At 4/7/08 12:32 PM, PandaKore wrote:
I've heard of iZotope RX and Steinberg WaveLab, are there any others?
RX isn't a mastering plugin, its an audio restoration plugin, meant to clean up audio tracks that you ripped from a Vinyl record. Izotope Ozone is a mastering plugin.
Now, what SolidElectro said isn't completely wrong, but its not completely right, either. What mastering WAS used to be making the recorded audio sound better through the use of EQ, compression, and other minor details, but, in the past 10 or 20 years, its become a whole lot more. Back then, people had gigantic multi-track mixes, and it was tough to get it all combined, and souning good. Now, that's easy, so its the finer points that matter much more.
Yes, a master does separate an amateur from a professional song. It also takes expensive speakers to be able to do a GOOD master, along with good plugins and such, but a decent home-master can be done just using FL Studio's plugins.
The first step is optional: it's enhancing the stereo field, to bring out more panning, or width, to your song. You can use Fruity Stereo Enhancer to do this, just turn the knob towards the "+" side until it sounds wide, without sounding TOO wide... You'll know when it is that.
Next up is EQing. This is the most difficult part. What you need to do is listen to it, or get someone else to listen to it, on good monitors or headphones, in an environment with optimal acoustics. Now, isolate the specific frequencies that might need some work, like the lows, mids, or highs. For cuts, which you will most often be doing, get a round filter shape, but not too wide, or you will affect too many instruments. The point here is to get the cuts almost transparent, but to fix a little bit of the song. Many of these tiny cuts will add up. If you are doing a boost, use a wide bandwidth to make it usable. Do not boost too much, or it will clip, and that's a serious problem.
Once you've finished EQing, on to step 3, one of the most important in today's music: compression or limiting. Compression, as you probably know, has an attack time that can be altered. This is not transparent in any way, and will increase the general punch of the song, possibly with as little audible distortion as possible. If you're going for something that will be heard, but not too much, use a limiter. The little spikes in volume you hear are called "transients." The purpose of a limiter is to increase the volume of the sound to cut off the transients without causing distortion. This might be a good thing, or a bad thing, as it can make your mix loud and "professional," or flat and lacking punch, as with much music on the radio today. Use the FL Limiter (new in FL8) or another compressor/limiter to do this.
This "last" step blends with all the other steps, but can make or break a good mix. This is where hardware comes into account. There are two types of clipping: Digital clipping, or "hard" clipping, and "Analog" clipping, or "soft" clipping. This isn't actually soft clipping as you probably know it, but it does function in a similar fashion. You see, when the volume goes above 2 in FL Studio, the song clips, causing audible distortion, making it VERY noisy. This is also why renders don't always sound the same before and after you bounce them. However, Limiters and compressors will remove this, so it isn't a problem. This same "problem," when applied to Analog hardware, can be a GOOD thing! This analog equipment distorts gradually as it clips, causing a form of "warmth" or saturation (as its called), by the overdriving of this audio equipment. It can be very pleasing to hear, and will increase the harmonics and overall warmth of a track. Generally, most mixers can do this, and tube amps can too, all with good effects. These are what REALLY separates pro from amateur, as most bedroom producers (including myself), can't afford expensive hardware just for a bit of warmth. However, consider investing in a small analog mixing board: it can really improve your sound.
The truth final step is dithering. As electronic musicians, we don't need to worry about that as much. Dithering decreases the sample rate of the song down to 44.1 khz, so that it can be played by most devices. FL Studio uses a 32 bit engine, and I think Reason has a 24 bit engine. This is just a little bit of final polish, don't worry about it too much. In other words, if you're going to use your export as a sample, like a kickdrum or something, disable dithering. If its going to be for a song, something to be used by someone with a different DAW, or something you want to listen to on Windows Media Player or iTunes, enable dithering. That's all there is to it.
What I'm trying to say here is that mastering is a fine art, but it can be unnecessary. In fact, if you try to master a bad MIX, then it will sound worse than it did before. You know the saying; You can't polish a turd. So focus on getting good mixes. Take those compressors/soft clippers of the master track, and LOWER INDIVIDUAL INSTRUMENT VOLUMES INSTEAD! That's the key to a good mix. If you are going to get it mastered, then they can bring the volume up then. Otherwise, do a bedroom master like described above. The Limiter will compensate for the lack of volume!
In summary: get a good mix, then master later.
I'll master some tracks for you guys if you want, I'm learning and taking a course on audio engineering now, and its really helping. Its hard to master your own work really well, as you know what you WANT to hear, rather than what people actually will hear, so I'm always welcome to take a look. Just send me a .wav file, make sure to disable dithering.
I hope this helps!
