Best Way to Master

[LarryLatham]

Just curious to see what everyone's work flow is when mastering a project.....

For example: which do you think is better?

A: Denoise (clean up) first then EQ and sweeten or

B: EQ and sweeten then Denoise (clean up)

Also....Would you do them all in a chain (in one bounce) or in two seperate bounces?


Very interested to hear what you guys have to say!

[Wolfgang Eller]

First of all: You are on the best way to do a real pro mastering.

First reason: It seems you never did it before.
Second reason: You have no idea what to do.
Third and most importand reason: You have to master your own mix by yourselve.

For the plugin chain: Take all the plugins you have in a chain (therefore you have to use a lot of aux channels)and crank every single plugin till it´s output is RED (that´s the focusrite sound)then the sound is perfect.

Cheers Wolfgang

[Mark Haliday]

You may have noticed the lack of clever response to your post There are a number of reasons for this one of them beeing that this part of the duc is mainly dedicated to troubleshooting some very sticky Mac vs PT issues, not really ideal to post general questions.

As for denoising, this is not a common process in mastering unless you are in the business of restoration or simply giving a new lease of life to these old hissy cassette demos...

[LarryLatham]

Originally posted by Mark Haliday:
You may have noticed the lack of clever response to your post There are a number of reasons for this one of them beeing that this part of the duc is mainly dedicated to troubleshooting some very sticky Mac vs PT issues, not really ideal to post general questions.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And these topic's are....Oh and this is just from the FIRST PAGE...if you don't have an answer (which you obviously don't) just ignore this.....

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[AE]

Originally posted by Mark Haliday:
As for denoising, this is not a common process in mastering unless you are in the business of restoration or simply giving a new lease of life to these old hissy cassette demos...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You must make amazingly clean recordings. Every record I've ever mastered required denoising; there always seems to be a few clicks, squeaks, and other minor but distracting glitches that are nice to omit.

[Bob Olhsson]

The right answer is to do whatever sounds best. No two projects are ever the same.

The key to mastering is a great monitor environment so that you can compensate for the shortcomings of the monitor chain that was used for mixing or tell when no compensation is needed.

[PlugInJunky]

I would have to say....for a begining approach...try Denoising if its necessary....Most of the time...a lil noise can add to some natural sound


but try:

the C4 plugin and the L2....if anything you can put a parametric EQ post C4 if necessay...but the C4 is great.....

but for beginner the T-Racks is a great buy...try that out.... try that out...if you can get your hands on TC electronics Finalizer..that could be of some help..Not the Plugin the real thing..lol....its a great box if you tweak it right....

[LarryLatham]

Great thanks to the last three or four guys who have posted....really good info!

I guess I probably should have said something other than mastering though and maybe that would have helped.

Basically, like someone above said, everything I get in here needs some denoising or TLC. I just wondered which other guys do first (denoise/sweeten or sweeten/denoise) and if anyone has a hard and fast rule that they like to use.

Thanks again!

PS....speakng on denoising what does everyone like best? Cedar for PT, noNoise, or Audio Cube (not for PT though)

[Joe Egan]

Lessons I learned from mastering engineers:

Don't bother trying to play the piano unless you have a Steinway, years of experience and great ears.

Don't bother trying to write a song unless you have a quill pen, years of experience and great ears.

Don't try to learn how to do audio mastering unless you have years of experience and great ears.

Only mastering engineers have great ears, you're not a mastering engineer, so therefore you must not have great ears. So don't bother trying.

just jokin'

[LarryLatham]

Originally posted by Wolfgang Eller:
First of all: You are on the best way to do a real pro mastering.

First reason: It seems you never did it before.
Second reason: You have no idea what to do.
Third and most importand reason: You have to master your own mix by yourselve.

For the plugin chain: Take all the plugins you have in a chain (therefore you have to use a lot of aux channels)and crank every single plugin till it´s output is RED (that´s the focusrite sound)then the sound is perfect.

Cheers Wolfgang

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What a very insightfull "witty" post....so does someone with a brain have an opinion?

Thanks!