¿Qué es lo mas importante que hay q tener en cuenta para masterizar una canción??

[Eddiex]

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[rwhitney]

I'm not a professional mastering engineer, but I've read that the most important thing to consider when mastering a song is the intended listener (end user) and the mediums of delivery. Radio, television, film, dance music PA systems all share aspects but each has specific considerations unto itself (such as stereo compatibility). For example, if you're mastering your own music for your own listening enjoyment on a high-quality playback system, you might want to keep a larger dynamic range in your recordings than you would if you were mastering for radio play which, because of a variety of non-ideal listening environments, might arguably (or commercially) suffer from having sections or parts (like vocals) that cannot be heard well. For instance, I mix and master differently for music to be used in live dance performance recordings than I would for personal listening environments.

Once the target listener has been identified (usually a variety), then, to paraphrase The Lodge (in New York) mastering engineer, Emily Lazar, in a January, 2003 Electronic Musician magazine interview, it's important to understand what style or artistic statement the creating artist(s) are striving for, and to master in accordance with that vision. This may mean doing little if the sound already captures that intention, or it may mean enhancing (or possibly even contradicting?) certain aspects of the original mix. I've heard it said that familiarity with a wide variety of recordings in a given genre (or maybe various genres) is important. I assume that the mastering engineer's knowledge of how those results were produced is also critical to his or her ability to produce similar results. (Therein lays the crux of what the aspiring mastering engineers need to learn, of course.)

Sound quality is naturally considered from the beginning. Lazar says,""a really good basic mix should be wide, tall, deep, and true. A good mix makes use of the horizon line from the edge of the left speaker all the way through to the edge of the right speaker, and includes a full range of the frequency spectrum in order to achieve height and presence. It should create sense of depth and dimension for the listener and respect the intended dynamics of the music". By implication, I think mastering can somewhat improve mixes that exhibit deficiencies in these respects. But not always. It's the mastering engineer's job to determine what can be done and what can't. Sometimes, music benefits more from being remixed before attempting to master.

On a the most practical level, I'd consider these to be my first concerns:

Does the vocal come through the mix? If not, will subtractive EQ in the lower midrange help to make it clear, will I boost the high frequencies of the voice, or both? Is the midrange around 500Hz muddy? Is it booming between 100 and 300 Hz/ Should I subtract 1dB with a wide bell curve to clear it out? Can the low frequencies be heard on small speakers? If not, should I boost a bit using a shelving EQ at around 100Hz? Is it booming on my car speakers? If so, at what frequency? When it comes to compression (I use a multiband for mastering) and limiting, is the sound still natural, or is it squashed and unnatural? Should I reduce the amount of limiting and sacrifice apparent loudness? And so on...I'm still very much a novice at these things, though, so I can't help a lot with specifics.

As for the most important equipment? Maybe a good stereo EQ (I use an Avalon AD2055), good compressor, good limiter, ADDA converters, sample rate converter. If ProTools and plug-ins are all one has to work with, maybe the Waves Matering Bundle would be best (I use it and like it pretty well).

[Camilo Toledo]

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Chuck [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]