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Old 02-27-2015, 07:28 AM   #49
Fergler
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Let me explain in simple terms the points of contention here.

1. You asked a bunch of questions in reply to my rough mastering 'template' and suggested questions, which SaulT answered (which is perfectly fine, this is a public forum, he's allowed to do that.. and FWIW, he said what I woulda said and probably in less words).

So to elaborate: I mentioned Kanaka because M/S is a very common approach to fixing issues in a stereo mix. Let's say that once you have all your albums songs together you decide that song #4 isn't as bright in the far left and right (cymbals and guitars, for e.g.) than your other material. With a regular EQ this is difficult to address.

A M/S EQ allows you to bring up just the content on the sides or mids independently, so you can for e.g. make a high shelf in ReaEQ, untick the Left input and output in the Routing Pin window (L=M, R=S, when working in mid/side) and now only that content will be affected.

As for what those plugins I mentioned are for...
Dithering: conversion to a bit rate for a final medium. For e.g. you are normally working in 24bit and dithering to 16bit is necessary for the best quality audio at 16bit (which is what CDs use).

I mentioned the limiters for getting a louder mix by shaving off around 1-2db at most of the highest peaks. May or may not be necessary for some of your punchier songs once you have all your albums songs together.

3. And this is the big one. You keep asking for 'how to master in Reaper' tutorial. There isn't one. There doesn't need to be one. Mastering is a concept completely independent of DAW. Just the fact that you don't know what dithering, M/S technique, or multiband compression is tells me you probably don't understand the concept of mastering and/or the different types of plugins available to you.

There are a fairly limited number of plugin types for compressors and EQs. For your benefit, here is a list which you can google and learn. Most articles you will find will probably be from SoundOnSound, which is a great resource:

Compressor ('fullband', or 'wideband': e.g. ReaComp)
Multiband Compressor (e.g. ReaXComp, Waves C6)

Linear Phase Equalizer
Zero-latency Equalizer
Minimum Phase Equalizer
Dynamic Equalizer (very similar to Multiband Compressor but usually more control over Q size of individual bands and more often work both positively and negatively)

Back to Reaper. With a full understanding of the stock plugins (which all DAWs, even Audacity, have a fairly wide breadth of but they all do the same thing) you can approach any DAW with the same concept in mind for mastering. But without understanding what mastering is, none of these plugins will help you. Mastering does not mean putting effect on your master channel of the mix or on a rendered track with no purpose. It also doesn't say anywhere that you must-must-must use rendered tracks to do mastering. If you have access to the mixes, and once you have all your albums songs together, you can master by adjusting the elements of each mix in context to each other, for e.g. if you are trying to make an acoustic 90bpm song feel like its on the same album as the 125bpm rock slammer right next to it, you might open both projects in Reaper tabs and make adjustments to each while jumping back and forth.

The end result is the same and in fact if you have access to the mix, it's a much better result.

You may notice though I've been stressing "once you have all your albums songs together". I can't say this enough times. Mastering is a concept applied to an album. There's nothing wrong with some master track compression and EQ in your mix, but that's part of the mix. Don't confuse this with mastering.
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