OT-'Home' mastering for radio question. Please advise.

[DeadHead]

jho, I have toyed with the idea of spending a little cash on something like that, just to see what I get.

Unfortunately I don't have time on this particular project. I have to have the final to them by Thursday of next week ! (yikes) !!

However, I think I may look into this service for the future.

I thought it might help if I detailed what I've done on the three songs I have that they have agreed to play :

The session has one stereo master fader and a mono fader for each of the audio tracks below.

I recorded three tracks of my acoustic guitar (Taylor 810 dread). All tracked at 24bit 44.1k.

* track1-Guitar-AKG C3000 (through ARTMP-pro tube pre) placed on the body of the guitar angled at the bottom quarter of the top facing a bit away from the sound-hole 6-8 inches distance away from the guitar.

Plug-ins - LA2A used very lightly - Q10 w/ a bass roll-off and a bit of increase at the low mids. panned slightly left.

* track2-Guitar-AKG C1000s (through ARTMP-pro tube pre) placed approx 4 inches from the fret 12.

Plug-ins - LA2A used very lightly - Q10 w/ a more dramatic bass roll-off and a bit of increase at the high end of the frequency range. panned slightly right.

* track3-Guitar-DI from fishman matrix into MackieVLZ mixer.

Plug-ins - EQ with bass roll off. panned dead center, and the level is way down, but audible.

* track4-Voice-AKG C3000 (through ARTMP-pro tube pre) for vocal.

no plugs.

* track5-Bass DI (through ARTMP-pro tube pre).

Plug-ins - LA2A moderately compressed - Q10 for a tad bit of high end - MaxxBass. panned dead center.

* track6-Guitar-AKG C3000 (through ARTMP-pro tube pre), very simple 'sparkle' type lead.

no plugs

All tracks bussed through Realverb, with a tiny bit of reverb to put it all in "the same room".

All plugs added after "tracking" during mixing. I hope this gives a general idea of how I track and mixed the tunes. . .

I then bounce down at 24 bit to a stereo interleaved WAV file.

I 'master' and I use that term loosley in Wavelab on the PC and do an over-all EQ (very sparingly), and a Waves L1 ultra-maximizer dithering to 16bit, setting the output level to -.03.

My tests sound good in my car and friends cars, on a boom box, through my monitors, and through my home stereo, as well as through my TVs little stereo speakers. I am very conservative with all my compression and Eq and don't clip any faders. I am still able to hear subtle dynamic changes that I intended to have in my pieces.

Any suggestions I might try at the 'mastering' portion of my process ?

Thanks for your thoughts folks! !! ! I really appreciate you taking time for an amateur.

Regards,
DeadHead

[DeadHead]

Thank you Jeff, thats exactly what I'm after. Someone in the know that can give a bit of advice.

Thanks Doug !! I'm combining yours and Jeff's suggestions.

Unfortunately I can't get a pro job done in time for this project. However, I will be looking into pro mastering as its not as expensive as I thought. Not to mention this is only a three song demo.

I think I will re-approach the session ensuring that I have enough high-end judging from what you're saying Doug.

Jeff, I've already been trying my mix out on several different speakers and listening scenarios, and the mix is translating well. So I think I'll make sure I have enough high end, I may even take the risk of more than I usually have based on Doug's advice, and see how that comes across on radio.

If however, I get to my studio and pull the raw sessions up to listen and they sound like they have enough high end preserved, I might not do anything to this CD as I've already thoroughly scrutinized it on all sorts of stereos... .

As it stands now, I feel I'm getting a very well balanced mix as far as frequency range goes. I notched out 'pockets' for the acoutic and bass tracks to 'fit' into in the mix and am pleased with the results. There is plenty of bottom but its not over-powering, it just fills out the mix a bit. There is also a nice mid range sound as the acoustic is my main source of sound. . . and a nice high end sparkle from the 12 fret mic and eq'ing. . . . My voice stands out in front, but its not too loud that subtle details in the backing tracks don't come through.

Thanks a bunch for the suggestions !!! your advice is helping me feel more confident aobut submitting the mix I already have. I just wans't sure how to approach radio play !!

Regards,
DeadHead

[Duardo]

I don't think anyone was particularly clear on this, but if you want to reference against the other stuff being played on the radio, reference against those CD's, not against the way it actually sounds on the radio. As has been mentioned, radio stations will run your music through their own processors to get it as loud as possible...in effect, they're mastering it again for you. As someone mentioned earlier, the more dynamic stuff tends to actually sound better over the radio because it's only being "squashed" once. Diminishing returns really do kick in if you destroy the dynamic range before you radio station does the same thing.

-Duardo

[Bob Olhsson]

Jeff is right on the money.

I would reference against stuff that sounds really great on the air from ten years ago. Most of today's big sellers sound like crap on the air because they are mastered to impress focus groups as part of the process of getting them chosen to go on the air.

You don't have that problem which means that your recording will probably sound louder, punchier and less fatiguing than most of what's out there today. I wouldn't even worry that much about eq because the station processor's 10 dB of multiband compression will match it to everything else they play.

[Doug Ring]

Here's another radio engineer's perspective: as has already been said, make it sound good on lots of speakers and you've done your bit. The rest is in the hands of the transmitter's processing and the guy playing the CDs in the studio.

When a radio show's put together, the engineer or any DJ worth his salt will balance the loudness of different CDs anyway, so if yours happens to sound a little quieter it should get boosted to compensate. I think people at your radio station will be more impressed by great performances from you than whether you used 5:1 compression at -25dB threshold in the mid-band! And if you did use that, how do you know what interaction it'll have with the transmitter processing anyway?

By all means have a professional approach to your recording (which you sound like you already have), but don't get hung up on it to the detriment of the music.

[DeadHead]

All -

Well, I A/B'd the recording against some classic rock and folkie CDs that I like from the early seventies and from a level and dynamics perspective it holds its own.

I ended up not doing anything new to this recording and submitted as is. . . .

Thanks for your suggestions and comments. They were all very helpful. I don't post a lot on the DUC , but I read it quite a bit and this has been a helpful forum for my process.

My first "radio play" will be Friday afternoon, while everyone in my town is driving home from work !!!!!

I can't wait to hear myself over the radio.

This is a very exciting opportunity for me and I really appreciate you all taking the time for a home enthusiast !!!!

Best Regards,
DeadHead

[Doug Ring]

[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Great to see the excitement! Hope it goes well for you. There's nothing like drivetime radio to immerse people in music.

Legend has it that Tom Petty used to check his mixes by jumping in the car every time one of his songs came opn the radio, so if they stand up there, they'll stand up anywhere!

[DeadHead]

Well I heard my work for the first time ever on radio and was very pleased. It didn't sound over processed at all ! It was very true to the masterI submitted. Thanks again all for the advice ! It ws very helpful and insturmental to my process.

Thanks again,
DeadHead

[remote]

How dare you try to master your own music. What are you thinking, you're not a pro, so don't even try. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I think it's great that you're doing it yourself. A little practice and you'll have it down. I like the Waves Mastering Plugs. Download the demo and use it for your songs.

Also McDSP MC2000 works pretty well.

Be sure to A/B your music with CD's you like.

Good luck

[mixer]

my advice ..take it for what its worth..is just do as good a mix as you can..make the song sound great..on as many systems as possible..including the car and a boom box....if you over compress remember that the station is going to compress the signal also and you might wind up with a very flat sounding pumpy mix...and it could even wind up sounding distorted and lower in volume..less is more. gary m.vandy audio productions