Old 11-19-2018, 03:04 AM   #1
Beemysch
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Default Prepare the mix for mastering

First of all: I´m relatively new to mixing and mastering; I´m a total beginner!!!

How do you prepare your mixes for mastering?

Do you mix and master in the same project?
Do you render the mix and load it into an new project? What are the best settings for doing so?

Why are so many rendering the mix out to master it seperately. In my mind it doesn´t make sense... Is it just because of CPU issues (i.e. too many plugins in the mix causing the master+plugins to stutter/crash)?

Till this point I never ran into hardware issues and like the possibility of tweaking the mix a little bit more after applying everything to the masterchannel!

My workflow:
I use a template, where I have bus channels for every used input (guitar, vocals, bass, etc.). On the bus channels and on the mastermix, I have some plugins I use everytime (Some sort of EQ, Limiter, Compressor). These plugins are deactivated by default in my template. I set everything up (volume, pan, etc.) and start to apply the plugins per channel and/or bus. After the Channels are set up to my liking, I start to apply and setup the mastermix plugins.

Is there anything wrong in my workflow?

B

Last edited by Beemysch; 11-19-2018 at 03:19 AM. Reason: workflow
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Old 11-19-2018, 10:51 AM   #2
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It depends on who you ask/who is answering. There is nothing exactly wrong with that method, in fact that's the way I do my mix/mastering now. Previously it was not possible due to CPU power, but now I don't have that issue so I prefer to have everything in the same project if I can.

Traditionally, one would mix the song and send to someone else for mastering. Many will tell you 1) don't combine mixing and mastering projects, and 2) don't master your own stuff. This is to keep objectivity in your project, and can help the overall process when the stages are separated (some can get in the conundrum of fixing a master by fixing the mix, fixing the mix by fixing the master, endless loop etc).

As for settings, just make sure you keep your sample rate and bit depth as high as possible until your final final final export...no matter what method you choose.
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Old 11-19-2018, 11:11 AM   #3
ashcat_lt
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If it's really just about one song, I often add my "mastering" chain right in the mix project. Usually right toward the end of the process, when it's pretty close to finished. Then I'll maybe tweak a few things and render the final master right from there.

When I'm doing something more like an album with multiple songs from multiple projects where mastering is more about getting the various pieces to sound like a choesive whole, it becomes a lot easier to render each mix and bring them into a mastering project where you can lay them out for proper spacing, add maybe a bit of individual processing, and then into the final mastering processing. A lot of times I do will add a mastering chain to the individual projects toward the end of the mix process to see approximately what it will do, but then I bypass those FX before I render it for mastering.

Any time you Render (freeze, apply FX...) anything that's not your final distribution file - anything you might change at all even by a tiny gain change - you should render to floating point .wav. I tend to keep the same sampling rate from beginning to end, but if you're recording and mixing at higher rates it's probably best to leave it there again until you're doing the actual final master production render.
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Old 11-20-2018, 11:09 AM   #4
Beemysch
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Thanks for the replies.
I think I will start rendering the mixes of my songs, just for backup purposes.
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Old 11-28-2018, 02:37 PM   #5
Jimmy James
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Beemysch View Post
First of all: I´m relatively new to mixing and mastering; I´m a total beginner!!!

How do you prepare your mixes for mastering?

Do you mix and master in the same project?
Do you render the mix and load it into an new project? What are the best settings for doing so?

Why are so many rendering the mix out to master it seperately. In my mind it doesn´t make sense... Is it just because of CPU issues (i.e. too many plugins in the mix causing the master+plugins to stutter/crash)?

Till this point I never ran into hardware issues and like the possibility of tweaking the mix a little bit more after applying everything to the masterchannel!

My workflow:
I use a template, where I have bus channels for every used input (guitar, vocals, bass, etc.). On the bus channels and on the mastermix, I have some plugins I use everytime (Some sort of EQ, Limiter, Compressor). These plugins are deactivated by default in my template. I set everything up (volume, pan, etc.) and start to apply the plugins per channel and/or bus. After the Channels are set up to my liking, I start to apply and setup the mastermix plugins.

Is there anything wrong in my workflow?

B
I just finished a 14 song album. I mixed the album and they wanted me to master it as well. It was the first Master I have done in Reaper (I use to use other DAWs).

I thought long and hard and did some experiments, and for me, this is what I found the easiest, with the smoothest workflow.

I opened the Mix (which had nothing on the Master Buss) and I made sure I had -18rms of headroom.

Auditioned several compressors (all the standards for mastering). And I landed on Waves Renaissance Stereo Compressor. I did not think that this would win me over all the "mastering" compressors, but it did.
I also selected the Focusrite Red Compressor, it edged the Waves out on 2 songs that were much different than the others. And so now I had 2 compressors to select for each song.

I compressed each song and dropped the mvMeter2 behind the comp set to -18 rms. Compressing the mix can sometimes make something a little to loud and I only made very subtle tweaks to the mix.

I then rendered each song out into a folder called "This Bands Name WAV renders".


I started a new project, imported all the rendered in album order. I drug each song so it would play one after the other. Now I can trim the beginning and end. Fade in/out, etc.

With intros and outros all tight and ready. I could now add EQ. And I can still compare each song to each other to get a steady EQ across the board. I used a EQ for each song as well so I could really make the Master EQ tight with each other.

Then I used a Soft Clipper and Limiter. And then rendered them out with dithering to cd quality ready to press.

It was the smoothest this had gone for me. And I can't imagine myself not following the recipe from here out.
Make sure you also don't have you latency at 2ms or something. For this process I was at 40ms I think. Doing the comp on the mix first, let me make subtle tweaks. Then bringing the songs back in gave me super low cpu usage to finish out the master.

T-Racks 5 Deluxe has 2 plugins that are new, and VERY cool! The plugin called "One" and "Master Match". I didn't use "one" on this last master, but I could see how it could be leaned on a lot.

But Master Match? That thing is magic, and don't let anyone tell you different. You can choose a song you like the mastering sonic qualities of, load it into Master Match, and it will make your song match sonically to the song you selected.

So you can also EQ one of your songs for the album, then use Master Match to match the rest of the songs. Maybe a touch up hear and there. And BLAM, you have just EQ'd like a BOSS! And it will sound consistent across the entire album.

It can also match Volume, so if you like the volume of the song you load. you can use this to see where you are.
They don't tell you this up front, but there is a hidden Limiter inside of the Master Match EQ that they use to do the Volume matching. In the past, when I have tried other products that said to do what this thing does, I thought they were Junk. But Master Match, its gonna make a lot of Mastering Engineers mad......

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/product...pkey=tr5deluxe
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Old 11-28-2018, 02:40 PM   #6
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p.s. Live and Die by -18 rms. Plenty of great VU meters out there. I prefer mvMeter 2, its free, and I can set it to anything I want. You only have to load 1 plugins and it does mono and stereo both. And you can set it to -18rms.
Gain stage all your tracks to -18rms before you mix. Then drop the mvMeter2 on your master buss, gain stage it to -18rms. If you live and die by -18, your mixes will sound better and mastering your stuff will be so much easier.
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