Mastering

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VOLCANIC
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19 Aug 2015

My fellow reason users

I know this issue has been discussed before and many many many techniques has been given here but I still DO NOT get what I want out of reason.

Fellow reason users please please I need to get this right

Firstly I must make it clear that I DO NOT have a peoblem on how my song sound as I make sure everything sound clear and good andd well mixed but hey when I listen to the PRO's music they sound open, wide and too clean if I may put it that way and they have more charactor than my own songs.

I do not ever want to ask ever again about why my music sound different to music mastered by other DAW's

So I need a different approach now and this how I want it

Can anyone who uses reason that know for a fact that his music sound like those of for example DJ khaled and the others please do me a favour by giving us his song even if is an old song that u no longer need money for it for us to download and listen to and give us a patch you used for download please

So its a patch with your mastering devices in it please even if it has RE please and the song to down and compare our music to everytime we do our own

Lord help me I am getting hurt when I hear these nice songs out there

Patch and a song please and it does not matter the type of music
Volcanic Music

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ScuzzyEye
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19 Aug 2015

I highly doubt any commercially released track that is composed in Reason is actually mastered in Reason.

Reason is great for composing, and I love nothing more than Reason's mixer. But I master outside of Reason.

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Benedict
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19 Aug 2015

I know that on the surface this may not seem to give an immediate solution but this article covers about everything you NEED to know about Finalizing (Mastering) your own stuff.

http://benedictroffmarsh.com/2014/12/28 ... l-fantasy/

Sound is sound so there is little to no real need to go outside of Reason for gussying up your tracks.
Benedict Roff-Marsh
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VOLCANIC
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19 Aug 2015

Bernedict my friend I know your vast experience in music but I read so many article before and I think that's why my tracks are average

All I can say to you Bernedict is

Patch and a song please
Volcanic Music

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Benedict
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19 Aug 2015

Not gonna happen. If it was it woulda. Besides I don't sound remotely like DJ Anybody so I doubt you would feel it held any parallels to your desire ;-)

Sadly patches and other tracks probably won't really help you as much as you think. It is knowledge, understanding and practice that makes the difference. It takes a long time to get those and there are no short-cuts past perhaps apprenticing yourself to someone genuinely good in a studio. Almost impossible. Till then reading is 80% as good.

Besides if you read the article you see I provide a patch - even if you need to make it yourself.

All the best
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

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mcatalao
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19 Aug 2015

See and believe like Saint Thomas... Right volcanic?

The point is, even after what Benedict said, what works for a song, does not work for others. I have songs, i almost do not master, simply because the mix, with the master buss compressor, brings the song very near to a commercial standard. Master is doing just what the song needs, not applying a patch just because.

VOLCANIC
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19 Aug 2015

Hahaha I get you guys and I know the bus compressor is more like wave but as you are saying it brings it closer but not exactly the same. I have mentioned on my responses on this thread that yes reason does pull off SOME strings when it comes to sound quality and I even stated the fact that my tracks passes with flying colors everywhere but there is this one thing that reason lacks and I want users to prove me wrong by sending a track for us to listen to and for the love of reason society and send us template used on the track and a mastering patch I think that will do
Volcanic Music

VOLCANIC
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19 Aug 2015

I am not lazy to read but I have read quiet a lot of articles

http://getthatprosound.com/mastering-like-pro/
And other nice article done by Paul white on SOS but still
Volcanic Music

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mcatalao
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19 Aug 2015

Mmmm... I can do that, I'm afraid not with my songs, neither a song that i mixed or mastered because i've been doing stuff for clients...

A good example, and if you have A-List Electric Guitars you can load the project is the song that won the A-List contest.
Here's a link:
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/behi ... l-halocene

This is an amazing fun track, that was inicially recorded with real guitars, and then they converted all guitars to A-List electric, mixed and mastered it again. Great sound, very good vocals too. All done inside reason.

Another interesing song, also really well recorded, and mastered in reason that i go back a lot of times, is today and forever. This song is from the guys from Kuassa, and while in the beggining they mastered the song out of reason because their mastering processor was not available, once it was released, the remastered it inside reason. According to them, they also used their EVE eq's...
http://www.kuassa.com/music-post-today- ... uassa-res/
Last edited by mcatalao on 19 Aug 2015, edited 1 time in total.

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mcatalao
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19 Aug 2015

Anyway, i think you're over complicating things, as most of the times, if not always, the best option for mastering your stuff is outsourcing the work. Tbh, the best masters i did were from stuff mixed by other people, and the best sounding mixes i have, have been mastered by other mastering engineers. It's not a question if you can or know how to do it, but a question of objectivity, critical listening, and objective judgment and decision.

