Mastering was rightly regarded as an arcane, mystifying art. Few musicians had access to the high-end, expensive tools needed to do mastering, nor did they have the experience of someone who had listened to thousands of recordings, and knew how to make them ready for the real world.
Today, the tools for quality mastering are finally within the financial and technical reach of anyone who's serious about recording. But 95 percent of mastering is not in the tools — it's in the ears. Unless you have the ears of a mastering engineer, you can't expect any plug-in to provide them for you.
Besides, much of the point of using a mastering engineer is to bring in an objective set of ears to make any needed changes prior to release.
This buss in Steinberg's Cubase SX is dedicated to mastering effects. As shown in the routing view of the inserts, the EQ1 equaliser plug-in goes before the L1 limiter; after the fader shown in white comes the Double Delay and the UV22HR dithering plug-in.
This means that the level control won't cut off the reverb tail or interfere with the dithering. So does this mean only experts should attempt to do mastering? Firstly, not all mastering situations require a professional's touch. Maybe you have a live recording that you want to give to friends or sell at gigs. Sure, you can just duplicate the mixes, but a mastered 'veneer' will give your listeners a better experience.
Or perhaps you've recorded several tunes and want to test how they flow together as an album. Why not master it yourself? After you've sorted out the order and such, you can always take the individual mixes to a pro mastering engineer.
And when you do, you'll be able to talk about what you want in more educated terms, because you're more familiar with the process, and you'll have listened to your work with mastering in mind.
Besides, the only way to get good at anything is practice. For years, I used only professional mastering engineers; I would never have dreamed of doing mastering myself. But I learned a lot from observing them, started mastering my own material, and now people hire me to master their recordings because they like the results I get. Still, if you have any doubts whatsoever about your abilities, seek out a professional who can present your music in the best possible light. These offer good navigation facilities, the ability to zoom in on waveforms, pencil tools to draw out clicks, and plug-ins for mastering tasks along with the ability to host third-party plug-ins.
However, if your requirements aren't too demanding, there are several ways to master using conventional multitrack recording programs. And, interestingly, some can even do tricks conventional digital audio editors can't.
The mastering process should actually begin with mixing, as there are several steps you can take while mixing to make for easier mastering. You should do these whether you plan to master material yourself, or hand your project to a mastering engineer. If you recorded your music in high-resolution audio, then mix as high-resolution files.
Maintain the higher resolution throughout the mastering process, and only dither down to bit at the very end, when you're about to create CDs. Do not dither individual mixes, and don't add any fades while mixing — fades and crossfades should be done while mastering, when you have a better sense of the ideal fade time. Normalising a track before you master it is not necessarily a good idea — the extra processing will slightly degrade the sound, and you'll probably need to adjust levels between the different tracks at a later stage anyway.
As for trimming the starts and ends of tracks, with some music you may decide it's better to have a little room noise between cuts rather than dead silence, or to leave a few milliseconds of anticipatory space before the first note to avoid too abrupt a transition from silence to music. Another consideration involves the possible need for noise reduction.
Sometimes there may be a slight hiss, hum, or other constant noise at a very low level. If you can obtain a clean sample of this sound, it can be loaded into a noise-reduction program that mathematically subtracts the noise from the track. Even if this noise is way down in level, removing it can improve the sound in a subtle way by opening up the sound stage and improving stereo separation.
Don't add any processing to the overall mix, just to individual channels. Processing completed mixes is best left for mastering. As you mix, you should also watch closely for distortion — a few overloads may not be audible as you listen to the mix, but may be accentuated if you add EQ or limiting while mastering. It's better to concede a few decibels of headroom rather than risk distortion. It's not necessarily a good idea to add normalisation, as that means another stage of DSP which may degrade the sound, however slightly — and you may need to change the overall level anyway when assembling all the mixes into a finished album.
Finally, always back up your original mixed files prior to mastering. If the song is later remastered for any reason — for a high-resolution re-release, a compilation, or for use in any other context — you'll want a mix that's as easy to remaster as possible.
Photo: Mark Ewing As a final reality check, switch the master buss output to mono and make sure that there's no weakening or thinning out of the sound.
At the mastering stage, there isn't much you can do to fix this; you'll need to go back to the mix and analyse the individual tracks to see where the problem resides. Typical culprits include effects that alter phase to create a super-wide stereo spread, but problems can also occur when miking an instrument with two mics spaced at different distances from the source.
You can always try flipping the phase of one channel, and if that fixes the phase issues, great. But the odds are against that doing any good. In any event, don't forget to switch the bussing back to stereo when exporting the file or burning a CD! With digital audio editors, you are always working off-line with a previously mixed file. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. The process of mixing is daunting enough without throwing mastering into the equation; however, mastering while you mix means you know exactly what the final version will sound like.
But remember that a huge part of conventional mastering is about involving someone who can be more objective about what needs to be done with your music. Unless that person can sit in on the mix and adjust the mastering processors, you're better off giving them your files and some space to do their job right.
Automation envelopes can reduce the odd rogue signal peak, thus opening up more headroom and allowing a hotter sound without you having to use as much dynamics processing. If you decide to master as you mix, you'll be putting your mastering processors in busses. This is because when you create a non-surround multitrack project, eventually all the tracks are going to dump through a mixer into a master stereo output buss. As with individual channels, this should have provisions for adding plug-in effects.
