I'm kind of curious as to what people's "mastering" process of LSDJ tracks is. IAYD gave me a mini-CD of his 8bp release in November and on the back it says "Mastered by Glomag." Since the actual mixing is done in the software, what extra work is done after something is recorded and why?
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New York City
You don't need to do the actual mixing in the software necessarily.
I record by channel and further process the mix. I want to deliver a good mixing and that is impossible just by recording a straight output from a shitboy. I do make it as good as possible in the machine beforehand, though.
Now mastering is a bit of a different science altogether and I only leave it to experienced sound engineers after I gave them what I think is the best mix I can output.
In a lot of cases people confuse mixing and mastering, to me a mastering process is done when the final mix is done and you need to deploy to a lot of different media and it needs to sound the best in them all (digital download, Cd, home computer use, big stereo, etc). This is way over my head.
If I am not wrong Glomag is a sound engineer and he probably mastered the files IAYD gave him. For mastering, you only need a final bounce of the file to be mastered, not a channel-separated package. Then they apply their secret magic science. 
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Tokyo, Japan
I'm more than happy to be corrected on this but
Mixing - levels of the "instruments" relative to each other
production - making the above sound good with fx/eq/comp and stuff
mastering - preparing the produced audio for release on whatever medium
was I even close?
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
Lazerbeat wrote:
I'm more than happy to be corrected on this but
Mixing - levels of the "instruments" relative to each other
production - making the above sound good with fx/eq/comp and stuff
mastering - preparing the produced audio for release on whatever medium
was I even close?
I'd say you were pretty spot on..
Another method possible for "recording" tracks would be to record each channel onto separate tracks into your DAW (digital audio workstation).
This can be done w/o clock sync. how ever i recommend using some form of midi clock sync to ensure your channels stay in sync with each other,
What this allows you to do is do a lot more traditional mixing techniques. If you use more than 1 kind of instrument on a channel you can
go even crazier and use gridmode editing (if you recorded tracks in via midi clock sync), and separate your tracks even further for further mixing
and editing.
It can really allow your songs to POP in my opinion..
but takes a lot of time and effort which a lot of people aren't really interested in doing. or believe it takes away from what it's supposed to be.
Although this is how i prefer to work now.
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New York City
To me there's no difference between Mixing and Production, actually, Mixing would be part of the PRODUCTION process. Production begins to me when laying down the tune you want to do. Then Mastering is the next level, for content deploy, as you perfectly explained.
What you explain, Logan, is exactly what I do, but I wouldn't recommend doing it without MIDI clock syncing. This is the way I produce my tracks since 2 years now.
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Los Angeles
akira^8GB wrote:
To me there's no difference between Mixing and Production, actually, Mixing would be part of the PRODUCTION process. Production begins to me when laying down the tune you want to do. Then Mastering is the next level, for content deploy, as you perfectly explained.
What you explain, Logan, is exactly what I do, but I wouldn't recommend doing it without MIDI clock syncing. This is the way I produce my tracks since 2 years now.
Same here except when I have weird mastering issues I will end up re-doing/thinking/tweaking the mixing because usually that is a mixing issue.
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New York City
I can mix tracks a million times man, there's a point where I try not to listen to the track anymore (I usually listen to the track non stop for 2 or 3 days :S)
Then, after a while, all I want to do is remix my own tracks XD
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
Lets just say when i mastered my last record... it killed my love for that album. hahahaha...
Word to the wise.. dont master your own records. 
Just have someone else do it.
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Los Angeles
Im too impatient to wait 2-3 days like your suppose to.
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Miami, FL
You shouldn't really mix or master your own material since it's better to have fresh ears to mix/master your tracks.
A basic explanation of the whole process can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_post_production
Your best bet is to record each channel separately and mix it in your preferred DAW. Then bounce it out to a really HQ wav file and send it off for black magic mastering.
Mixing it correctly in the GB is the first step and is very important. The second most important step is achieving a mix that you're truly happy about.
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New York City
I don't agree, specially putting mix/master like if they were the same.
There's a way I want tracks to sound, so definitely it is me who has to make the final mix. Nobody else will do it the way I like it. But yes, when the final mix is down, off it goes to the mastering black mage 
I've had experiences with people mixing my shit up and it was disastrous. Mastering is different.
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Plano, TX
Well, I'm generally pretty fine with how I mix in LSDJ itself (although the limited volume control in the WAVE channel drives me batty at times), so I don't think I really want to bother with recording channels individually at this point.
Does anybody here have experience with mastering? Maybe I could I send a .wav to somebody to see what they could do to it? I think that would probably help me "get" what goes on with it more than anything.
Last edited by PixyJunket (Jan 8, 2010 6:42 pm)
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New York City
You should send it to Glomag.
I have limited experience, but I could try if you want to hear a difference.
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
I do mastering myself, but with my backlog for the record label as it is.. i'm just not available ATM.
and when i say "mastering" i say that loosely... i can balance tracks out to the best of my ability, make it pop/loud/radio friendly... and set tracks spacing, but i dont consider myself a professional mastering engineer. Takes magical ears for that which i have probably lost due to too many gigs w/o ear plugs. But for chipmusic.... Most wont hear the difference anyways. hahaha
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Nashville, Tennessee
i also do a bit of mastering... and it makes all the difference. pixyjunket, ill give that .wav a whirl if you'd like 