Anyway, if you still want to master your stuff, here are some thoughts that might help you get some better results...
- Create a time gap between your last mixing session and the mastering session for a given work. The idea is to give yourself time to be more objective.
- ALWAYS, and i mean ALWAYS master on a mastering project. Mastering on the mix project, not only will add strain to the CPU, as also you do not commit to a final mix, and the temptation to touch the mix, is too big. On the other hand if you have ugly mixing errors, it's better to fix it in the mix, export, and go to the master project again. The problem with this, is that you will loose objectivity again...
- If your release is comprised of multiple songs, it is a good option to master them on the same mastering project. I just load each song into a stereo track, add my mastering processing chain for each track, so each one has its own settings, tame them as needed, give them a similar dynamic behavior, and the finalizing limiter is master for all the songs (i usually don't use multiple Ozones for that matter), making the final dynamic processing the same for the whole project.
- I love to see other peoples mastering chains, even patches for specific stuff, and i'm always lurking the forums to know how people processed this or that vocal, etc. However, you should look at patches with a grain of salt. What works for one song, in a given genre , or even in the same genre as yours, might not be useful to your mix. You can even create a starting mastering chain for mastering your songs, but you should have all devices bypassed and reset. For example, my mastering chain usually loks like this: SSL MAster Buss Compressor -> 4dyne -> eq ->MCDsp c670->Softube Saturation Knob-> Mclass Stereo Expander -> Ozone Maximizer. However, this is only a CHAIN. They are all bypassed and at unity, when the patch is loaded. The patch only saves the chain (and sometimes, i even delete or replace some of them). And in the end, it's rarely the time that all the devices are on, and tweaked.

Good luck.

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normen
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19 Aug 2015

Just like guitar sound is NOT in the amp or stomp boxes but in the fingers the overall sound of a track is NOT in the mastering but in the composition, arrangement, sound choice and mixing. Simple as that.

Otherwise I agree with what mcatalao said, let somebody else master your tracks. Its more of an artistic decision (apart from the basics which is just loudness and overall frequency distribution) and why would you master something "out" that you didn't hear during mixing either.

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mcatalao
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19 Aug 2015

Good point about the source matherial, Normen! I was going to state that but the op said he was satisfied with the mix's sound...

sdst
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19 Aug 2015

funny
Last edited by sdst on 19 Aug 2015, edited 1 time in total.

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selig
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19 Aug 2015

normen wrote:Just like guitar sound is NOT in the amp or stomp boxes but in the fingers the overall sound of a track is NOT in the mastering but in the composition, arrangement, sound choice and mixing. Simple as that.

Otherwise I agree with what mcatalao said, let somebody else master your tracks. Its more of an artistic decision (apart from the basics which is just loudness and overall frequency distribution) and why would you master something "out" that you didn't hear during mixing either.
^^THIS^^
Totally, and absolutely.
That is all.
:)
Selig Audio, LLC

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Olivier
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19 Aug 2015

selig wrote:
normen wrote:Just like guitar sound is NOT in the amp or stomp boxes but in the fingers the overall sound of a track is NOT in the mastering but in the composition, arrangement, sound choice and mixing. Simple as that.

Otherwise I agree with what mcatalao said, let somebody else master your tracks. Its more of an artistic decision (apart from the basics which is just loudness and overall frequency distribution) and why would you master something "out" that you didn't hear during mixing either.
^^THIS^^
Totally, and absolutely.
That is all.
:)
If this wasn't the case i wonder who would deserve to hold the "artist" title in that entire chain :P
:reason: V9 | i7 5930 | Motu 828 MK3 | Win 10

VOLCANIC
Posts: 28
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

19 Aug 2015

Mcatalao spot on my brother you just did wanted I have been asking. Song and tricks not thousands of articles. Selig nice you guys are great help
Volcanic Music

thotbott
Posts: 97
Joined: 22 Jan 2015

24 Sep 2015

Firstly you could have the perfect chain to master your song,however to start we dont think any of us have a pair of 60k+ rach mastering speakers in a studio set up for mastering. Then after everything is mixed perfectly there will he another thing holding you back,attachment to the track. Composers shouldnt touch their own track once they are finished vecause all the bita you want to tweak,you probably will. Sound is sound, with enough m class eqs etc you can master a track.

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selig
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24 Sep 2015

Some additional thoughts that come to mind in re-reading this thread.

Mastering is more important IMO when you are speaking about a collection of songs, and this is where an experienced mastering engineer really shines in my experience. Mastering an individual track is more a matter of personal preference to my way of thinking, and often you can accomplish what you need during the mixing process. To put it another way, if it's not already sounding great at the mix stage, don't expect the mastering to "fix" your issues.

