![]() Each show would have random bands, each with separate instrumentation so I just had to mix whatever they were playing. Mixing whatever the live bands threw at me at the dark and musty music venue wasn’t unusual. Ensure the length of the bounce is greater than the duration with a bar of pre-/post-roll.I went a long time without a mix template because it wasn’t a thing back in the day of live analog sound. Create a bounce of your final mix, ensuring that there’s no stereo-buss processing and a decibel or so of headroom. Develop a professional mastering workflow in Logic: step-by-stepġ. Good mastering engineers often do little to the track they’re given (and even less if the track is already well mixed), but the small amount of processes they do carry out have a big effect on the overall sound. Rather than simply suggesting a one-size-fits-all for mastering signal processing, we’ve hopefully shown you that the workflow is just as important to professional mastering – the ‘how’ is as important as the ‘what’ you do, in other words. ![]() Using the supplied Logic Mastering template, though, we can quickly compare the musicality of different loudness settings and discover what works best for our music. ![]() Despite streaming services attenuating over-loud mixes, we still have a choice to actively over-cook our masters, although of course the more limiting we apply, the more the streaming service will attenuate playback. ![]() In this post-loudness-wars period, we can now decide how hard we want to push a track – whether we want to retain some dynamic range or push the limiting harder to create a more ‘commercial’ sound. We end, of course, almost where we began by considering the final loudness of the master. With the multi-band compressor, for example, you might need to use just one or two bands rather than have all four pounding away at your mix. As with all parts of mastering, try to be clear on the problem first (like a wobbly low end, for example) and then use the correct tool to address this issue. As such, the multi-band compressor is both a timbral and dynamic tool, which, if used correctly, can enhance or correct a range of details, or, if used incorrectly, can ruin an otherwise good mix. The multi-band compressor is another useful way to deconstruct a track, this time splitting into a number of discrete frequency bands. This form of thinking makes more sense than L/R stereo, as the main components of the track (kick, vocal, bass and so on) sit in the mid channel, while the decorative elements (string pads, reverbs, guitars) often sit more towards the side channel. M/S processing is popular in mastering circles as it allows the engineer to separate a track in the Middle and Side components – or, to put it another way, the parts of the mix residing in the mono ‘centre’ and the other elements that wrap around it to produce the effect of stereo. With respect to EQ, we’ll look at how M/S processing can be used in Logic, allowing us to apply EQ in a more considered and focused way. In this tutorial, we look at the earlier parts of the signal processing path – namely EQ and multi-band compression – that deal with the timbral qualities of our master, moving it away from the ‘colour’ established in the mix. Last time, we started at the end of the signal chain looking at limiting and compression. Nowadays, of course, this continuity of listening experience is less important (as musicians move away from an album to single tracks), although you may still be dealing with several songs in any one session.Īnother point of difference between the two workshops is that we move from simple loudness correction (that made our rough mix stand up against the loudness of commercial recordings), to a process that actively tries to enhance and fix certain elements of the mix. Mastering was traditionally the final stage in the production process – assembling, sequencing and processing 10 or so tracks to make a cohesive listening experience. Unlike last time, where mastering was applied directly across the stereo buss, this month’s workshop assumes you’re working from bounced stereo files and preparing them for delivery to a variety of streaming services. We’ll also reference how mastering has changed in response to the rise of streaming and see how you can best deliver your music to a variety of platforms. As you’ll see, there’s plenty to take from our last workshop (especially in relation to loudness control), but in this part, we’ll see how a more professional approach involves a radically different workflow and a revised look at how you work with Logic Pro X. Having explored some ‘quick-fix’ mastering solutions in our last workshop, we’re now going to take a more in-depth look at a more professional solution to mastering – where the mix and mastering process are distinct and separate elements.
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