Guitar Gear Forum

My band are currently recording a new album on logic. At somepoimt the tracks will need mastering overall. What programs are there than can add that 'x-factor' to a final master/mix.

When you're mastering stuff yourself you want any program where you can import all your final mixes then apply different processing to each track to bring them into a unified whole.

When I've done that in the past, I've either imported all my mixes into Wavelab or just started a new project in my DAW. Each mixdown gets its own track, then I slide them about into order and decide how long the gaps are, whether any tracks will run into each other etc, then apply processing.

When you're mastering your own mixes it's a headfuck, because you're probably sitting in the same room you mixed in so you can't do the usual things like correct mix issues caused by poor monitoring and acoustics. But you can apply processing to increase the volume, and make the tracks more unified both in terms of volume and tonality.

Once you've got it all finished you have the technical process of getting it onto the right format, which depends what you want to do with it. If you're happy just selecting each track in turn and bouncing to WAV then do that, but if you want to send it for replication you'll probably need a .DDP file or disk image, and you'll also need ISRC codes loaded into the meta-data of each track which you can generate yourself by registering with the PRS or get a third party to make them for you. Not all audio programs can do that.


Honestly, I'd never master anything I was planning to release myself these days. Mastering is an Art and it's always good to get a fresh and unbiased set of ears involved, plus they tend to have the equipment, experience and environment to help fix things that are messed up in the mix. And I speak from personal experience there - the first time I heard my mix in a pro mastering suite I was shocked at how clearly I could hear issues that I just didn't know existed! It doesn't have to be expensive either - I've got a couple of budget options I've been very happy with, if you're interested I'll happily PM details.

Not to detract from Cirrus' advice, it sounds good as gold; here is a couple of links that might also be helpful:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug04/a ... tering.htm

http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2013/06 ... -software/

May I suggest that you simply send the tracks to a real mastering studio? It's worth the $50-$100 a head.

I've heard favorable reviews of this guys work:
http://www.indieaudiomastering.com/

I'd highly recommend Unisound as well but he's more of a metal guy. But when I got the first master sample for listening back from him I could immediately hear what was wrong with my monitoring based on how he changed the track eq.

Just got the master CD in the mail from Unisound. It blows my mind how much better he made it sound.

There's just no way I could've gotten even close to what Dan did on my own. Everything sounds so huge and so clear compared to anything I've done.

So, if I was a proponent for sending your stuff to mastering before, now I'm a zealot.