Session Question

[docscholl]

Seeking advice which might be framed as both an organizational question and one of mastering.

Backgound:
About once a month, I record liturgical music at my House of Worship (I am also one of the musicians, so the recording levels are pretty much set during rehearsal then I hit "record" - I get what I get).

I use both my Pro Tools Mbox 2 for an over-all stereo mix and the HOW-owned Korg D888 for individual tracks.

A 60+minute worship service will include about 15 songs.
I will import the Korg tracks into the original PT session.
From there, I edit out the non-music portions along the timeline and then mix the songs.

My question:
Should I then create a new session for each song so that I can add mastering effects or is it possible to add compression (as needed) per indivdual song within the same session?

Some of the songs (or instruments) are lower (or higher) in volume.
Although I've adjusted each individual track on each individual song, in the end, when I use a mastering plug-in, should I just set the mastering levels for all songs equally or should I go song-by-song?

Thanks!

[Dorian Green]

Hey ya!
I would treat each track separately.Because each track has different Mastering settings.Some tracks will need more compression than others, some tracks need differents EQs.
I understand that maybe you'll need to have the feeling there's only one track with no blank between the tracks but it can be easily sorted during mastering with some well-placed crossfades and allowed Audio during pause.
After there are two schools for the "level" of the tracks.You can set it during leveling process (with L2 for example)the RMS Average level will be different but the ceiling (then peaks) will be the same, or you can use the master Fader after you've passed the tracks thru L2 to reach the same RMS level on all the tracks, then the ceiling will be lower on the quiter tracks.It's up to you!

[Scott Goldberg]

Originally Posted by Dorian Green

Hey ya!
I would treat each track separately.Because each track has different Mastering settings.Some tracks will need more compression than others, some tracks need differents EQs.
I understand that maybe you'll need to have the feeling there's only one track with no blank between the tracks but it can be easily sorted during mastering with some well-placed crossfades and allowed Audio during pause.
After there are two schools for the "level" of the tracks.You can set it during leveling process (with L2 for example)the RMS Average level will be different but the ceiling (then peaks) will be the same, or you can use the master Fader after you've passed the tracks thru L2 to reach the same RMS level on all the tracks, then the ceiling will be lower on the quiter tracks.It's up to you!

Another way is to keep everything in one session, then bounce each song out without ANY master FX and bounce all songs to one session as multiple mono files and keep them at 24 bit and whatever sample rate you have been using. (possibly call these 24 bit mult mono sessions) and now you have all the sessions on one as mult mono stereo tracks in one session. Then put a mastering plug-in on ALL stereo tracks and mute them all but the one you are working on, then progressively un-mute other songs to see if the levels/volumes are all really close. Keep doing this until you have a good idea of how they all sound by randomly un-muting a couple of songs on and off, to see if the levels are good. THEN, bounce them all out as stereo interleaved 16 bit 44,1 Khz files.

[docscholl]

Thanks for the replies.
Scott, I'll give your idea a shot!

[Scott Goldberg]

Originally Posted by docscholl

Thanks for the replies.
Scott, I'll give your idea a shot!

Cool, I hope that works for you. It's a bit of extra work but it's well spent!!