Ever wonder why your music demos don't
sound like the tracks you listen to from
your favorite artist...
well I am about to let
you into a little secret about people
who use magic.
In this day and age it's so important that
you don't get left behind when it comes
to getting your music heard.
You need to do everything in your power
to present your offering as best you can.
Mastering your music is the very first
step...
What is mastering?
Mastering is taking your stereo music track and
enhancing certain frequencies,
controlling others, compressing and
exciting, and generally moulding your
mixed master into the best
representation of that mix, within the
context of the grouping of the other
tracks... your album.
Traditionally when you finished recording
your album, you sat in the studio and
created your master tracks for that album.
At that point you had a bunch of
individual tracks that sounded great
within the context of its
own mix..
but might not bear much relation
to the next track on the album.
Time to get the mastering engineer in to make
the album sound like it belongs together
as a close-knit family.
The dark arts of the mastering engineer
or a skill little
known to mortal beings...
but whatever they are at...
the results speak for themselves.
Full respect to them...
and I suggest that if you could ever find
yourself in a position of needing to hire
one do it.
There are websites that will master your
tracks for a couple of bucks..
be warned the results are at best just ok ..
they do not take into consideration the
music, or your vision for your tracks.
They're only files to them.
If you fancy given it a go yourself and
who knows your music better
than you, why not try a software package
that covers a lot of what you need to do
to enhance your mixes.
Software will allow you to get the job
done without having to invest in tons of outboard gear.
IK multimedia have a package
of everything you need and a bundle
called T-racks see... what they did there!
This is old-school with every type of
unit you may need to master any type of
music in a standalone application,
and you also have each unit available to
you as plugins in your favorite editor
or DAW, there is everything you could
possibly need in the main application,
with all the units, the meters, and an
assembly window to master and compile
your complete album, then export your
tracks ready for upload.
Another amazing piece of kit that'll
save you lots and lots of time..
is Ozone by iZotope...
this is their mastering package.
It's a very clever piece of kit
with different modules to enhance your
final tracks, there are two lovely
features that I adore in this package.
One is the reference section...
where it will sample the overall
mastering of one of your favorite songs,
and apply the same settings to your track..
though you do
have to be realistic when it comes to
choosing the reference track..
don't have a crazy bass-heavy mind-meld
track for comparison to your lovely
jangly guitar ode to your first crush.
The other feature I like is...
the Master Assist... it applies the most
favorable process to your track for
streaming or CD and even
that reference track.
It automatically analyzes your tracks,
and processes them appropriately.
You end up with a really good foundation
from where to continue the process of
mastering your tracks.
A simple intuitive interface that lets you
get the best from your tracks if you're not
confident about your traditional
skills as a mastering engineer.
After all the hard work is done you'll need to
upload to your favorite music platform.
These platforms work to specific levels
and use different algorithms.
So how do you know that your beautifully
mastered album, will sound as you intended?
Well this is where a very clever plug-in
from NUGEN steps in...
it's called Master Check....
you put it on your master out and you can
monitor your tracks as if you were
listening to them through Spotify, or
YouTube, or any music platform you wish.
As you're listening, you can tweak your
mastering to suit essential,
Your music deserves the best, make it the
best it can be, and then make it even
better by mastering.
When done right it'll make your tracks
soar above the rest.
I'm Keith Alexander, and you've been
watching AdoramaTV.
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