mastering query (Page 4 of 5)

The way I see the situation is like this:

I need to think about making some kind of money from at least some tracks online. So I stick inside the digital range of 20-20Khz for 1 mastering session. I make sure it will sound good in mp3 format (which licks sweaty nut sack).
Also here in Southern Cali almost nobody is playing Real Vynal anymore. The only cats that play Vynil are the bigger named acts or when you guys come into town. I don't Dj myself but as a kid when I did the record to me always tended to have more Mid and Bass. So with that session I use Multicompressors, parametric EQ's, 31-band EQ's, and BBE exciters. I burn alot of CD's of that session and play it in different friend's Car stereo systems, in Ipods (mp3). I walk into stores like circuit city, best buy and bump it in there. Like that I hear if I need to fine tune. It is also cheap promotion in there because the youth always trips out when I bump new shit.

For that seesion I seem to always be using this chain in WaveLab.

1. 31-band EQ
2. 10-band Parametric waves EQ
3. Maxx-bass
4. Multi-compressor
5. C4-compressor, waves
6. BBE exciter (soft)
7. PSP stereo Enhancer
8. PSP Vintage Limter

Last Chain tool: Waves L3 Limiter.

Not that all of them get used but I have them ready in case i need them.

For my personal stash I make another Mastering session that runs through different Tube Preamps and get the lows going below 20hz if possible for the material. I am a sucker for Exciters also. It sounds good in your Car stereo.
I used to really start from scratch but now as I am getting older and Time is going faster I am simply running the "digital" master through real gear->tubes, furman EQ's, etc. Little by little I am just catering to the youth and the medium/gadgets they are using. I know it is Dixx, but I am in financial survival Mode.

I am a poorman, so I don't have anything valued higher then 2000.00 in here. But when I used to work as a computer tech and I used to save the Hollywood Film scoring crowd from there fuckups or hard drive failures I would let them hear some tracks and they would ask "where do you have it mastered?, what softsynths are those I never heard such sound." I'm don't use fully analog, I mix both mediums. I feel these days you have to mix both mediums if you want to make some cash. Because analog is just to much sound and hard to mix it all together sometimes in a mix.

Yeah it is critical that the mixdown get done proper because other wise your just smashing madness.
I laugh when the HipHop crowd here in SOuthern Cali calls a Shitty mixdown "Dirty and real" or "it's just Raw Real Hip Hop". The Mastering Houses here make a fortune off the HipHop crowd, I think they just use a Limiter and thats it.

My friend has this site up called www.dopetracks.com, it's mainly for hiphop. I am the only cat busting out electrical their.

You robots should flood the beat section with material.

must be that west coast sound of U.S.A. 

He's right, it's all about clean ass pro-tools sound in the U.S. (commercially).. but it's kind of like that everywhere i guess when you talk about commercial music. 

Though, if you explore the underground southern rap world you can find some dirty gems.   

I still love to listen to all the old school three6mafia shit... underground demons ..all the dj paul juicy j mixtapes etc.   Sounds like it was recorded on a fucking talkboy or something.

It is not easy at all to produce commercial quality music (speaking production-wise here). I dont need polished shit like on charts but sometimes electronic music producers could put a little more effort in mixing etc. The musical content might be great but ...Its not as easy as it sounds!!! I respect many prog hous producers like Deadmau5 because of this ..Their production is just fucking killer. Of course the music is shit but..

I know you know your shit but for the majority I think it is just a lack of skill ... I think its bollocks to say that they do it deliberately lofi, thats just because they dont have the skill to do it better. And I say it again but its fucking difficult to do that sort of commercial production. One can do lo-fi sounding productions but in a polished and nice way too It seriously takes time and patience to learn to produce well. Or let's say learn to produce well in my opinion of course But seriously some of the tracks released in the past you cant even play them in a club because they sound so bad. The music is great but in club it sounds so weak. Of course it depends what you want in the end... And well in the end music matters anyway more than the production ..

Blue Maquina, Maybe you should go on gearslutz to further your quest for bumping music, they have a lot of info there.

I agree with rude.. it's all in the ears of the beholder. 

Production is indeed important..  but if everything out there sounded super clean then music would simply be not as interesting.   You are entering a "cookie cutter" ideal realm or something... or have only listened to music produced recently. 

Your "skill" statement is quite absurd, kenzaburo.

yeah, after reading alot of this stuff let me see if I can sum it up.

1. bad ass track
2. record to tape
3. beam to cd
4. beam back to CPU
5. apply a little E.Q.
6. save money you were going to spend on mastering to buy new hardware
7. fire up a blunt for job well done!

right yall?

if people were attempting to make "clean, club quality" tracks, do you think they would use analog gear? would they buy reel-to-reels? would they use hardware sequencers and analog mixing consoles? the answer is: fuck no. it's way more expensive to use external hardware than to make a record on ableton. there is an art to doing it this way, and that art is what this forum is based upon. kenzaburo, you're on the wrong website, my friend.

I tend to love both the dynamics of 80's electronic music and Robert Babicz's mastering prowess, and both are dynamics that I aspire to smear my tracks with once I get there. It's interesting to note that most of the Italo classics between 84-88 became more polished - a typical Italian Pop trait. Listen to Gazebo's stuff or Ryan Paris and you're there, as opposed to, say, Clay Pedrini or Fockewulf 190.

In short, today's polished sounds are tomorrow's most desired flavour. Robert Babicz's sound will still be sought after in 20 years' time...

my ultimate goal is still to make a real AAA recording, by mastering to vinyl directly from the tape master.

of course there are different kinds of analogue sound, a 100.000 dollar big vintage neve console cannot compete with our d&r's, tascams and soundcrafts. just like there is a big difference between your internal pc soundcard and top of the line apogee converters.

here's a link to real, all-out analogue sound heaven: http://www.tapeproject.com/

I think like in star trek ?