With powerful mastering tools now available to everyone, it's easy to do more harm than good when self-mastering. Although you're always better off going to a true mastering engineer, sometimes that's just not in the budget.Here are a few mastering compressor tips from my book Mixing And Mastering With T-RackS: The Official Guide
that I don't think you'll find anywhere else."Adjusting the Attack and Release controls on the compressor and/or limiter can have a surprising effect on the program sound.
- Slower Release settings will usually make the gain changes less audible but will also lower the perceived volume.
- A slow Attack setting will tend to ignore drums and other fast signals but will still react to the vocals and bass.
- A slow Attack setting might also allow a transient to overload the next plug-in or piece of equipment in the chain.
- Gain changes on the compressor caused by the drum hits can pull down the level of the vocals and bass and cause overall volume changes in the program.
- Usually only the fastest Attack and Release settings can make the sound “pump.”
- The more bouncy the level meter, the more likely that the compression will be audible.
- Quiet passages that are too loud and noisy are usually a giveaway that you are seriously over-compressing."
You can read more from Mixing And Mastering With T=RackS and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.
1 comment:
IMO "self-mastering" is merely another step in the mixing process. Until you hand it off to an unbiased, objective third party mastering engineer you are still mixing.
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