Another Mastering Tuturial

Obviously, you're going to need a wave editor. There are some dedicated mastering packages out there that don't have wave editing, but if you're serious about it, you'll need a good wave editor. Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge or Steinberg's WaveLab are the favourites here, but both Cool Edit and SoundProbe are also fine for the task.

You'll also need plug-ins. Some wave editors come with really good plug-ins, but for best results you might need to get some extra ones. Waves UltraMaximizer or Sonic Foundry's WaveHammer are great for boosting the level and limiting the peaks. Steinberg's Loudness Maximizer is good too, but some find the results a little harsh. A good multi-band compressor is hard to come by, but Waves' C4 is great. There are a few cheaper alternatives, but the C4 is a dream to use. The Waves RCL Renaissance Compressor is a good stereo compressor, sporting both Electro and Opto modes. For EQ, you can use any good parametric or Graphic, but we recommend TL Audio's EQ-1 plug-in. It's warm, subtle and easy to use.

Finally, you'll need a good noise reduction plug-in. Sonic Foundry's own Noise Reduction 2 is one of the best for the money and does the job perfectly.

It goes without saying that you'll need some good monitors (and make sure they're on good speaker stands). If you haven't got any studio monitors, use the best hi-fi speakers you can get your hands on. A little trick that's well worth trying is to get hold of an old TV speaker or a single PC speaker (you know, the really tinny ones with no decent bandwidth) and connect it up in mono so you can switch to it and listen your master in mono. If you can't hear the bass on these, it's too low; and the vocal should sit proud in the mono mix - if it doesn't, go back to the mix. Keep listening to this little speaker every time you make a change to see how it will sound on smaller systems and TV.

Next we step through the mastering session:

The session - step-by-step
Now you've got your system ready, let's go through a typical mastering session.

1. Make a cuppa and listen to the track you're going to work on at quite high volume. Make sure you're happy with the mix and that there are no errors (drop-outs) in the file.

2. Get your favourite CDs and listen to about 20 minutes worth at normal listening levels. Get a feel for the bass level and listen to how the vocal sits. How loud are the hi-hats and cymbals? Take mental notes.

3. Load the .wav/.aiff into your wave editor.

4. If you have a noise reduction plug-in, such as Noise Reduction 2, use a section of the 'silence' at the beginning of the track to capture a noise-print of all your outboard and mixer background noise. Then save this noise-print. Now highlight the whole track and remove the noise. Remember that this can strip a track of some of its life, so don't go too mad. Generally, no more than 30 percent reduction should be applied. Remember to listen carefully to the results and undo and retry if necessary.

5. Now you can trim the beginning and end of the track. Use fades if it sounds more natural.

6. There's a running debate between people who EQ before compression and vice-versa, but we'd recommend a multi-band compressor at this stage to get the bottom end sounding right and bring a sense of 'tightness' to the mix. Subtlety is the key at this point.

7. Go back to listening to your favourite CDs again for a while. It'll help if they're in a similar vein to what you're working on.

8. A/B a commercial CD with your track. Listen to the EQ. Make any necessary changes and then A/B again. Only move on when you're happy that it still sounds natural. Remember to use a high-pass filter to get rid of any really low rumbles or sub-harmonics that are muddying up the bottom end.

9. Now it's time to compress a little bit more. Good results can be had here by using the RCL compressor to add a touch of Opto compression with a really subtle 2:1 ratio and a high threshold.

10. Now, use UltraMaximizer or WaveHammer to bring the overall level up so that the peaks are dynamically compressed and it sits nicely at around 0dB in the loudest sections.

11. At this stage, save it and listen to it. Keep listening on various systems until you're happy that it sounds better than the pre-master. A/B test it with the pre-master. Has it lost anything? Is it more exciting or maybe more tiring on the ears? If you're in any doubt, do another one and compare the two. You can do as many versions as you like. Just remember to name them sensibly so you know which is which.

The final stage is storing your masters. A good system is to have two folders on your hard drive, called 'Pre-Masters' and 'Final Masters'. Keep copies of both the pre-masters and the final masters in their respective folders and also make a master CD-R with the .wav/.aiff file, an audio version and notes in a text file of what you did to transform the 'pre' into the 'final'.

Step-by-step mastering
Let's run through all that one more time:

1. Open up the file and check it. Make sure it plays with no glitches or pops. Save this version as the 'Pre-master'-you may need to return to it at some point

2. Capture a noise-print and use it to remove any mains hums or hiss from your file. It helps if your pre-master contaions a few seconds of background noise at the beginning so you can get a good noise print.

3. Trim the start and end. Use a fade if necessary to make it sound more natural.

4. Fire up your multi-band compressor and use it to get the track sounding tight. Use the seperate bands to avoid 'tainting' the highs when you compress the lows, and visa-versa.

5.If necessary, use a little subtle EQ to fine-tune the track. Compare it to commercial CDs you like and know well at this stage.

6. Add a touch more gentle compression to make the mix more in your face. Use the best quality compressor plug-in you can. Opto compressors work particularly well for this.

7. Now use a maximiser plug-in to get the level up and limit the track with dynamic compression to tame those pesky peaks.

8. You now have your finished master. Listen to it carefully and redo the maximizer if it's too much...

9. Finally, check it using a decent stereo analyser to ensure the stereo image is good and the phasing is OK. If the phase correlation meter spends any long periods in the minus half of the scale it won't translate to mono properly and it won't work on vinyl very well, if at all.