mastering

[columbo]

hi,

can anyone give me a general view on how to master a track using pro tools. i've never mastered a track before and i'd like to know how to go about doing so

thanks.

[spkguitar]

Mastering articles at The Project Studio Handbook










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[dmm]

hi,

can anyone give me a general view on how to master a track using pro tools. i've never mastered a track before and i'd like to know how to go about doing so

thanks.

There is a prevous post that Mr Cavell made on the DUC that should help...........?

err....I mean Chris Cavell is the man!!!!!




Create a master fader.
With nothing on the master fader, play the track through once all the way. If the master fader clip indicator lights up, lower the master fader 6dB, repeat this until it doesn't light the clip indicator. If it doesn't light up on the first pass, control click the fader level indicator (the number just below the fader) one time to switch to a peak level indicator, play the tune through, and raise the master fader until the peak level is somewhere b/w -6 and 0, but doesn't clip at all.
After you've done this, your master fader is set, don't move it again unless you change the mix.

If you're sending it to an ME, the process ends there...just bounce it down to 24 bit at the same sample rate as the session and send the ME the data files.

If you're self mastering, I highly suggest bouncing to the highest sample rate you can work with up to 96k...there's no benefit beyond 96k. The reason for doing this is not that it'll make your bounce sound any different (it won't), but is a result of the sonic benefit to digital signal processing at higher sample rates (particularly EQ). Most people who self-master are stuck "in the box" and their results will often benefit greatly by working at 96k in the mastering stage.

Hook up a new/different set of monitors than the ones you used for mixing.

Create a new 96k 24 bit session. Import the file to be mastered. Create a master fader and an audio track. Place the tune on the audio track, and set both faders for unity.

Listen to the tune, determine what it needs, and process as needed. If you're self mastering, you probably have no need for a low cut or any need to visit width, panning, or phase issues, or even corrective eq or noise reduction...you can revisit the mix to take care of all of these problems. If the tune isn't wide enough (or too wide, often a problem in the low frequencies), adjust your panning in the mix...if you need a hi-pass, do it in the session b/c you can, etc.

Once you've taken care of all of those issues, mastering is fairly straight forward and simple:

Edit your start and end times. (if doing this in pro tools, turn on dither on fades in your preferences, but disable the noise shaping)

The rest (up to the next bounce) is ONLY IF NEEDED and very general in scope...every project differs in it's specific needs and requirements. I'm leaving out ALL of the more technical techniques employed in mastering because you should revisit the mix to take care of them at the source since you're self mastering!!!

Load a opto-style comp, medium-long attack and release times, low ratio of 2:1 or lower. Adjust the threshold for no more than around 3dB of reduction at most. This is a very slow smooth comp setting. What this will do is 1) let the loud transients through, preserving the mix (it doesn't squash/hide the snare for example), while 2) simultaneously smoothing out the frequency response of the program material (some call this "glueing" or "gelling" the tracks in everyday engineer-speak). Adjust the output level to ensure against clipping.

Once this is done, load a simple bass/treble tonal type of eq. Bass and treble controls should be shelves w/ a q just below 1 (if you can set that on your eq) set at 250 Hz and 4 kHz. This should be treated as a tonal/overall timbre eq. If you need more bass, boost it here. If you need more treble, boost it here. If you need more mids (or less mids), do it here by boosting/cutting the treble AND bass simultaneously by the same amounts. Again, adjust the output (sometimes you have to adjust input too depending upon how much headroom you left yourself) to prevent any clipping. (I suggest a linear phase eq for this part...there are a number of them out in the market now, but since we upsampled to 96k, it isn't absolutely necessary if you haven't got one.)

Follow this up with another compressor, similar to the first, but with a slightly quicker attack time (starting around 50 ms) and maybe a 3:1 compression ratio. For now, set your release fairly long, 300 to 500 ms to start. Set your threshold for around 3 to 6 dB of reduction as a reference, and tweak the attack time listening to how it affects your loud transients. Adjust it so it's effective but as transparent as possible (i.e, doesn't screw with the mix). Then adjust the release down listening carefully to the decay of your cymbals (or if the track doesn't have percussion, the decay of strummed guitar chords, or synth/organ notes that sustain through other transients. Bring it down to the point where it starts "pumping" those decays and then back off a bit. This comp will boost your rms somewhat...the goal is to do so as smoothly as possible while remaining faithful to the original mix. Again, adjust the output.

