Mastering or not!!!!!!!

[Raoul23]

Hi

A band have been and recorded some tracks they live quite away from my studio, they have asked me to email the tracks as i mix them,

Now the question is do i send them just the bounce down, or do i try and master it with say izotope and then send. Which would sound best.

I'm no mastering engineer and they are sending their tracks away to be professionally mastered.

So what would give them the best representation of how it sounds in the studio

Thanks in advance

[Stig Eliassen]

Originally Posted by Raoul23

Hi

A band have been and recorded some tracks they live quite away from my studio, they have asked me to email the tracks as i mix them,

Now the question is do i send them just the bounce down, or do i try and master it with say izotope and then send. Which would sound best.

I'm no mastering engineer and they are sending their tracks away to be professionally mastered.

So what would give them the best representation of how it sounds in the studio

Thanks in advance

What I do these days is to mix through the SSL Buss Compressor and the Massey L2007 limiter. I go for mellow settings where the compressor shows a gain reduction of 1-2 db on the peaks, and the limiter 2-3 db on the peaks. Since I mix through those dynamics processors, I rarely use any eq on the 2mix. When I send it to mastering, I print a 24/44.1 version with all 2mix plugins deactivated.

[Raoul23]

Originally Posted by PT Lover

What I do these days is to mix through the SSL Buss Compressor and the Massey L2007 limiter. I go for mellow settings where the compressor shows a gain reduction of 1-2 db on the peaks, and the limiter 2-3 db on the peaks. Since I mix through those dynamics processors, I rarely use any eq on the 2mix. When I send it to mastering, I print a 24/44.1 version with all 2mix plugins deactivated.

On my master out i have Mcdsp analog Channel 1 followed by ressinance comp with and 4 db compression on the loudest parts of song.

It sounds great in the studio i just dont want it to sound whack if they play it on some naff hi fi when they recieve it because it hasnt been mastered

anyone else out there have any thing they would like to add on this subject

Cheers

[solidwalnut]

If it's going to be sent out and mastered, I wouldn't put anything on the 2 bus.

[Raoul23]

Originally Posted by solidwalnut

If it's going to be sent out and mastered, I wouldn't put anything on the 2 bus.

Charles dye puts both ac1 and ren comp on master bus when u watch mix it like a record, that's where I got the idea from

[solidwalnut]

Originally Posted by Raoul23

Charles dye puts both ac1 and ren comp on master bus when u watch mix it like a record, that's where I got the idea from

Well, not saying that your choice to do something is bad. I'm just saying that if the project is going to be mastered, then I personally leave that to the professionals. Otherwise, the processing that you may do may tie their hands. On the other hand, light treatment may not tie their hands, but anything you add limits their choices.

[ejwells]

Originally Posted by solidwalnut

If it's going to be sent out and mastered, I wouldn't put anything on the 2 bus.

Nor would I.

[DonaldM]

When I've mixed other's projects to prep for mastering, I use no mastering tools whatsoever, and just mix to about -6db output on the master bus. That leaves room for the mastering engineer to do their magic. But I also provide a second track with a bit of the Massey plug-in on the master fader just so the band can hear things a bit better. But the -6db mix is the official master ready mix.

[kamshaft]

FWIW I just worked on a Major Label Live greatest hits and the mix engineer mixed it in the box. He put an SSL buss comp and then an MDW 3.0 EQ on the master buss. This then went to mastering. He didn't hit it too hard so there is room for mastering to do their thing. Personally, I think a little bit of compression/overall eq is necessary only if your ears think so..take it case by case. If yours sounds better doing what you are doing then leave the plugs activated. If not, bypass them.

[waltz mastering]

Originally Posted by Raoul23

Now the question is do i send them just the bounce down, or do i try and master it with say izotope and then send. Which would sound best.

You really don't want to send your bounces that are going out to be mastered with a brick wall limiter on them.

Send your mixes at their native rate and depth and as far as other 2 buss processing...when in doubt, print with and without.
Watch that there is no peaking near 0 dBFS and no clipping...usually printing mixes peaking around -6 dBFS is perfect.