Some questions on mastering...

[AMT]

Alright, so it's come to my attention while trying to make a few songs that I am terrible at mastering anything. I can tell it sounds totally off, I just can't seem to fix it. So, I have a few questions to clarify some stuff, and any other suggestions people have would be awesome:

-About how often should EQ be used? Right now I have some pretty heavy EQing on almost every track (+-6db). Should I leave EQ alone for the most part unless something sounds muddy or is drowning another instrument out?

-Compression is a strange one to me too. Just to point me in the right direction, what are some common levels to set, say, recorded guitar at? Drums? If these are too general, would it be too much to ask for a before-after example with the levels you used? I heard the one in zircon's tutorial, but a few more would help a lot I think.

If you can help with either of these, or just have some general advice, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

[zircon]

1. I use EQ at least as much as you do. I do a lot of heavy sculpting and, especially if you're doing electronic music, it's pretty much par for the course. You should only be worried if you're doing major EQ on live instrument tracks (guitars, vocals, drums etc). If the recordings are that bad that they need to be heavily EQed, you might want to record them better.

2. Compression is a great tool, but it really depends on the genre of music you're working in. What kind of guitar? What kind of drums? If you could be a little more specific, I could give you specific advice and examples

[AMT]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply! It's a live electric guitar, sometimes I use distortion, sometimes not. To test I just quick recorded in REAPER, peaks at about -11db with no processing at all. Same with live bass. Drums are for more rock / real sounding songs, as opposed to electronic and that stuff. I'm just using samples / soundfonts (Ken Ardency Drums among others). Is that enough information? Thanks!

EDIT: Listening back to what I've been working on, it's mainly the drums (Particularly kicks) and overdriven guitar I'm having trouble mastering. The kicks are either impossible to hear, clip, or have absolutely no bass to them, and the song always sounds too empty when I'm trying to use the overdriven guitar, like something is missing from it. I guess my real problem is I can't seem to get a "full" sound out of drums, a bass, and two guitar recordings. Any tips?

[zircon]

Kicks are really hard to get right. I have a lot of trouble with it myself. The key is to find a good sample to begin with. You want something TIGHT that isn't too "flabby" (eg. really low tuned) and that has rich harmonics. For rock songs these days, generally the kick is emphasized more in the upper frequencies than the lower. It's ok to have it be a little clicky. Compression - low threshold (like -20db), fast attack (~10ms), high gain, and high ratio (4:1 or higher) can really increase the punch there. You may also try layering other kick samples together to sculpt the exact sound you are looking for. Don't forget to roll off the bass on other instruments to leave room in that low range.

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to drum mixing when using samples (that would be the proper term btw - mixing, not mastering). As someone like Sixto will tell you, you can have dozens of gigabytes of samples and still not be able to mix the kick "just right".

Overdriven guitar is another story. It really depends on your exact tone, but typically I skim on the bass and keep most of the 'chunk' in the low-mids to mids. If guitar is really in the forefront, the highs can be kept also, but if not they should be dulled so you don't get a lot of that high end buzz and noise.

[AMT]

Thanks for the advice, I'll try layering some samples, I haven't done that yet. I figured I was just doing something wrong in trying to get it to sound how I wanted it to.

[Legion303]

With EQ, you really want to cut rather than boost when possible.

For guitars, cut 300-350Hz to avoid muddiness. For rock kick drums, try boosting 4K a little for more of the beater sound. For everything else, try to cut as much as you can when it doesn't adversely affect the sound. Every instrument should have a little bit of its own elbow room in the frequency space (80Hz-22KHz or so).

-steve

[Tensei]

The interaction between the kick, the bass guitar, and the rhythm guitars in the lower frequency spectrum can be a real bitch to get right. Typically, anything below 80 Hz, or maybe even below 100 Hz should be reserved for the bass, with the kick sitting mostly in the mid-range, so rather than boom boom boom, it goes click click click (at least, that's how most commercial rock mixes sound).

The interaction between bass and guitar is also very hard to get right on it's own if you don't want to sacrifice the power of the rhythm guitars, but still want to have a clear bass. I do this by having the focal point of the bass being at 100 Hz, while the guitars get a paragraphic cut here. Also, the guitars are rolled off below 80 Hz, which reserves all the sub-bass space for the bass guitar, while still giving the Rhythm Guitars some decent low-end (sitting between 80 and 100 Hz).

Of course, you'll still need to figure out what you're going to do in the lower and upper mid-range, and where you want to accent the harmonics. I'm not claiming what I just described is the right method for anything, nor that I'm an EQing pro (far from it), but it somehow works for me, and it might work for you too.

[SnappleMan]

Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there, people. All of you are talking about MIXING, not mastering. Mastering is a completely different process than mixing.

You use lots of compression, EQ, reverb, dildo recordings etc. when you're MIXING a song. Mastering is when you're analyzing it for frequency, RMS, phase errors, doing SLIGHT compression and limiting along with SLIGHT EQ and fixing any other problems the track might have.

[Legion303]

True, but regardless of his terminology, he still asked about EQ.

-steve

[AMT]

Yeah, to clarify, based on the definitions given in this thread, I meant mixing, not mastering. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks for all of the help!

[SnappleMan]

Well, the way I do things is very simple. My kick drum lives in 20hz-165hz, cut at 250-750hz, then starts up and boosts at 4k-8khz. Bass guitar starts at 125hz, guitars start at 225hz. They are all shelved pretty heavily to start at those frequencies. The key for me is to get the defining factor of the sound isolated, that way once you hear it you will automatically locate the rest of the elements that make up that sound, and the mix will sound clear and punchy.