Mastering Tips

[Panther1]

I wanted to know if someone could help me to understand how to master effectively in protools, I want to get a more transparent session going? I produce HipHop /Trap music and work a lot with 808 bass beats and synths with snares. My stems come from presonus studio one and when using this system i lose transparency in the song after bouncing to disk the sound quality is changed to a lower volume in my basses and snares drums. All of the other instruments still sit in the mix correctly though(synths, rifts)!I am importing song tracks into pro-tools to master but am not sure as to which effects plugins to use. The stems that I am importing are wav files from my presonus sessions. I can master them in presonus but i want to try to master in Pro-tools because it is my favorite tool from most things. If someone has some ideas that can guide me in the right direction concerning then it would be appreciated. Thanks, panther1

[albee1952]

Plenty of tutorials on youtube

[Bookerv12]

Hey there,
A little advice to keep you from grief down the road when you start interacting with pro's:
It's a real good idea to get basic terminology correct.
Do you mean "tracks" or "stems"?

Individual instruments like vocals, beats, synths, bagpipes, etc. are generally referred to as "tracks".
Submixed groups of tracks, 808, bagpipes, synth pad, drums, etc., are referred to as a "stem". Usually stereo, but often mono. (Typically.......it can also get really complex)

Why bring this up?
Most of the time, we are sent stereo files to master.
The rest of the time, we are sent stems.....guitars mixed in stereo, background vocals mixed in stereo, groups of drums, etc.
That way, we end up with 2 to ten stereo tracks of the song.
That allows us to bring certain groups of vocs/instruments up or back or apply processing individually as things change during mastering.
The mastering guy becomes a final tweak mix engineer.
Stems.

Good luck.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Bookerv12

Hey there,
A little advice to keep you from grief down the road when you start interacting with pro's:
It's a real good idea to get basic terminology correct.
Do you mean "tracks" or "stems"?

Individual instruments like vocals, beats, synths, bagpipes, etc. are generally referred to as "tracks".
Submixed groups of tracks, 808, bagpipes, synth pad, drums, etc., are referred to as a "stem". Usually stereo, but often mono. (Typically.......it can also get really complex)

Why bring this up?
Most of the time, we are sent stereo files to master.
The rest of the time, we are sent stems.....guitars mixed in stereo, background vocals mixed in stereo, groups of drums, etc.
That way, we end up with 2 to ten stereo tracks of the song.
That allows us to bring certain groups of vocs/instruments up or back or apply processing individually as things change during mastering.
The mastering guy becomes a final tweak mix engineer.
Stems.

Good luck.

All good except for the comment about the mastering person becoming a final tweak mix engineer. Mastering should NEVER be about that and if it comes to that send it back to the person who mixed it. And if you're a solo operation then you're mixing and not mastering. Mastering is about getting the various songs in an album to play well together with regards to balance, levels, track order.

I suspect the op is really asking about mixing and NOT mastering.

[zedhed]

Originally Posted by Panther1

I wanted to know if someone could help me to understand how to master effectively in protools

To master effectively one must first mix effectively.

Originally Posted by Panther1

I want to get a more transparent session going?

If you haven't got the 'transparency' (by that I take it you mean spatially multi dimensional) happening in the mix, no amount of mastering is going to get it.

This is a very good video IMHO. It concentrates on mixing which is what will help you the most judging by your comments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHxMsawJsTc

[Bookerv12]

Originally Posted by musicman691

All good except for the comment about the mastering person becoming a final tweak mix engineer. Mastering should NEVER be about that and if it comes to that send it back to the person who mixed it. And if you're a solo operation then you're mixing and not mastering. Mastering is about getting the various songs in an album to play well together with regards to balance, levels, track order.

I suspect the op is really asking about mixing and NOT mastering.

Ouch my man....
Never?
He specifically uses the term "master".
Perhaps incorrectly? I don't know him.
I know technically, and sometimes in online forums, mastering should only be done with some sort of purist approach... In my world, that's almost impossible.
Roughly 50 percent of our work is sent in stems, and the clients specifically ask for us to tweak groups of tracks, pull vocals way forward or back, or as we say, "final tweak the mix".
The clients generally can't remix everything due to time constraints.
I know that is probably breaking some hard and fast rule, but I have never actually seen that rule.
Luckily, it's not enforced as we are forced to do some pretty crazy stuff.
If varying the phase of a stereo stem gets the result we all like, that's the way it is.
No rules.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Bookerv12

Ouch my man....
Never?

Purist. Demagog...
We have them on the DUC.

Originally Posted by Bookerv12

No rules.

That's right.
I'm no mastering pro, but I happen to help a friend now and then to finish his mixes. He sends me six or eight stereo stems and I finalize the whole thing. Call it what you want.

[zedhed]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Purist. Demagog...
We have them on the DUC.

That's right.
I'm no mastering pro, but I happen to help a friend now and then to finish his mixes. He sends me six or eight stereo stems and I finalize the whole thing. Call it what you want.

If you're getting good quality work, I'd call it mixing and mastering. Nothing 'purist' about that. One can polish a turd all he likes but it is still a turd, nothing 'Demagog' about that either.

[Raphie]

Originally Posted by musicman691

All good except for the comment about the mastering person becoming a final tweak mix engineer. Mastering should NEVER be about that and if it comes to that send it back to the person who mixed it. And if you're a solo operation then you're mixing and not mastering. Mastering is about getting the various songs in an album to play well together with regards to balance, levels, track order.

I suspect the op is really asking about mixing and NOT mastering.

Yes, I agree. Mastering is not about makings stuff “phat” and “loud” but making it outside world compatible and when talking albums, making them a homogenious experience. Stem mastering is done to adress specific areas that can not be adressed (as thouroughly) in the stereo mix, but again from an agnostic perspective. Mastering is about enhancing the listening experience not about completely overhauling the mixdown.

Now for most independent artists and hobbyist these services are blurring into mixing services making things “phat” but this not traditional mastering. Mastering is about the room and 2nd ear and getting something back that makes the track the best it can be from a technical / genre perspective. Reaching maximum impact on any system

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Raphie

Mastering is about the room and 2nd ear and getting something back that makes the track the best it can be

Yep. This is the oldskool idea of mastering.

That, and nowadays you need to take special care of the dynamics your customer is looking for. If it's mixed 14dB dynamics (meaning RMS is about -14dBFS) and it sounds great for mastering engineer but the customer walks in and says it isn't loud enough, then you just need to squeeze it into 8dB or whatever "loudness" the customer is looking for. And while doing that trying to maintain most of the quality of the mix... sadly, this is the step that people nowadays are thinking when they talk about "mastering".