Mastering feedback

[electricblues817]

Hey, my band recently released an independent album, which I produced and mixed myself. Unfortunately, I'm not a trained engineer, so I'm slightly uneasy about the sound quality.Our site is www.myspace.com/ferizblueI would love some advice especially with regard to EQ'ing the master. For our album we couldnt afford to pay for mastering, so I did it myself just by running EQ's and compressors, etc. on the stereo output bus. Now when I listen back I feel like some of it is too dull, and the compression settings aren't great either. So I'd love to hear from anyone with some good ears, so we don't make the same mistakes again. Thanks alot - Brian

[cameron]

I haven't listened to your album yet, but this might be a good alternative. You can download a fully functional free trial. I think it periodically adds drop-outs to the processed audio until you buy it.http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/ozone/Cam

[electricblues817]

Hey thanks alot. Pretty expensive, but it looks like it could be a huge help. Do you have any personal experience with it?

[ideascapes]

Brian,I listened to most of "Vindictive," which was the first song that played when the MySpace page loaded. The production sounds pretty good to me, so the mastering must have done its job. Without hearing the "before" to compare to the "after" I can't make any strict judgments, but what you have posted sounds darn good. As far as the compression goes, I didn't hear any pumping or excessive settings. And I wouldn't describe it as dull at all.On first listen, I can't say I agree with all the mix decisions, but that's mostly taste. For example, I think the drum sound could be better and the guitar occasionally overpowered the vocal.Hope this helps.Vince

[cameron]

Dec 12, 2008, 8:20pm, electricblues817 wrote:Hey thanks alot. Pretty expensive, but it looks like it could be a huge help. Do you have any personal experience with it? Yes, I use it on occasion. Most of the presets are pretty overdone, but they give you a good starting point that you can tweak to suit your own tastes. I just had one of my home demos professionally mastered, and I have also previously used Ozone on the same recording. The pro version definitely sounds better, but the Ozone one isn't bad.Cam

[electricblues817]

Thanks for the critique ideascapes. Thats funny, one of the screeners recently said the same exact thing about the guitars overpowering the vocals in Vindictive. So far I would say that song has been returned about 4 times and forwarded once. I think I've just listened to the songs so many times now that I can't even tell what I'm listening to anymore. Thats why I'm worried about the quality.And Cameron, thanks again. I think I'm gonna save up for that ozone software. I'll probably do the same thing with starting off with a preset and then adjusting.

[heckxx]

The mix sounds good to me. I don't hear those common mistakes that inexperienced people tend to do with mastering (over-compression, usually).-Jeff

[ideascapes]

Brian and Cam,I bought ozone a few years ago with the thought that it'd be my mastering software. It's pretty cool tool, but I'd actually recommend against using the presets. Or at least promise yourself you'll tweak every setting on the preset to your ears. The problem is on the multi-band compressor, for example. You can get some very squirrely sounds depending of the threshold settings (and they are set by band). Also, the exciter can create sibiliance problems. And the stereo imaging should be used very carefully. And so on.I now only use ozone for certain enhancements as I have more discipline using separate plug-ins for compression and EQ in the mastering stage.Vince

[cameron]

I agree that Ozone can definitely be overdone if you're not careful. I usually start by finding a preset that sounds close to what I want and then tweak it. If you can't afford to buy a bunch of separate effects it can be useful.Whatever you use, the nice thing about mastering it yourself is that you can get it the way YOU want it.Cam