What comes next is the part that is absolutely detrimental to your original mix, but there is often no way around it: boosting perceived level...often dramatically.

At this point, you've probably already spent hours getting here...just in the number of times you've listened through the song. Take a couple days off and give your ears (and brain...as you'll find out when you try to get some sleep tonight that you can't get the song out of your head) a well deserved break.

There are two main ways of accomplishing this goal of loud levels: in one fell swoop, or in a multitude of small steps. Do both and compare which sounds best in the end for this song.

One fell swoop:
Throw on a fast limiter and smash away, or drive your converters to clipping (which sometimes sounds better believe it or not).

The multitude of small steps:
Load another comp, similar again to the others, but with an even faster attack and release, and an even higher ratio...set it up following the same procedure as the second comp observing b/w 3 to 5 dB reduction, boost the output level accordingly while careful not to clip. Repeat at nauseum (speeding up attack and realease and increasing ratio slightly each time) until you're only a couple or three dB away from your goal volume. Then throw on a limiter for the final few dB boost (or clip the converters).

A note, many of the "mastering" processors out there have the option of dither builtin to the plugin itself...make sure you have it turned OFF everywhere in this plugin chain so far.

Ahh...so you think you're done?...NOPE! There's much left to do...alot of it not involving your ears at all.

Now you have to bounce the beast getting it back to 44.1. To do this safely, you'll need to adjust the output so that your peaks have a little headroom, 0.5 dB is usually enough, but don't be surprised if you have to bounce it a second time leaving a few decimal places more headroom. (There are other ways of performing SRC, such as going out of the box analog into another DAW at your destination rate...but since this "little tutorial" is geared toward those completely stuck "in the box", I've decided left the multitude of possiblities regarding SRC out.)

Okay, bounce to disk, 44.1kHz, still 24 bit, and use the tweak head conversion algorithm. The pro tools tweak head algo is one of the finest on the market...to get something better will absolutely require spending a considerable amount of cash...which if you had at your disposal, you wouldn't be mastering this stuff yourself in the first place. (Which by the way, if you happen to have $600 laying around, or could have saved up that much by working during the time you spent self-mastering all 12 to 14 of the tracks on your album, you could have a had a very reputable pro mastering house take care of it for you in just a couple of days turnaround time!!!...phew..sorry, I digress...back to the topic...but email me off the board if you want the name of that facility)

Now you should have a mostly mastered 44.1k 24 bit track that hopefully sounds pretty darn good. Time for dithering. Make a new session (44.1 24 bit), create a master fader and audio track. Put the song onto the track. Pick your favorite dither algo, 16 bit with some type of noise shaping, and bounce. (If you haven't spent the time before now, go ahead and create a different bounce using every possible dither algo and setting at your disposal, including straight truncation, burn a quick disc, and see how each affects the sound of the end result. I bet you'll be surprised at what you hear. Some are better than others on different material, some drastically change the sound (UV22 anyone), and this test will help you in choosing the right dither for a particular work...not to mention the rest of the tracks going on this disc. I usually find Pow-R type 2 or 3 to be the best (most transparent and faithful to the 24 bit original) depending on the program material.)

Ahh...now you've got a single song done. Good for you. Do the rest of them now.

When you've finally got your hands on all the 44.1k 16 bit tracks for the disc....line em up and burn a quick temp reference. What's that? Yep, you're not done...upon your very first listening you've just discovered that from an artistic standpoint, track 3 is too loud compared to track 4...something must be done to make this musical transition more...well, musical.

That's right, take notes...revisit the mastering sessions and adjust accordingly. (You do want to do this right don't you?...well, no one said it was going to be easy...well, no one who knew what the heck they were talking about anyway...) Heck, you might even discover something within the tracks (production wise even) that necessitates revisiting the mix...forcing you to start all over again. Ugh... ("ugh" is really just a nice way of saying what's going through your head, possibly out of your mouth, when you reach this point: !#$%@#$%&^#%^#$!!!)

