What is your home mastering process? Home mastering process.

[Mystical Musician]

I'm curious about your home mastering techniques and process. What do you usually use?

Personally, I try to keep my master track minimalistic:

• Compressor (if needed)
• Satin Tape Simulator by u-he
• KClip Zero by Kzorg (clipper)
• One or two limiters, Arturia's Bus PEAK

Sometimes, I also use an overdrive before or after the tape simulator.

That's it. Curious about yours.

 

[Gesuguru]

More power to you. I can hardly mix my music half the time.

 

[Mystical Musician]

More power to you. I can hardly mix my music half the time.

Click to shrink...

Ho? For mixing, I see it a bit like learning an instrument. In the beginning, it's useful to listen to reference tracks and try to reproduce the same type of mix and sound. Like with an instrument, where you listen to the music and replicate the pattern. Start without applying any effects, aiming to get the best sound from your instruments and adjusting the volumes. Try to keep levels around -6 to -12 dB for each instrument. Apply nothing, no EQ at first, and use your ears well.

Later on, you may want to add EQ, but seriously, there aren't too many rules. Have a good pair of headphones that suit you and a good listening system.

 

[r4v3r]

+1 for the minimalism.

• Infrasonic (airwondows)
• Ultrasonic (airwondows)

Cutting down useless frequencies bellow 20hz and above nyquist frequency.

• Parametric EQ 8band (LSP)

Last minute frequency adjustments. My mixes tend to be quite dark so I end up boosting some of the high end.

• Hypersoft (airwondows)

"Clipping". Hypersoft is a weird plugin but i like how it sounds.

• Limiter (LSP)

I use it as a brickwall. Hypersoft (i think, i hope) catches all of the peaks so this is just here to avoid intersample peaking. I could get rid of it. The usual max gain reduction is about -0.5db - -1.0db

 

[Mystical Musician]

OK interesting. I downloaded a Mathew Jonson exemple set here https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/mathew-jonson-rhythm-melody-and-chaos/ There is some tips for the mastering made by an Ableton guy, I think.
And I watch an Art of Mr. Bill, there is a very minimalist mastering, even the loudness is not very high, its good to know don't need much (for our home mastering).

 

[jamamiah]

I do a similar thing. I use FL and use Maximus for all my compression and limiting. Very light compression into Soft Clipper, then limit.
The best mixes don't need a master.

 

[Mystical Musician]

Yes not really need, but all time need to maximize I think cause would be a bit light in db and lufs if no limiter or maximizer. I like to have an analog sound so I use tape plug-in that's make the sound larger and more sticky.

 

[OohRapIYa]

Ho? For mixing, I see it a bit like learning an instrument. In the beginning, it's useful to listen to reference tracks and try to reproduce the same type of mix and sound. Like with an instrument, where you listen to the music and replicate the pattern. Start without applying any effects, aiming to get the best sound from your instruments and adjusting the volumes. Try to keep levels around -6 to -12 dB for each instrument. Apply nothing, no EQ at first, and use your ears well.

Later on, you may want to add EQ, but seriously, there aren't too many rules. Have a good pair of headphones that suit you and a good listening system.

Click to shrink...

this is really informative thanks.

in your experience would you say there is anything major that contributes to mixes sounding different when changing the speaker? I could absolutely love something on my headphones and then have it sound awful when i switch to my speaker system. I sorta get that every speaker acts as its own filter so naturally things sound slightly different on every device. But is there a good way to ensure a degree of consistency?

 

[oscmod2s]

I use a mid-side EQ > compression and really light saturation > limiter. That's all I find I need most of the time. I mix into a bus compressor though so there's that.

 

[Seiklos]

For me?
Step1: Take Ozone's suggestions
Step 2: Spend a day trying to understand why it made its decisions.
Step 3: Remember that it listens to 5 seconds and even if it listened to the whole thing, still can't "make decisions" because it doesn't have ears.
Step 4: ??????
Repeat

 

[Mystical Musician]

this is really informative thanks.

in your experience would you say there is anything major that contributes to mixes sounding different when changing the speaker? I could absolutely love something on my headphones and then have it sound awful when i switch to my speaker system. I sorta get that every speaker acts as its own filter so naturally things sound slightly different on every device. But is there a good way to ensure a degree of consistency?

Click to shrink...

My advice would be to listen to reference music with these speakers before working on your productions. Listen to music from time to time with the speakers. Your ear has to get used to it. It might take some time. Maybe everything already works well with your speakers, check if you have any problems after mixing or mastering, maybe everything is fine :D. But the best is to have monitor speakers with which you enjoy listening to your reference sounds. After all, I'm not a mastering engineering consultant. I'm a tinkerer. Personally, I mainly use an Audio-Technica ATH-M50X and AirPods Max when I'm in a café, because I like the sound of both headphones (even though the ATH-M50X is already designed for mixing and I find the AirPods Max okay, I wouldn't use hi-fi equipment for that, of course). I get very good results with the Audio-Technica, with almost no problems in the bass and other frequencies compared to the Beyer and HS7 I had before (most of the time, haha). For the AirPods Max, I need more experience, but they should be fine. I previously had a Beyerdynamic, following online advice, and I even bought a second one, supposedly more balanced, but I sold them both because, in the end, I had problems that drove me crazy. I then bought the Audio-Technica, which I preferred and which better suited my style of music. Since then, everything has been going well.

I would also add that it is advisable to test different audio systems after mixing and mastering to understand your speakers . If the end result is satisfactory and there are no significant differences between your current speakers and the previous models, so much the better. If you don't have the old speakers, just evaluate the result.