Getting songs/cues mastered before submission

[MichaelHopkins85]

Hey guys.

My name is Michael from Ireland

I've just joined Taxi and I'm curious whether you get everything mastered before you upload ?
Are there certain cases where mastering is not required?
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[Zaychi]

Most listings require "broadcast quality" so yeah, they should be optimal productions.

[lesmac]

There have been discussions about this on the forums previously.

The people with the most placements [hundreds if not thousands] say they do not bother with mastering.

This is absolutely the case where multiple stems will be required.

If you are pitching to an artist, music supervisor or an advertisement listing you may want some form of mastering, pseudo or real to give it some extra gloss.

The trouble with mastering a stereo file is if you want stems to add up together and sound pretty much like the master, you will have the devil of a time and a long one at that!

So for cues, don't bother with it. For the other stuff, that's up to you.

[cosmicdolphin]

" Get " everything mastered...you mean by another person ? ...NO

Master everything yourself ..YES..Absoloutley 100%, don't be sending submissions that are not going to compete with the reference tracks in terms of 'Broadcast Quality' , loudness etc. Most Libraries need music that's 100% ready to go and it's not viable to pay someone else. I recommend you get Ozone or something similar, even it's "automatic mastering " process will likely get it "good enough " whilst you learn the finer points . Although there are Libraries out there that WILL mix and/or master in house they are few and far between and at the upper end of the food chain.

Mark

[lesmac]

If 'mastering' is putting a limiter and EQ on the master bus then yeah, master everything!

The caveat here is that I don't have music placed so I guess I'm not really qualified to make the call.


I have run into trouble trying to get stems to match the power and vibe of a mastered stereo file because I used a very heavy lifting mastering plugin with compression providing the punch for the drums especially. It is a trap to rely on mastering to do too much work.

If you can get your groups to work independently/together and then give the mix a lift on the master so that the track is competitive I would say that is the goal.

I would be interested to know Mark's process here. Whether he masters a stereo file or puts the mastering type plugins on the 2 buss of the mix?

[ResonantTone]

To kinda answer two questions at once, mastering should be done but not by a third party that you have to pay. Mastering your own tracks (via the methods others have mentioned) is very important and can very much be the difference between a track that stands out as 3-4% better than all the surrounding tracks.

In my experience, there is a lot of ambiguity regarding “stems”.. With the dozen or so libraries I’ve worked with, only one of them actually wanted stems, and they weren’t even individual tracks within the project. I basically had to group all the broad level categories and export them (percussion, synths, bass, etc). All those groups ran through my master bus just like the actual song. Even though the mastering plugins I used reacted differently due to not as much signal coming through, it was still much closer to where it should be vs not using them. Disabling my mastering plugins and exporting stems would have resulted in lackluster, dull sounding, and too-quiet stems.

As far as all my other libraries, they all want “Alt Mixes” instead of stems. (Even though some of refer to them as stems!!) These are versions of the song that include multiple instrumentation categories and sound cohesive in and of themselves. Whereas stems would be used in an attempt to piece together what they want, alt mixes are used as complete entities ready to go.. just with a slightly different sound than the original. (Bed mix, No Lead, Drum and bass, etc)

Communication is really the only way to wade through some of the ambiguity. Once you start working with a specific library, it’s best to get clarification before hand to avoid wasted time on both your end and theirs.

Andrew

EDIT: I should have clarified my statement about not getting stuff mastered by third parties... It doesn't make sense if you are cranking out instrumentals or are even doing lots of vocal tracks. On the other hand, if you are producing at a very high level, have established some good contacts, and have a bread and butter track that can really go far... then it might be well worth it to pay for mastering. By and large though, it's not something you wanna do early on.

[cosmicdolphin]

I would be interested to know Mark's process here. Whether he masters a stereo file or puts the mastering type plugins on the 2 buss of the mix?

Both !

Compressor - Mojo plugin - Limiter on the 2buss of the session

Then take the 2 track Wav into Ozone and give it the final polish / loudness / width enhancement etc.

As for stems...always run them through the same 2buss / mastering chain..don't alter anything

[MBantle]

I would recommend Ozone from Izotope for mastering your own tracks (such as instrumental tracks for libraries). It will not be high end mastering but if you use it in a clever way (e.g. in conjunction with Izotope's Tonal Balance) I am sure you will be pleased with the results.
Try to create the best mix possible and leave some headroom. You can then even use Izotope's Mastering Assistant which will provide you with a starting point for mastering (check out the numerous videos on Youtube).
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Matt

[lesmac]

Cool posts Andrew, Mark and Matt!

This whole thing has been bugging me for a while.

Ive been checking out stems and alt mixes on some library websites and noticed that their alt mixes sound mastered but some of the stems don't.

[cosmicdolphin]

Ive been checking out stems and alt mixes on some library websites and noticed that their alt mixes sound mastered but some of the stems don't.

Anything you stem out should go through exactly the same master buss and/or mastering process as the full track. Don't tweak anything. They need the option to cut back and forth between different alt mixes within a scene or possibly build a custom mix from the stems. Don't overthink it...just mute it and print it.

Mark