Mastering 101: How to Master a Song - Nokia Lumia: How to personalise ringtones and sounds

Mastering 101: How to Master a Song


A: Hey, folks. Matthew Weiss here. Www.weiss-sound.com.
Www.theproaudiofiles.com. I'm going to be
addressing something that comes
up quite a bit in my inbox. That is mastering.
When talking about
mastering, it's very important to realize
that it's basically just another
level of mixing. It's solidifying the entirety
of the record, ensuring that
it translates, making last minute tweaks,
things that you will want to see
happen to the overall mix. In a perfect universe,
you wouldn't be doing
necessarily much to the master. Sometimes,
you might be doing things to the
master simply because the effect works better
there, but in general, if
it's to fix something, you usually want to
address that in the mix. In
fact, a really good mix does not need much
when it comes to mastering.
Alright. So, let's listen to this record.
OK. So, when I ask myself about mastering,
I'm essentially asking the same
question that I'm asking myself through the
mixing process, which is what
do I want. What do I want to hear? Is this
good enough? Does something need
to go back to the mix? OK. Here's my thoughts.
First of all, I think that
the mix is good. I'm happy with it. I think
everything is sitting right. I
think it's all good. The only things that
I want to hear is I want to hear
a little bit more brightness and pop to the
overall mix, and I wouldn't
mind if there was a little bit of extra sort
of punch on the drums or some
kind of homogenizing type of vibe, some kind
of a compression vibe going
for that kind of rock and roll sound. So,
with that being said, what I'm
going to do here is I'm going to pop in my
outboard gear. I'm going to
explain to you what I'm doing.
So, the first thing that I'm going to do is
I'm going to just show you what
the sound sounds like when I start engaging
all of my outboard gear. So,
this is with no processing being done, just
going through the actual sound
of all the devices. So before
After
There's a certain nice little bit of
saturation that I'm getting from my equipment
that's giving me a tone that
I like to impart over the entire mix. It makes
everything sound a little
bit bigger, not vastly different, just a little
bit. But when we're talking
about mastering, every inch counts. OK.
So, the first thing I'm going to do is...
I sort of work it in reverse
order. My signal chain here is an EQ to a
compressor to another EQ. I'm
going to do the final EQ first because the
final EQ is just a very gentle
treatment. I'm going to click it in right
now. Actually, I'll do a before
and after. One more time. Listen to the top
end specifically. Before.
After. That's the Clariphonic equalizer. It's
one of my favorite EQ's
because you can add more brightness into something,
somehow without
changing the tonal balance of things. I don't
exactly understand, like it's
still a mystery to me how that's even possible.
It kind of does that, and
so I feel like I can kind of put it on any
mix. I can just make things pop
a little more without actually disrupting
anything.
Alright. Now, my first EQ. What I want to
hear is a little bit more
presence range. What I did is I sort of clicked
around some different
presence frequencies, and I ultimately found
that 2.7 is the one that
seemed to make it sing the most. I'm just
going to pop that in real quick.
This is just a two decibel bump, nothing else.
Before. After. Didn't take
much. That's just a two decibel bump at 2.7.
Suddenly, the mix just popped
out. That's cool. That's all that I needed.
I don't think that it needs any
kind of other EQ. It all sounds good to me.
Lastly, I'm going to engage some compression.
When I'm thinking about
compression, there's sort of two different
ideas. It's a misconception that
compression on the mix bus is about loudness.
It's really not. In fact, a
lot of times, you're going to lose potential
loudness by using compression,
especially in the fashion in which I'm using
it. The way I'm using it is
actually very slow attack, medium release
compression. What that's going to
do is it's going to cause the drums to trigger
the compressor, but it's not
going to cause the compressor to actually
reduce the transient impact of
the drum. In other words, it's going to make
the drums a little punchier.
And at the same time, I have the release time
just right where it preserves
air, but it also creates some kind of similar
movement throughout
everything in the mix. So, it's going to give
it a little punch and a
little bit of what people might call glue,
but what I would call movement.
Alright. So, let's pop that in. That's before.
Notice how we actually lost
some level, even though the peak volume is
staying pretty similar. I mean,
the peak volume actually is being reduced
slightly as well. We lost some
level, but the drums stayed pretty prominent
and pretty smacking. So,
relative to everything else, the drums are
becoming a little bit more
prominent. That's the way that I'm using the
mix compression here. But,
this is all dependent on what the mix is calling
for. If I had really,
really sharp pointed drums already, then I
probably wouldn't need to use
compression in this sense. In fact, I would
probably be doing the opposite,
using faster compression and a faster release
just to round the drums out.
Alright. So, that's my mastering chain here.
Let's give the before and
after. So, I hope you guys learned something.
Take care.


Nokia Lumia: How to personalise ringtones and sounds


Want to make your Nokia Lumia sound special? - Follow these easy steps!
To change the volume, press the volume up or volume down key.
Now, tap to see additional volume controls.
Here you can set the volume for your ringtone and notifications ...
... and for apps, music and video.
To silence your phone, tap here ...
... and if you don't want your phone to vibrate, tap here.
Ready to choose a ringtone?
That's simple to do in phone settings.
Your phone comes with a selection of ringtones ...
... just tap the icon for a preview.
Want to add your own custom ringtones? - tap the link and follow the instructions.
If you don't want to hear a sound when typing, you can switch off key press sounds.
Have you ever wanted to make an app sound different from others?
Just tap here ...
... choose an app or account ...
... and make your pick!