How effects are accommodated depends on the program; for example, with Cakewalk Sonar, the busses have standard effects slots, just like tracks. But Steinberg's Cubase SX has a few extra touches: both pre-fader and post-fader slots for effects, as well as excellent dithering algorithms for cutting your high-resolution audio down to a lower bit resolution. If a program doesn't include an effects slot after the main output level control, you may be able to feed one buss into another to achieve a similar signal chain — insert the effect into the second buss, and control overall level at the output of the first buss.
Once your plug-in effects have been added and edited as desired, you have three main options to create a mastered file:. Of course, if you choose to do real-time mastering, you'd better get things right the first time, because if you want to make any changes later you won't be working with the raw mix file.
For example, if you decide there's too much multi-band compression, you won't be able to undo this, and neither will any mastering engineer; you'll have to do another mix. There are some superb hardware outboard mastering tools, both analogue and digital, that you may prefer to plug-ins with similar functionality. If your multitrack host has an audio interface with multiple outputs, there's no reason why you can't use them. Martin Walker wrote a lengthy article on using outboard gear with computer workstations in the SOS March , but the basic idea is that you send the mix buss to a hardware output on your audio interface, process the signal with the hardware processor, then blast the audio back into the computer's audio interface inputs.
Once you've selected the appropriate inputs within your recording software, you can record the processed results and then replace the original mix with the processed version. For most mastering tasks, a multi-band dynamics plug-in such as Waves C4 bottom will achieve the most transparent results, but that doesn't mean that you can't use a full-band compressor such as Universal Audio's SE top if you're after a more vintage 'pumping' sound.
There is another technique which makes a compromise between mastering as you mix and mastering off-line. After having a song mastered, you'll sometimes wish you had mixed the song a little differently, because mastering brings out some elements that might have been less obvious while mixing. For example, it's not uncommon to find out when compressing at the mastering stage that the mix changes subtly, requiring you to go back and do a quick remix another reason why mix automation is so useful.
So, to create a more mastering-friendly mix, consider adding some multi-band compression and overall EQ usually a little more high-end 'air' and some tweaks in the bass in the master buss to create a more 'mastered' sound. From demos for collaborators to distribution-ready releases, Master as many tracks as you want without fear of paywalls.
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Luckily, the DAWs below were built with mastering in mind, offering many features that so many others do not. One of its most revered features is its object-based approach to editing.
Objects are made when audio is split up in Sequoia. Objects can be made as many times as you like and are able to be moved around within the tracks. Since objects are independent of one another, fades, effects, and routing can be done on a per-object basis.
This allows for great flexibility and the ability to make small changes to small sections of your track. Adjustments can be made to hear how your track will hold up against different requirements such as Mastered for iTunes.
The spectral editing abilities in Sequoia come with useful features like switchable display type linear or logarithmic and threshold range editing. Spectral editing in mastering can be great for cleaning up unwanted noise across small or large spans of time. Magix has improved their spectral editing abilities over time using features from their restoration software Spectralayers to add to the abilities of Sequoia over time. If your project workflow requires the most advanced toolset with access to useful features like codec previewing, batch processing, and advanced spectral editing, Sequoia is a great choice.
When people think Steinberg, they often do not think about WaveLab first. WaveLab, like many mastering DAWs, is a very specialized program that uses an interface unlike most other software. Its feature set is built around mastering, but also includes tools that make it useful for journalists doing audio interviews, post-production houses, and restoration.
WaveLab features a bit audio engine that supports bit audio with sample rates up to kHz. This makes WaveLab a great option for those after the most precise, high-quality products. Pair this with an extensive set of analysis tools and you will be sure that your audio is exactly how you need it to be every time. The spectral editing function in WaveLab has been redesigned for version 9.
This mode allows for a more accurate display of your audio through pitch scaling. Wavelet Display shows more frequencies in the low end of your audio and more time in the high end to bolster your confidence in making edits across these areas. Steinberg even took it upon themselves to add inpainting technology to their spectrum editor.
This technology allows WaveLab to replace noise in your tracks with relevant frequencies by analyzing audio before and after the region you are editing. WaveLab also provides mastering engineers with a plethora of tools for finalizing a master. Effects can be applied to individual tracks or via the master section to make sure your entire project maintains consistency.
Gaps between tracks, CD text, fades, and more can be added in the Audio Montage section. DDP export is available via WaveLab as well, giving you the option to provide them to your clients.
For a great DAW centered around mastering, WaveLab will give you everything you need and more to give your tracks the polish they need. To start, Pyramix was designed for use by professionals. It is safe to say that all of the DAWs on this list were designed with the same thing in mind, but Pyramix does not cater to beginning engineers.
Featuring advanced editing tools, professional-grade metering, and up to recording tracks at a time, Pyramix is ready to handle any project you throw its way. For mastering, there are innovate plugins such as the 3D Workflows Suite. This suite allows you to natively mix for all sorts of complex speaker layouts to make sure your masters will translate to any system.
In terms of mastering, metadata, high-quality sample rate conversion, and file types become very important. Pyramix offers all of these tools. This provides a sample rate of up to , kHz for incredible recordings and stunning results when using hybrid workflows.
While Merging Technologies built a DAW for the ultimate quality, its learning curve may worry some users. If you need the tools for the most critical mastering tasks, the learning curve will be worth it. Pyramix has you covered.
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