Kung fu mastering techniques
Mar 22, 04:38 AM by Petar
Kung fu mastering techniques
Hello!
You must ask yourself what’s the connection between kung-fu and mastering techniques, but I’m sorry, there are none. That’s just a little metaphore for mastering techniques which should actually work in any case of your great work. First you have to ensure your music piece is completed 100% and that each of the mixer tracks in your mix doesn’t exceed the 0db limit because above that it is clipping and it is potentially dangerous for the rest of the mastering process. Then you should export your mix to a wave file. When you ensure that your track mix doesn’t have any clipping and you export the file as a wave you’re ready for the first stage of mastering and that’s Equalizing.
1. Equalizing
Equalizing can be actually made even before you export the track, because you can equalize every track for itself so it doesn’t interfere with the whole mix. For example if you boost the high frequencies of the whole for 2 decibels, every high frenquency sound will be boosted for that amount. But, if you equalize for example only your synth mixer track and boost it’s high frequencies for 2 decibels only the synth will be boosted, while the other high frequencies will remain at the same level. The best way to equalize your track is by listening and boosting the frequency range you hear it’s needed to be boosted. A very common mistake in equalizing the mix is the one that the bass frequencies are boosted too high and then the middle and high frequencies drown out.
It is also very important to see if the equalization is really necessary. If it’s not necessary the equalization will only make a problem and it should be removed or you should align your other effects with the EQ. The most important thing is to equalize everything so the overall mix doesn’t go to the red area (doesn’t clip). When you’re done with that you are ready for the next stage of mastering and that is normalize.
2. First normalize
Normalizing is used to increase the the level of the whole wave file to a level louder as possible without clipping. Now you can add some limiting to your mix.
3. Limiting
At this stage the use of a limiter is used remove any huge peaks from your track that prevent you from increasing the level of the wav without clipping it. These peaks can be lowered with little to no audible effect. I suggest looking at the wav as a whole to see how much you can safely limit the peaks. If you have a few odd peaks that shoot out, but your general mass is around -2dB set the threshold of the limiter to -2dB. When you’ve finished limiting have a listen to these areas of the track that were limited and determine whether they damaged the sound in any way.
4. Second normalize
You should normalize it again because the highest peaks have been removed and you can increase the level of loudness even more now.
5. Compression
Compression is very important for the final touch of your track, because it adds dynamics to it.
A basic compressor has these functions: treshold (a range of decibels in which the compression will occur), ratio (the power in which your track will be compressed, ex: 3:1), attack (number of miliseconds before compression), release (number of miliseconds after compression), knee (type of compression) and gain(number of decibels in which your mix will be increased after compression). The general area of compression is:
Threshold: 1.5 – 3.5dB
Ratio: up to 4:1
Attack: 3-7ms
Release: 50-500ms
Knee: Hard
Gain: varies
but every track will require different values, anyway.
If you find that you are getting a pumping effect or that your high frequencies will
jump in volume when bass frequencies do not play, then you are over-working the compressor. If done right you’ll notice that the wave looks much fuller and more expanded.
6. Third normalize
Normalize once again to make sure you are getting those last fractions of a decibel.
7. Listening
This is the final stage of mastering your work and this one is essential for your mix. Listen your track over and over again before you don’t see that is ok. You could also compare with some of the professional works and see the differences and try to change something.
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Please dont take any notice or advice form this article!!! ONE – you should never normalize, what is is exactly doing? adding gain to an audio file, this can cause the un-necessary adding of artifacts to the audio – affecting the quality of the sound. TWO – compress BEFORE you limit, the limiter should be the last processor on the end of the signal chain, for maximum gain output/peak reduction, I could keep going on but the main thing is IGNORE THIS ARTICLE!, google Bob Katz or go on SOS or something more reliable than “kung fu mastering techniques” this article is a joke. Bad advice is not good advice!
hi, i have used normalize on my mastering before not qwuite how you recomend above if it is going to be used what you are saying makes sence. but a lot of stuff i am reading is saying do not normalize out of habbit unless there is reason too. what could that reason be a bad mix where the levels are not quite right. i am finding like most thigns there seems to be dieferent ways to master and maybe non is better than the other??
Thanks