Ahh...now you've managed it...you've gotten all the tracks spot on...but wait, what this??? You're still not done!?? Yep, that's right...it isn't over yet. We've still got what many ME's consider to be the most crucial steps in the process of mastering...and what many point out as the dividing line b/w the "pro's" and the 16 year old kid in a band with too much time and money on his hands who fancies himself an ME.

It's time to make the disc: the "replication ready master". Aye...therein lyes the rub..."What is the difference b/w that disc I just previewed in the car and a replication ready master?" you ask...more about that later, we're just getting started with disc authoring.

Okay...you've got your tracks, you've got a burning program...what's left? Hmmm...let's see...have you managed to get your ISRC registrant code yet? What's that...you haven't...better get on the ball young man...if you want to see any revenues from royalties collected specifically for you from that college radio station that fancies your musical endeavors. Do a search for ISRC here on the DUC and you'll probably find another lengthy post by yours truly containing all the details. Oh yeah...UPC codes too...hmmm...don't bother trying to get your own (although you could)...your replication facility can provide one for you, usually at no extra charge. You'll need one if you plan on any stores ever allowing you (and most will if you have a UPC) to stick your product on there shelves.

But, you just noticed that your burning software (or burner) doesn't allow you to encode ISRC metadata...oh well, time to go get a new burner and/or software. Well, you don't have to, the replication facility will be glad to encode this information for you after the fact, for a fee. If it's already present on the replication ready master however, keeping the info on the pressed disc if it was present in the replication ready master provided by the ME is usually free.

Okay...you're good then, right?...you've got your tracks, ISRC codes, you'll have the replication facility provide you with a UPC...what's left?

Oh yeah...you've got to author the disc...don't worry kids, you get to use your ears again. Yippee!!! It's about time, I could tell you were all getting tired of the technicalities in the previous couple of paragraphs. It's time to determine track spacing. Oh...so you think 2 second gaps across the board is fine...it might be, but you better take a close listen and make damn sure. Last thing you want is to give a listener a heart attack b/c you had a nice soft luvvyduvvy ballad end so calmingly only to be followed a few ultra-short moments later, not enough time for your listener to return to their "emotional" norm, before you blast them with that double kick screamer intro.

I can see it now on the front page of tomorrow's paper:
INDIE ARTIST'S MUSIC KILLS 16
Yesterday afternoon during the height of the rush-hour mad dash, Jonathan J. Pumpernickle III, 22, died at the wheel unexpectedy as a result of an undiagnosed heart condition while commuting back to his home in Lafayette from a long day of volunteer work on low income housing in the Baton Rouge area. According to his girlfriend, whose name we're not inventive enough this morning to protect with a suitably ridiculous pseudonym given the grief we all feel in light of what this tragedy led to in the coming moments, claims the incident coincided precisely with the transition from a very moving ballad into what has become known as the "loudest track in history" among recording engineers. The incident took place on the I-10 Atchafalaya Basin overpass, and consequently led to a 19 car pileup, including one 18 wheeler, which trying to avoid a collision, smashed through the barrier and landed on a pair of fisherman in a small boat bait fishing in the basin, killing all three instantly. A 10 mile stand-still traffic jam prevented emergency crew from reaching the site quickly enough. Several individuals involved in the pile-up died as a result, and an elderly couple without air-conditioning perished further down I-10 as a result of waiting patiently for traffic to flow on what turned out to be a record breaking high temperature day. By all accounts, all emergency personell hold the creator of this musical product solely responsible for this dark day.
A class action suit has been filed against the artist seeking 246 million dollars in damages for his negligent behavior in the production of this album. Participating in the suit are families of the victims, a number of individuals who were hospitalized and survived, as well as the DOTD for damages to the structure of the basin overpass.
The DOTD along with a number of emergency medical agencies, and various car, health, and life insurance companies across the nation are currently pushing for legislation to prevent such "reckless negligence in the production of music" from ever "rearing its ugly head again".
(other stories related to this incident, including eye-witness accounts and public pleas from various agencies promoting "responsibility in media production" can be found beginning on page 12B of this paper)
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.
.
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(Wow...I'm creative today...oh well...back to topic again)

You've checked your gaps, gotten your isrc codes squared away, etc.

