a lot of my customers dont have the budget to get their projects mastered so I haved tried to do some myself with some decent results but want to learn more about what Im doing. Now my process consist of editing the song in sound forge, going to t racks and finding one of the presets and using that and going back to sound forge and using the L2. I also have a uad card so I wonder if I have better options available in it.Ive also considered Ozone I thought there may be some on line courses or some instructional material out that could be of help any suggestions will be appreciated

Hi jeff

T racks can add a nice richness and L2 will limit fine but Uad i would guess maybe better quality wise ?(i dont use it )I read very good things about the Uad multiband limiter (a great mastering tool unless you believe they should only be used as a last resort (i dont as they work )and what works works ! (see below)

The Uad La2 and Eq's (cambridge and others )may be good also for trial and error mastering. My advice is try all the stuff out , make a/b/c comparisons and have no fear.

Whats worked or working to your ears jeff ? try all the software you have in various
combinations using a before and after approach.Anything goes and mastering for me is creativity rather than a rigid science and my guess is most mastering enginners have experimented to find ' their ' appraoch and take the same approach.What works works.If what you use works then great.I would if i owned the Uad card have zoned in on that myself due to its ' character factor ? ' and better number crunching and results ? My guess is Uad would yeild ' better ' results that L2 and tracks ?but ' whats ' better ? - we sluip into the world of personal (sirens begin wailing )taste
and thats where only the masterers ears can say yeah or neh

Dont tiptoe through the tulips , take the bull by the horns and run the mix through everything once !(steady on the L2 though, they can kill mixes and also move subtley into the realms of invisiblity)

Having done all that you my just find the mix didnt need mastering at all !

matt

Greetings Jeff. Check out digital domain for lots of info for mastering. Lots of trial and error while learning. Try to master one process at a time. I get other engineers in the studio that kinda know a little bit about ten different processes and just start to link things together for no apparent reason.
Have fun and good luck!
Jeff

I master my own stuff for exactly the reason you describe. The bands I record don't have the money for separate mastering so I provide a complete service.

I use Ozone and I've had good results with it. You've got some excellent plugins, however, so I'm not sure that Ozone would be any better than what you've got. The Ozone website does have a good paper on mastering that you can download for free. I recommend reading that as a starting place.

The most important thing I've done, besides reading up on mastering, is to pick a few reference CDs for each project and listen to them carefully as I do the mastering phase (I also do this during mixing). I try to analyze the frequency balance, the amount of compression, and how the overall mix blends together. I find that often during mastering that a weakness in the mix will become more apparent and I'll go back and tweak the mix. This is one advantage of mastering your own stuff - you can adjust the mix if a problem jumps out from applying the limiter, for example.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff4h:
a lot of my customers dont have the budget to get their projects mastered so I haved tried to do some myself with some decent results but want to learn more about what Im doing. Now my process consist of editing the song in sound forge, going to t racks and finding one of the presets and using that and going back to sound forge and using the L2. I also have a uad card so I wonder if I have better options available in it.Ive also considered Ozone I thought there may be some on line courses or some instructional material out that could be of help any suggestions will be appreciated

Mastering Audio (the art of)by Bob Katz----300 pages of a-hole-lot-of-knowledge.
You may become disalusioned after reading some of the chapters,but,if thats what its takes,then thats what it takes.
Theres also another book with dvd from Bill Gibson.\
Good luck

quote:

Originally posted by eddies880:
Mastering Audio (the art of)by Bob Katz----300 pages of a-hole-lot-of-knowledge.
You may become disalusioned after reading some of the chapters,but,if thats what its takes,then thats what it takes.
Theres also another book with dvd from Bill Gibson.\
Good luck

I'll second that... Mastering Audio is a great book! However, always remember to use your ears and experiment a lot

quote:

Originally posted by Markus V:

quote:

Originally posted by eddies880:
Mastering Audio (the art of)by Bob Katz----300 pages of a-hole-lot-of-knowledge.
You may become disalusioned after reading some of the chapters,but,if thats what its takes,then thats what it takes.
Theres also another book with dvd from Bill Gibson.\
Good luck

I'll second that... Mastering Audio is a great book! However, always remember to use your ears and experiment a lot

The experiment part can take up hrs on end,but if thats what it takes--then thas what it takes.

well I took the advice of buying Bobs book and it was the best thing I could have done it also has helped my mixing I also bought the uad percision eq and limiter these are great and have really improved my quality

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff4h:
a lot of my customers dont have the budget to get their projects mastered so I haved tried to do some myself with some decent results but want to learn more about what Im doing. Now my process consist of editing the song in sound forge, going to t racks and finding one of the presets and using that and going back to sound forge and using the L2. I also have a uad card so I wonder if I have better options available in it.Ive also considered Ozone I thought there may be some on line courses or some instructional material out that could be of help any suggestions will be appreciated

Ive read only half of Bob Katz book,with that said,I have a whole lot of answers to my questions.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff4h:
well I took the advice of buying Bobs book and it was the best thing I could have done it also has helped my mixing I also bought the uad percision eq and limiter these are great and have really improved my quality

Good job on getting the book
It's been a real eye-opener for me, and I hope it helps you as much as it did help me