I have no budget for mastering....

[mike_da_min]

In a few steps can someone give me just a few tips to attempt a "master" on our music. I have found some of the BEST plugins for mastering. My mixes sound pretty good and aside from a few vocal plosives we are ready to start producing stuff for sale.

Thanks for any tips.

[TotalSonic]

Mike -
There's entire books and forums devoted just to the subject. I've personally have spent years learning it - including studying directly from other more experienced engineers - and I'm still learning more and more regarding it every day. It's not something that can be summed up in a single forum post.

Speaking of books - start with this one -
http://www.digido.com/mastering-audio-book.html

If you're using the JMS Audioware Cue Sheet Generator to create CD masters directly in SAW I've posted a tutorial specifically on it at http://www.totalsonic.net/csg.htm

Anyway - mastering is not about having the "best plugins" - it's about listening with a fresh set of ears with monitors in a room where you can easily hear whether there are any anomalies or areas lacking in the source audio - and then applying only the minimal amount of processing to each track to allow for good "flow" between each track (meaning levels, dynamics and frequency spectrum well matched between all the tracks) and to also allow the maximum "impact" for each track for itself.

Finally it's preparing an actual master that can be verified to be in spec to the manufacturers requirements. This could mean something like a CD-R with very low BLER conforming to Red Book or Blue Book specs, a properly formatted DDP image, or more and more these days a digital file with proper embedding of id3 tags and ISRC's. Mastering also means final QC - verifying that the entire master is exactly as you wish them to be prior to sending it to the replicator, duplicator or distributor.

If you are mastering in the same room you are mixing in sometimes you can end up compensating for errors in the room's frequency response even more. If you are mastering with monitors that don't have a full frequency response then you will still end up "guessing" as to how the treat the bass end. So it's important to make sure that these are not issues. A well treated room with accurate full range monitors is really the only way to go.

First off when starting remember there are NO presets!! Listen with an open mind. If the track doesn't need anything - then leave it alone.

From there if you're doing this entirely in the box in SAW place each final stereo mix (24bit at the same sample rate you tracked in is the best way) on its own input track in the sequence you wish for your album "stair casing" down.

Start by adjusting the levels of each track to better match each other. This will likely necessitate using a peak limiter. I find it best to place a separate instance on each input track, as the last plugin post-fader, so that you can adjust each one easily without worrying about automation. To my ear among the better sounding ones out there currently are Voxengo Elephant, Izotope Ozone 4, Sonnox, PSP Xenon, Flux Pure. The Levelizer, Waves L2 and UAD Precision Limiter are also good but to my ear showing the age of their code relative to the others I mentioned. Make sure you leave a little room on the output ceiling of each - you should peak somewhere around -0.1dBFs to -0.3dBFs at the maximum in order to help prevent intersample peak overs. In general if the limiter offers upsampling then use this as it allows for less anti-aliasing.

When setting levels keep your monitor controller at a fixed position. Generally it helps to have a calibrated level for this - as mentioned in the other thread a position that gives pink noise at 85dB spl A weighted is a good place to start for this. Be very careful if you find yourself applying more than 1 or 2dB's gain reduction with your limiter. Do level matched a/b's between the original source and the peak limited one to make sure you are not introducing undesirable distortions, artifacts or loss of transients as you push them harder. Generally for each track there will be a threshold which you won't want to cross if fidelity is your actual goal. For best results as a "first time try" I would find the track with the lowest "loudness potential" and then set the rest of the tracks to more match that so that you don't end up having to push the limiters that hard for any of them.

Now that you have things closer to each other to level desired - listen again.
If there are elements of the mix that are "poking out" in non-desired ways or if some elements seem to have harsh attacks to them then the use of a broaband compressor can help with this. Generally for 2-bus compression you want to start with long attacks, medium releases, high thresholds, gentle ratios, and soft knees. From there adjust to taste to fit the track.

Since you have access to the original mixes if you find yourself really having to compress to take care of a single element you can go back and fix it in the mix instead. Same thing goes for things like vocal p-pops, clicks and crackles, sibilant voices, and other noises. I process things like these all the time when mastering - but since you have access to the orignal mixes - go back and fix them in the mix if you find them.