Time to burn the replication master then. Yep, we're getting there, close to the end that is. First you need to get yourself some quality media to burn. I suggest Taiyo Yuden media. So, you burn the disc. What now? "We're not done yet!?" screamed the hordes...Nope. Now you must perform the single most crucial (according to many) step in the mastering process: quality control. You must, if you plan of having any confidence in the disc, submit it to a quality control regiment. "How do I do that?" you ask.

It's not so tough...one aspect of this process is to listen through the disc, in it's entirety, paying careful attention for any odd skips, glitches, or anything else that shouldn't be part of the master. But that's not enough...you really need to at the very least check the disc for it's Block Error Rate (commonly called BLER) to ensure with some amount of confidence that the disc is within redbook specifications. Errors are intrinsic and ubiquitous with CD media...the goal is to keep these errors so few and infrequency that the logic based error correction within CD players prevents them from manifesting audibly...which is where the red-book spec conservatively draws the line. To do this without spending a fortune on a machine/workstation specifically designed for this task requires a Plextor cd burner compatible with Plextor's PlexTools software.

When you've got one of these burners, and some quality media to use with it, burn a disc at 4x, 8x, 16x, and 32x...using plextools to calculate the BLER after each burning pass. You'll usually find that one of these four speeds will result in substantially fewer errors than the others. Use that speed to burn your replication master.

Print out a detailed report of the CD generated by the authoring program (if your program supports cue sheet style authoring, a cue sheet will do...what you want is a document containing ALL the track and disc information: cd-text, isrc codes, all pq-codes, and exactly where they occur on the disc, etc). Burn the disc. Use PlexTools to test the BLER of the disc. If the disc tests out okay, print out plextools' results. Then, send these two printouts, along with the newly burned "replication ready master", to the replication facility of your choice.

You're almost done...you can see the finish line coming up to meet you.

A short time later the replication facility sends you what is called a "reference". It's your responsibility to check this reference. Use the same quality control methods as before...check it for BLER (you might be surprised how much better your CD-R is than a pressed reference...if the pressed disc has poor results that are obviously outside of redbook spec, let them know about it), check to make sure your ISRC's are still present (you'd be surprised how many places forget to include them in the transfer), as well as that UPC they're supposed to provide you. And don't forget, listen to it...all the way through...critically.

Once you've got a reference you're happy with, you're done, finished, finito..."thank gawd" you exclaim.


TDub, I hope this helps answer your original question. I also hope you'll forgive my somewhat sarcastic (and sometimes caustic) method of answering it. Much of this potentially offensive demeanor found within this post is the direct result of an increasingly profound frustration and annoyance with the ever increasing population of "engineers" writing offensively (often offensive to me anyway) with a "mastering is easy", "don't trust others", and "do it yourself, thank me later" attitude. As I'm sure you can derive from the breadth of content in this post, the industry simply doesn't agree, and as such doesn't operate in a way that even remotely hints at a sympathetic viewpoint. Using a third party ME is not only generally good for your product (extra set of fresh ears, better gear, room setup for the process, etc), but painfully obvious that it's good business sense, fiscally and artistically. Paying someone else to take care of all the monotony entailed in true mastering at a cost (typically) that falls well below that of doing the work internally is good business sense in anyone's book. It also tends to keep those individuals less-pre-disposed to such work HAPPY with their jobs and responsibilities with regards to a given project, which in my book, is priceless.

This problem is only exacerbated with the continued introduction of plugins and programs advertised as "all-in-one-master-it-yourself-as-good-as-the-pro's-can" devices. Simply put, be wary, be very wary of any software billed in this manner. The fact is, if these programs were half as good as they claim, they'd be targeting their promotional material at the mastering engineer community, not the throngs of kids who got a DAW on their birthday.

Regardless of the length and verbose nature of this diatribe, I hope that you can find within it the information you were seeking when first posting. Hopefully a few others will benefit from it as well.

Cheers,
Chris

P.S. Here's a little inspirational quote for any of you wishing to dive headfirst into mastering despite this post. Doing so successfully requires a certain aspect within your nature that will allow you to connect with this quote on EVERY level:

"Nothing is too difficult if it produces a beautiful result."
-Julia Child, on the fundamental difference b/w classically trained french chefs and other more common cooks

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