Do you Master your mixes?

Zascar

I was talking to a mate today who says that he always Masters his mixes after recording before putting online etc. Says it really makes a difference.

Do you do it? What's involved?

NotInventedHere

no, and thinking about it, in a gig would you be able master a mix?

run_Forrest_run

excuse my ignorance folks but what exactly does mastering a mix entail??

Anima

Its not really mastering, its just running the output through a compressor / high end exciter / stuff like that. The music is already mastered to within an inch of its life, its loud enough already!

unclebill98

Mastering would just smooth out the overall sound from going from one song to the next. It sound improve the over quality of the recording.

But considering that 99% of the stuff would already be mastered i ain't sure how needed that would be.

-jethro-

i master all my mixes... mostly because im a perfectionist, but also because its good to get your mix sounding as close to the original recording as possible - when your messing with eq's and depending on your recording hardware / software, the recorded track will almost always differ from the original recording (ie. you might be boosting the level or reducing it).

Some post-eq'ing / multi-band compression / stereo imaging / reverb / multiband harmonics, etc can sometimes can add a nice feel to the mix or if your looking to change certain sounds you can adjust particular elements of the mix.

Another major reason is that i never record my mixes at a full-on 0db level. I find that it's a lot better leaving some legroom for mid-mix eq'ing / effects /etc. by recording at say around -1 or 2 and then bringing the levels up post mix, as opposed to risking clipping and ultimately distortion.

Also when you record a high quality wav / aiff file, and then you convert this to say a 320kbps mp3 for sending around, depending on the encoder, if the original file was maxed at 0db, the mp3 encoding will probably be clipping. Try this out and youl see it often happens.

deevey

I feel it depends on how much "mastering" he is doing,

For me ..

Normalizing - YES!

Compression - YES!

Overall EQ - YES!

Bit of Stereo expansion perhaps and a teeny bit of reverb.

no, and thinking about it, in a gig would you be able master a mix?

The above would all be done for you by a live engineer or preset properly in the amprack in most venues.

I know you can go overboard, scratch removal, re-EQ each track to an inch .. but some basics sound improvement leveling is never a bad thing for sharing mixes, technology has come a long way and is available to anyone with a computer (free too !), lets use it, the days of hissy mix tapes with taped over copy tabs are dead and gone(I hope).

Damn jethro .. just got in before me as I poste I second the -0db rule.. I hate anyone running into the red on a mixer generally -1ish on channels -5 on the master and normalize after for me.

mastering isnt all about the levels .. its about sound quality

hans aus dtschl

No.
And i don't see the point; It wont make a bad mix good.
I avoid compression on PA rigs too; prefer to use lots of headroom and low levels.
It IS a personal preference thing, but I simply couldn't justify spending time mastering a mix.
If its for the radio, their engineer will do it, if its for a home stereo, it'll be barely noticeable.