Of course equalization is absolutely one of the most vital parts of mastering. The art of eq'ing 2-track programs is probably the hardest to learn to do well. Basically you are listening to each track as a "blank slate" and doing what it tells you to. If there are frequency areas that are too much or creating undesirable resonances - cut them! If there are frequency areas that are lacking - boost them! Very important to note that sometimes a strategic cut in one area can actually be a cleaner way to effect a boost to the other areas not being cut. Start by going gentle - a 1/2dB or 1dB difference can be huge when it's applied to everything. Again - the goal is to create flow between tracks so that they are closer to each other in terms of overall frequency response so people never feel the need to adjust their tone controls as they listen through the album - and just as important you are also adjusting equalization to allow for maximum "impact" for each track in and of itself.

Hope some of that helps - but finally - the cost of getting your tracks mastered in a dedicated well equipped mastering studio, run by an experienced engineer, has never been more affordable than what it is today. If you are indeed trying to make a successful commercial release then having this stage done properly can truly make the difference between your music sounding just ok, to having it sound amazing. It especially can make a huge difference if it was recorded and mixed in environments that weren't the best and/or if the engineer(s) involved were not the most experienced.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Mark Stebbeds]

In a few steps can someone give me just a few tips to attempt a "master" on our music.

I prefer working with a mastering engineer when I can, but some lower budget clients don't understand that, and expect me to deliver a master that can be replicated or duplicated.

In a nutshell, you want all of the songs to sound about the same in volume and tone. If you've mixed them all, then they are probably in the ball park with tone balance, i.e. the relationship between the low and high frequencies.

I use CD Architect for this task because it came free with a Sound Forge upgrade, and is quite easy to use, and allows you to put "effects" such as an EQ and compressor on each song individually. I try to avoid EQ, use a limiter plug-in to level out the songs. I set the maximum output to something just under "0" db ...like -0.5, and then increase the threshold to bring the volume up (and compress it a bit). I don't get carried away trying to make it sound as "loud" as recent pop music records, but I listen to some to see how far off I am.

You will become better at this with time and multiple projects. I always encourage people to mess around a bit and burn a few coasters, and play them in your commercial CD player on your home stereo or in your car to narrow it down a bit, but get it done and move on, rather than dwell on it and try to make your first project your life's work.

One VERY important thing is to use good media such as Taiyo Yuden (excuse the spelling), and avoid the run-of-the-mill blanks you find at office supply stores, etc. Even though they may show low error rates, you may have trouble with them playing in some non-computer CD players, particularly older and cheaper ones, if you are making copies on your computer.

Mark

[TotalSonic]

+1 on Taiyo Yuden media (now being branded as "JVC"). I've had excellent success with Plextor's "Premium" line of burners as well. Current Lite-on drives seem to perform well also. At this point all current burners and media are optimized for their middle burn speeds. In my tests I've gotten consistently good results at 16x.

It's best to do a BLER test on any master discs - Clover and Stagetech make standalone testers - and Plextools, Plexutilities, K-probe and Nero CD Speed are all softwares that can do this for you (although so far seems Plextools is among the more accurate of these).

If there's any E32's (aka "CU's") then toss the disc as it's no good. I also don't submit discs that have any E21's or E22's (aka "C2's") on them just to stay on the cautious side. Also BLER (count of E11's + E12's - aka "C1's") needs to be below 220/a second averaged over 10 seconds to be in Red Book spec - but I usually get an average of less than 1 a second and with no more than a peak of 25 on the discs I burn.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Grekim]

In a few steps can someone give me just a few tips to attempt a "master" on our music. I have found some of the BEST plugins for mastering. My mixes sound pretty good and aside from a few vocal plosives we are ready to start producing stuff for sale.

Thanks for any tips.

You can master with the SAW Levelizer and Studio EQ. It's one thing if you are curious and want to learn. But, you would be far better off spending potential plug-in money on some mastering time with Steve Berson.