In response to Grant’s request for mastering tips, I’ve decided to put together a brief tutorial outlining some very important techniques that you should always remember.
Mastering is by no means straight forward, and in my opinion you’ll learn much quicker with hands on experience and the right guidance than reading straight out of a text book. The following information contains the key issues and techniques only, more in-depth information on individual techniques will follow in later posts.
There is unlimited information on the web and almost 50% is bogus.
So where do we start?
Firstly I’m going to start briefly with the basics, I’m assuming that you have an understand how to use your signal processors i.e EQ, Compressor, Filters etc.
Most inexperienced producers find themselves chasing their tails trying to find clarity in their productions and usually this is a result of not knowing the correct order in which mastering becomes clear and fun!
Lets say you’ve created your sounds, loops and effects and have decided on a basic arrangement. At this point in production you should have some idea what sounds you want to have priority in the mix and this will almost always be governed by the genre you write. Remember mastering is only the sugar on top not the cake itself so you should aim to make your sounds as clean as possible without signal processors from the word go.
This can be achieved in a number of ways.
- choosing sounds that fit the track straightaway not relying on mastering to correct them.
- Using filters and your instruments parameters to keep each sound in their own frequency band
- Creative and strategic panning to help separate similar sounds (e.g. Drums, FX etc)
- Remembering that not all sounds need to be at full volume, be subtle in the mixing process.
Lets talk about the above points for a second.
STEP ONE.
Choosing the right sound is sometimes easier said than done, I mean we can all get carried away in the creation process of adding every great sound that our synths can provide, but this is a common mistake that can clutter the mix and take away the magic of what you’ve already created.Get familiar with your instruments parameters.Listen to your favourite artist and hear how they use sound to create the magic. Everybody say less is more and this is a perfect example. If your bassline is weak and has no life or power ask yourself this question, am I using the right sound for what I’m trying to achieve? If not find another sound or your could try using the instruments parameters to juice it up. Getting as close as you can to the desired sound with your instruments is the first step and will allow you to use less destructive processing down the track.
STEP TWO.
Once you’ve chosen your sounds and the mix is starting to sound good but still a little unclear, you’ll want to consider cleaning up overlapping frequencies caused by instruments occupying the same space on the spectrum. While minimal overlapping is fine, too much will create an unclear sound, and this is where you can use filters. High pass, Low pass and all other types of filters that usually come with your chosen host software will do just fine, take a mental note or write down the frequencies that each instrument uses to give you a better picture of what instruments are clashing. You can view each instrument and what frequencies they occupy by using a spectral analyser, companies like Waves have a plugins designed to do exactly that. check out PAZ analyser.
Use your eyes as well as your ears.
Now that you know exactly what instruments are clashing it’s time to make a decision on which instrument takes priority. Here is an example. Lets say you have two converging synth sounds that both occupy say 450hz - 4000hz, you need to decide which instrument has a nicer sounding higher end and which has a nicer lower end. Making this decision can be hard especially if both sounds are great, but rest assured your mix will prosper if you make the hard decision of rolling off the high’s in instrument one to let instrument two breathe, and cutting the lows of instrument two to let instrument one, growl.
More importantly, if your synth has these features in-built your better off using them, providing they do the job, as this rule of thumb we see you creating cleaner and more purposeful sounds.
STEP THREE.
Powerful panning can add more depth, clarity and interest in your tracks providing that you don’t overuse it. effective panning requires you to be aware of some important factors. All nightclub systems are in fact mono so excessive panning will be lost when played on a club system, When a stereo image is collapsed into mono two things can happen.
- Stereo sounds panned to the center add together and become louder.
- Heavily panned sounds will be diminished.
Always remember to switch to mono and check that your levels are intact, switching to mono is a great technique in getting a clear picture of the sonic signature.
Panning can also overcome problems such as clashing instruments in the same frequency band and this will become clear as you play with panning your instruments. Creating depth and separation with panning before using your EQ is a valuable lesson and although this method may go against your logic, try it and see for yourself.
Warning: Do not overuse this technique, stereo effects can make or break your track!
STEP FOUR.
Don’t be scared to drop the volume.
Although this step refers to mixing technique this is not a mixing tutorial.
Earlier we talked briefly about prioritizing your sounds and this is because as an artist we only have a limited amount of canvas to paint on (Sound spectrum 20hz - 20000hz).
Mixing is a science in itself.
Lets say for example that you have your kick drum, bass, lead and percussion kicking along beautifully, but the rich pad on top clouds the mix. Sometimes you’ll be surprised at what people hone in on when listening to music, Try this.
- Make sure that your pad’s frequency isn’t clashing too much with other instruments.
- Instead of pushing your pad up in volume, try dropping it!
Dropping the volume will allow your lead sounds to be cleanly heard, while still allowing the listener to hear the pad. This technique may seem quite basic to more advanced producers but getting the knack of knowing what sounds to push forward and what sounds to pull back can make or break you.
This technique adds depth an texture to your productions.
EQUALIZATION
The process of equalizing sounds is another highly misunderstood concept.
All mastering engineers will tell you to just “use you ears more” so let me be perfectly clear, only use an EQ if your ears tell you to. Having a accurate monitoring environment is paramount here as fine tuning your sounds require good near field monitors, deadened room acoustics and close attention to your frequency analysers. Equalization is similar to compression in that both signal processors are designed to control volume levels of frequency. However your standard EQ does not control frequency levels dynamically like compressors, but instead controls frequency levels in a more static (fixed) way.
We talked earlier about filters and using them to “Roll off” frequencies from a certain point. a Filter is much like an EQ also but has more uniformity in the way it effects sound. As you’ve not doubt played with your favourite EQ to wits end trying to find the sweet spot with no success, I’d like to share with you a few techniques I use to help me break through this confusion.
- Before using your EQ identify what frequency is too strong or too weak.
- When using your EQ to remove unwanted frequencies don’t Sweep
- Turn off your EQ, set your EQ to remove what you “think” is the offending frequency
- Turn on your EQ, did it help? was it too much?
- Return to 3.
By not madly sweeping through all the frequencies you avoid desensitizing your ears as they are bombarded by all the wrong frequencies. Instead take your time to identify what frequencies need lowering, by using you ears and your analysers, then make your guess with the EQ turned off. When you turn the enable the EQ you will straight away hear the difference you made and whether it worked or not.
This technique teaches your ears to easily identify frequencies, which is enhancing an engineer’s greatest tool - your ears.
There is almost an unlimited amount of information you can learn about mastering and to a beginner can be quite overwhelming. Although I have been creating Progressive trance and Tech for about 6 years and have learnt a great deal of information I am by no means a master and just like you, I desire to learn more.
Feel free to ask any questions.
Hyphen.
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