Try mastering my track????

  • Sometimes it's a good thing to just let go. It can easily happen that you get paranoid about completely irrelevant details if you spend weeks on the same thing. On top of that it likely gets a frustrating ride for anyone willing to help you out because your mind is already so set and determined that every deviation from what's going on in your brain will be quickly considered "that's not what I want". :)


    I don't mean it in any bad way, it's just my experience that tells me this is likely to happen with artists who try to do things on their own and end up disappointed. They have worked so hard and long on this that they're not open anymore to a different approach by a different person.


    Talking about mastering ... it's not so difficult to master this track apart from one specific issue. The guitar's pick attack in the fast played instrumental parts contains lots of "ice pick" or "chirp chirp". After mastering without having access to stems this gets really annoying.


    Cheers

    Martin

  • Hi I cannot master my music for shit, it just starts to crackle and distort before it reaches the same volume as any reference track I compare to


    https://www.dropbox.com/s/3hd7…/omastrad%20test.wav?dl=0


    Maybe the mix is complete crap but I have no idea, I've been tweaking this recording for weeks now

    That's a symptom of too much sub bass. Listening on my monitoring system at work, the fast double kick has a lot of low end, yet there doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile in the actual bass guitar. If you're using drum samples, the rapid triggering of the bass drum in those sections can cause sub bass build up, depending on the drum software you're using, which could be one reason for the excessive bass in those sections. For this type of music, I'd be tempted to high pass the kick and warm up the bass guitar instead, which right now doesn't appear particularly audible, giving a strange separated, disconnected feeling between the guitars and the kick.

  • If you want to fight the loudness war you

    need a limiter ala waves L2. You can push it stupidly loud without distortion, only dynamic artifacts like pumping at very extreme setings and a fatiguing mix..etc.


    But yes, the kick is too boomy, i would change the sample or tweak it. I usually high pass it and low pass it, around 150hz up, low mids heavyly down Q to taste, and high mids up for more defined and dry sound. I also dont hear any bass guitar.

  • Obviously I can't hope to hear any bottom end on my mono ZeroBass CrapMac™ speaker, Ceddy, but Voider and Sam have both suggested there's too much of it.


    As you'd know, low frequencies "contain" the highest amount of energy, so it makes sense that you've been struggling to achieve the overall levels you'd like - the sub-bass area (and probably a little higher) has been chewing up all your headroom.


    IMHO it won't matter how many amazing limiters are recommended; there's just no escaping the energy "consumption" of the low end as prime suspect #1 for messin' with your progress, mate.

  • IMHO it won't matter how many amazing limiters are recommended; there's just no escaping the energy "consumption" of the low end as prime suspect #1 for messin' with your progress, mate.

    yes..but if you push very hard a good limiter even when you have an extra sub mix, you dont distort it, you only get dynamic weirdness that affects the mix, but no crackle. You need to push it to a mega hyper stupid level to have something like clipping noise. Imo

  • yes..but if you push very hard a good limiter even when you have an extra sub mix, you dont distort it, you only get dynamic weirdness that affects the mix, but no crackle. You need to push it to a mega hyper stupid level to have something like clipping noise. Imo

    As MM already said, limiting is not the answer...yet. If the mix is still not right, it's time to go back and work on the mix. Mastring isn't a mix rescue.

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • One trick mixing engineers do when the fast kicks sets in is to automate the EQ and carve out more low end.

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

  • That's a symptom of too much sub bass. Listening on my monitoring system at work, the fast double kick has a lot of low end, yet there doesn't seem to be anything worthwhile in the actual bass guitar. If you're using drum samples, the rapid triggering of the bass drum in those sections can cause sub bass build up, depending on the drum software you're using, which could be one reason for the excessive bass in those sections. For this type of music, I'd be tempted to high pass the kick and warm up the bass guitar instead, which right now doesn't appear particularly audible, giving a strange separated, disconnected feeling between the guitars and the kick.


    However, I just tried mixing like my reference track.


    The bass in this track is from what I can hear all about the low-mids, defnitely NOT lower than the kick!!

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  • I think one difficulty is that you may be moving to mastering prematurely. if it were me, I'd step back and solve the problems at the mix level.


    I'm in my B room, which isn't treated as well as the control room and only has 5" reference monitors, so I can only report what I hear in this environment, but since you provided the reference at least the observations will be relative to each other.


    One difference that jumps out at me between the reference and yours is the drums. The reference has a lot of compression going on, which stuffs them down in the mix more. In comparison your drum levels are a bit hot and spiky. They tend to overpower the rhythm guitar in the beginning and actually compete with the guitar melody line.


    In general, the reference has a lot more mid range information (actually to the point of sounding a bit blurry to me, but that may just be YouTube compression). The various parts feel "glued" together, which is probably as much due to some compression on the given parts as slamming the entire mix with an L2.


    You might want to look at treating each of your stems a bit with compression and EQ to get them glued together first. Once you've got that happening, doing some reasonable limiting on the master buss for levels will behave better for you.


    By the way, I'm not at all a metal guy but that's a really fun song! :)

    Kemper remote -> Powered toaster -> Yamaha DXR-10

  • I did a quick check to your reference track. First thing I noticed, the bass guitar is way more prominent, rumbly distorted rock bass in the RW track, in your mix it's almost inaudible. Second, there's around +10dB more lows sub-60Hz in your mix, so there's some need for high-passing your tracks around 40-50Hz. Your mix also has 3-4dB more 2kHz.

  • ... there's around +10dB more lows sub-60Hz in your mix...

    ... and that's what's chewing up your headroom, man.

    ... but if you push very hard a good limiter even when you have an extra sub mix, you dont distort it, you only get dynamic weirdness that affects the mix, but no crackle. You need to push it to a mega hyper stupid level to have something like clipping noise.

    Also true, but in Ceddy's case I'm betting he's pushing it to "mega hyper" levels in order to try and achieve the levels he's trying to match in his reference track, hence the crackling:

    ... it just starts to crackle and distort before it reaches the same volume as any reference track I compare to.

  • "I cannot master my music for shit", Thats BS, you can and have done well given your self taught. You have more hit than misses..your just still learning that's all. Hang in there man, your will get it have a short break.


    Shawn, i may be tone deaf but i know what sounds good and that did to me.


    Ash

    Have a beer and don't sneer. -CJ. Two non powered Kempers -Two mission stereo FRFR Cabs - Ditto X4 -TC electronic Mimiq.