is this a bad method of practice?"
As I understand it, the reason it's considered "better" to compress individual tracks and not the master bus is because you have a finer degree of control, especially in today's digital world where you could instance a compressor on ...
5
The process you're describing is broadly known as mixing, and there are a few basic parts to it:
Setting volume levels appropriately using track levels and equalizers
Moving the sounds left and right in the stereo field (known as panning)
Moving the sounds "forward" and "backward" in the mix, generally done using a reverberation effect
Getting a good ...
3
There is Peak normalization and Loudness normalization, not sure which one this is, you might want to check the manual.
Peak normalization simply changes the volume of the entire song, this will also amplify quiet stuff too. If you do it on a classical symphony track you will hear the sniffs and AC of the concert hall louder.
Loudness normalization will ...
3
Yes and yes! Unless you know that your music will be played on equipment that can reproduce those subsonic vibrations, you should remove them. Otherwise, they are just eating up space in your mix.
It can also help to remove audible low frequencies. It seems counterintuitive, but a kick drum often sounds better if you cut out some of the lower frequencies. ...
3
From the individuals I know in this space, I understand there is an element of side-chaining which is utilised in many high end games, but apparently an equally important aspect is in composing your score to include multiple paths:
I haven't got the right terminology for this, but effectively what they do is use side-chaining to reduce the volume of the ...
2
Interesting reading on the subject: LucasArts patented the iMUSE (Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine) in the early 90s, which was a (genius) musical system that transitioned between music as the player transitioned between scenes.
Essentially, when the player chose to move from one scene to another, certain instruments would fade out, and new ones (with a ...
2
A good track starts with a good mix. A good mix is needed before any mastering is done on it. The 'dull soft' sound is due to a number of factors and you have mentioned most of them (eq, compression, stereo spread, saturation and volume). As each sound in your mix is different, there are no hard rules to getting this sounding 'bigger'. Different parts of the ...
1
Dull and muffled sounds to me like frequency space. That is, there aren't high frequencies where you would expect them. The low frequencies are lacking, etc... Within Reason, that is probably an issue with EQing.
The volume issue is likely related to something called gain structuring. Imagine, instead of Reason, you actually had all of that outboard ...
1
It's definitely bad if ultra-low frequencies take away a significant amount of the power from the rest of the mix. However, that only happens if they are in fact as loud, or louder. If these frequencies fit in principle well in your material (i.e. not just rumble, but nice rythmic sub-punch) you should not kill them completely, rather just push them well ...
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