general questions on Pro Tools Master...

general questions on Pro Tools Mastering

Posted on Aug 18, 2004 05:27 pm
Johnisaids
Member Since: Aug 18, 2004

Hello Everyone, this is my first time here.

Here is what I have.

I am just finishing up my latest album in protools 6.1.2 (or something like that). I run it on a Mac. I was wondering what general rules of thumb people have about final mastering. As of right now I think the album sounds good - but when I play the songs through different systems the tracks tend to very greatly in levels, eg, and texture. I do not have any plugins for mastering and to tell you the truth I really know very little about what mastering is. I just want recordings with integrity so I know what I am going to play in one stereo isn't going to be something completely different in another. Any ideas?

thanks

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coolo
Frisco's Most Underrated
Member
Since: Jan 28, 2003

Aug 19, 2004 12:34 am

Well, check out these for more info on mastering.

www.homerecordingconnecti...t&cat_id=12

For the most part you will want to make sure your mix is solid so that it plays similarly from one set of speakers to the next, though mastering will play some part in that as well.

riffgod
www.charlienaebeck.com
Member
Since: Apr 10, 2004

Aug 19, 2004 06:26 am

Hey Johnisaids,

Good to see another fellow PT user on the boards. :) I would suggest a couple of things to help you out there.

1. You could try reading up on everything you can get your hands on about Mastering online, or in book stores..etc.. (this has been helping me a lot in learning Pro Tools and recording even though I am not quite to the mastering stage yet)

2. You could drop by duc.digidesign.com on the Pro Tools boards and drop a post on there. There are a lot of experienced users that have helped me greatly with PT specific questions on that board.

3. You could contact Dan who is the owner of the HRC and he could master your album for you if you like. He is awesome at that sort of thing and uses Har Bal to master with which is a pretty sweet program.

Have you also been through running EQ on everything to get some nice seperation in your mix yet? I know that 6.1 comes with some nice 3-4 band EQ Audio suite plugs that you could attempt to work with. Also, T-Racks is a decent EQ/Mastering program for the money and if you have like an MBox or something like that you might have even received it for free.

Well, goodluck with the project. Feel free to drop me a line anytime also via e-mail. I don't know much about mastering yet unfortunately, but I know a fair share about Pro Tools otherwise and am actually going off to school at Full Sail in a while for Audio Engineering so I will know more in a bit here. :) peace

Charlie
www.charlienaebeck.com