Mastering a song

wild_eyed

what happens when a track gets mastered, are the volumes risen by 3 db? or more than that?

feylya

When an ep is mastered, all the levels of the start of one song are made as close to the previous song as possible, so that there isn't a massive jump in volume between songs. When mastering a song, I believe it's brought up to a prespecified level so that it's the same as other songs on the radio.

wild_eyed

ok, so these radio levels? what are they?
and how can i see what my current track levels are.

feylya

No idea what the levels are. I'm sure a sound engineer would be able to answer your question. I can't think of the name of the damn thing but it's like a speedometer that responds to sound. The overall level of the song should be in the green section of it.

Giblet

Most tracks are compressed to kill distortion and volumes are increased and leveled.

Oh an when you run the levels, usually songs are between -12 and -4 db, where 1db is adding gain.

daram

Levels should be as high as you can get them with out clipping. Compression and eq is optional, but can make a huge difference.

wild_eyed

right, well i have sonar 2, we recorded songs in studio, but they weren't really mastered. i loaded the entire wav of the track into sonar and increased the db by 3. noticable difference, but how i see if it's enough?
any online guides

Eoin Madsen

Mastering is the series of processes performed on the stereo mixdown. Generally the aim is to create the same perceived volume and frequency characteristic between a set of songs (ie an album or ep). Additionally, the purpose is to make the songs as loud as possible without compromising the quality or dynamic. This has to be done by complex compression.

If you slap a regular compressor on your mixdown, you'll mess up your mix, so I wouldn't advise it. Mastering is a specialist field, performed by a mastering engineer rather than a sound engineer. And certainly not by someone at home! The RMS volume increase in mastering is usually between 6 and 12 dB as far as I know. If you need the volume desperately you can probably get 3 dB into your mixdown yourself with a regular compressor, without too many adverse effects. But I wouldn't advise more.

You're better off with no mastering than bad mastering.

feylya

Easiest way is to compare it to other songs. I'm not overly fimilar with Sonar so there might be sound level bar things. If the song hits the red, it's too loud.

Eoin Madsen

Without mastering it won't sound as loud as other songs, but believe me - you're better off not trying to make it that way yourself.

I'm not familiar with Sonar, so I'd advise you to pickup a copy of Soundforge. You can find an evaluation copy here: http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/download/default.asp

musician.ie

I would be disinclined to do my final mastering on Sonar. Mix it down to stereo first and then use a dedicated audio editor. If you must use Sonar, look at the master output levels on the console page. The meters are set to toggle the red light at the top on, if the levels go too high and clip, although to my ears this errs about 1db on the side of caution. You could try putting a brick-wall limiter with a read-ahead buffer on your master-out, set to -0.3 dB. That will protect your ears and tweeters until you become adept at the art. Do a search on kvr-vst to try some of the free ones. Althoughif you have sonar 2 you'll have to also have a VST adapter to use it. They built one into sonar 3.

Much of the commercial stuff has the crap compresssed out of it, and then it gets compressed again when played on radio. Sure it's loud but it's tiring and nasty to listen to. Let your music breath a little. Have it peaking at 0db by all means, but learn how to use a multiband compressor wisely and judiciously. You'll never match the results of a professional mastering house, but you can improve the impact your stereo mix greatly.

Eoin Madsen

Yeah. But "No mastering is better than bad mastering" is so much catchier, isn't it?

musician.ie

There's an old cliche that goes "Give an idiot a hammer and everything looks like a nail". Multiband compressors can be like that sometimes...

I'll always recommend a professional mastering house as my ears and equipment are not up to the mastering job, but if I ever have to do a 5-minute amateur mastering job on a DAW, I'll go:

Gate->normalize->soft-knee gentle compression->(optionally)aural exciter (clients love it when they hear it and always want the effect cranked up full, but once they've lived with the mix for a day the change their minds )

It's a proved to be a pretty usable quick-fix formula. It'll still sound quieter than the latest Shania Twain, but it'll be fine for radio play.