As always, any "issues" are best fixed at the source IMO. A great mix doesn't need mastering (unless again you are talking about a collection of tracks). A great track/recording doesn't need a lot of fixing/mixing. A great song doesn't need a lot of "production" to make it work. And so on. This is an adaption of the "garbage in/garbage out" concept, based more on creating a great foundation (the song/arrangement) which makes the building (the recording/performance) easier, which makes the mix easier, which makes the mastering (if needed) easier.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that you don't ALWAYS need to master a track. :)
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adfielding
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24 Sep 2015

selig wrote:As always, any "issues" are best fixed at the source IMO. A great mix doesn't need mastering (unless again you are talking about a collection of tracks). A great track/recording doesn't need a lot of fixing/mixing. A great song doesn't need a lot of "production" to make it work. And so on. This is an adaption of the "garbage in/garbage out" concept, based more on creating a great foundation (the song/arrangement) which makes the building (the recording/performance) easier, which makes the mix easier, which makes the mastering (if needed) easier.
I could not agree with this more.

It always seems like a bit of a misnomer to me to refer to any post-mix effects that drastically shape the sound as "mastering". It's very easy to ruin a perfectly solid mix with a heavy handed selection of post-mix effects in the name of mastering. It's also very hard to fix a totally broken mix with a bunch of effects at the post-mix stage. But... it's very hard to break a solid mix with a light touch during the post-mix stage.

I would never claim to be a mastering engineer by any stretch of the imagination - to be honest, I've only ever really released a few records where I genuinely treated the mastering stage as separate to the writing/production process - but I know where my strengths lie. That said, I've had a few people compliment my "mastering" over the years so, hey, what do I know :p

thotbott
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27 Sep 2015

We recorded this album ages back and the only madtering done was the slightest bit of eqing. The rest was amazingly tight players

https://youtu.be/-MiKdfDwZTQ

Its like this if a piece of music is like a painting the music itself is what the painting wants to portray,it is the sketch and base drawing of it and the colours that are wanted in the pic chosen. The mix is how those colours are added in relation to each other to make the painting as striking and eye catching as it can be and mastering is once the picture is complete it is the final preperation to go out to the world. The finishing touches,the varnish and the framing.

thotbott
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27 Sep 2015

thotbott wrote:We recorded this album ages back and the only madtering done was the slightest bit of eqing. The rest was amazingly tight players

https://youtu.be/-MiKdfDwZTQ

Its like this if a piece of music is like a painting the music itself is what the painting wants to portray,it is the sketch and base drawing of it and the colours that are wanted in the pic chosen. The mix is how those colours are added in relation to each other to make the painting as striking and eye catching as it can be and mastering is once the picture is complete it is the final preperation to go out to the world. The finishing touches,the varnish and the framing.
Mastering is the polish some times you need alot to make something shine,it is all relative to the piece you are working on

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thotbott
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27 Sep 2015

Sorry for double post still getting used to this tapatalk thing :p

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faun2500
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27 Sep 2015

I think you could master in Reason but someone who know what there are doing can really help with mastering!
Big discounts on new Reason ReFills at https://NewLoops.com :refill: :refill: :thumbs_up:

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raymondh
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27 Sep 2015

Agree with everything above - especially mastering in a separate project to your Reason track. But if you have an interest in mastering, as you may well do since you've been busy reading up on it, then why not continue to explore and try things to develop this skillset.

One idea is to go and buy Ozone 6, and spend the additional $50 or so buying video tutorials on how to use it. That doesn't guarantee any particular results but it will give you a base to grow and learn. If you look at mastering as a skillset (rather than a tool set), understand that every track is different (no standard mastering chain fits all) and you take the attitude that your first masters will be scratching the surface on what you'll ultimately be able to accomplish - then I think you'll get energised and your masters will get better and better.

If you get frustrated, then go have a look at the credits for an album you like, and see how many people have been involved in the process. All experts in their individual field. Then consider what role you play in your own music - are you wanting to be "one stop shop" or are you a song writer, or are you an engineer, or a performer etc? What we all need to decide is if we have say 20 hrs per week of music making, where do we want to spend that time? Would we rather spend the 20 hrs improving our composition skills, or performance skills, mixing skills, mastering skills, or a bit of everything? That might help you decide whether to "outsource" or invest further in your education.

thotbott
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28 Sep 2015

Izotope is great but can colour the sound. Mastering is a whole world of pain on the wallet. Good mastering plug in like thr plugin alliance ones are around 3600 mark. We use a manley stereo 4 band eq for our masters that alot of the top studios swear by and that alone is 6k. Mastering monitors are 20k+ per monitor and not forget the treatment for the room and price of engineer. Its worth the money to get a track that you think is commercially viable mastered by the pros for a few hundred dollars then possibly doing a less than perfect job ourselves

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