MASTERING AND FINALISING TIPS FROM A MASTERING ENGINEER

Here are some questions on finalizing we posed to a professional mastering engineer. Should stereo bounces out of Logic be normalised? Normalising will take the loudest peak in a file and lift it to the predetermined normalization value. It would be ideal if peaks in a 24 bit file were somewhere between -12dBFS and -2dBFS Normalizing would bring it up higher than this. Normalising is, however, less of a problem than limiting which is an extreme dynamic process and affects transient information. It is not really necessary unless the mix has been peaking down at -12dB or lower just so it plays back at a reasonable level once bounced. What level should final mixes be at? It probably makes sense to your mix gain structure to be peaking at between -12 and -4dBFS. (if only that raising levels in mastering by fader or clip gain is still potentially affecting the sound by mathematically calculating the gain increase, albeit in a probably inaudible manner.) Should I bounce to stereo first and then re import stereo mix for some mastering processing? Yes, it is a good approach to separate mixing and mastering processes. You can always go back to your mix session and adjust and rebounce. Mastering requires a specific approach and a big factor when working with 2 track stereo is to be able to effectively judge compromise. It is also worth remembering that good quality mastering processors drain a lot of CPU power.

Should I use a limiter in the output bus? If gain structure is correct through the DAW mixer this should not be required. Peaks will reside at -12 to -4dBFS. You can put a limiter on the stereo bus purely as a protection against digital overs, there is nothing wrong with this per se. However, the trend of late is to force the mix into the limiter as a means of obtaining a mix that sounds like a hotly mastered commercial release. Or to hear how it might sound when it's mastered. If a limiter is set up on the master bus, it should be there just to catch peaks. You do not want more than 1dB of gain reduction, at only 1dB most limiters should be fairly transparent. Attack times are usually fixed on limiters as they look ahead and react fairly instantly, release times are usually fairly quick too, in the order of 20100ms In practice, if the music is to undergo a mastering stage it is preferable that 2 versions are bounced - one as a limited reference if desired and one with no limiting or processing on the master. There is a good chance that the mastering engineer will have a choice of limiters and be able to hear the damage and trade offs associated with their use in a more accurate and detailed listening environment. A top tip is that if you know the track will end up as an MP3 file (a few labels I work with are upload only labels) do not allow it to exceed -0.2dB with the limiters output. This is because when the file is encoded as an MP3 you can end up with intersample peaks which will show as overs when played back in a DAW. This type of thing comes from the phase response of filters used when encoding and peaking the exported .wav to mp3. A level of -0.2dB seems to protect against these ISP overs in MP3's. (basically, when you EQ something or filter it, unless its a linear phase EQ, the frequencies surrounding the EQ'd frequency have their phase relationships changed and there will be some constructive interference which adds level) Any thoughts on track lead-ins? A one second handle is a good thing to have, sometimes I see a file that has a start at a non zero crossing point in the waveform and you get a click on starting playback.