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disoriental · Posted - Wed Feb 12, 2003 9:55 am

I was just curious as to what tools in cool edit pro you use or find helpful for mastering? I do know how to master and am familiar with it just wanted to see some other peoples ideas/rituals when mastering. I want to freshen things up a little and see if anyone had any techniques that I might try to get out of this rut. Also is there any tool (besides a gentle high eq slope) that is like a harmonic exciter in CEP2K?

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

Personally, I use Ozone for multi-band processing. Apart from the fact that no versions of CE include a harmonic exciter, pretty much everything else can actually be accomplished with what's there (certainly in CEP2.0), although being able to do a lot of it at once with Ozone saves a lot of time.

If you look around the third party plugins forum, you will find that other people have their own favourite mastering tools, and probably a few more people will tell you about Waves, etc here.

As far as techniques go, the first rule is 'Get some decent monitors'. The second rule is not to mix and master on the same day. The third rule is 'less is more'. And on the iZotope site, there are some very useful free guides, applicable to mastering techniques. Okay, they are primarily aimed at Ozone users, but a lot of the material is universally applicable.

Craig Jackman · Location: Canada

The free guides on the iZotope site are worth the read, whether you do your own mastering, or not. If you are into recording, read them and learn.

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

Ozone is really nice. So is T-Racks and Waves. The iZotope guide is an excellence source as is.... www.studiocovers.com Wink

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

I'd also suggest you read this thread before you start worrying too much about additional software tools - 'Holy Horse Hockey - New Monitors!'

RDMSstudio · Posted - Thu Feb 13, 2003 2:42 am

Ahhh yes... the eternal question..... EQ then compress... or the other way around....etc.
Here is the best advise I can give you.... Listen for what you don't like rather than trying to polish it up to something new... or as STEVEG says "less is more"

When you do this, try listening to your work very loud and very quiet... notice how the Bass and treble change.. This is the art...compromise.....you may get a great mix on one set of speakers at one level... but not everyone has access to your environment. So after you think you have it right, do a test burn and play it on every system you can find.... this is why mastering engineers don't change rooms and monitors very much :o)

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

Not too much of the loud, please... the real killer is what it sounds like when it's played really quietly. This is also an excellent way of telling how much you've screwed the balance (especially vocal) in the mix!

zemlin · Location: USA

That is also one of my "acid tests" - if I play it REAL quiet can I still hear everything? If one voice or instrument stands out or something disappears when the volume is way down, I still have more work to do.

I almost never work at high volume levels - although when I'm home alone I will do "loud checks".

RDMSstudio · Posted - Thu Feb 13, 2003 7:38 pm

Of course we all know about our ears natural compression when we listen at sustained high levels but if it's club music then loud it must be.... and NEVER NEVER master or mix with HEADPHONES

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

Yes, but the compression effects mean that your ears will actually tolerate far more variation in a mix at high levels. Basically, any mix that really does sound alright when played quietly is going to be okay when it's played louder. The only real exception to this being, perhaps, the bass levels, which may need to be bought down a bit for a mix that's designed only to be played loud.