Mastering Your Mixes (Top Advice from UK's Top Mastering Engineer!)
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- Mastering your mixes is one of the most mysterious parts of the whole process and something most musicians never completely understand. But it can make a huge difference to the impact you music has. Barry Grint is one of the UK's top mastering engineers. He runs Alchemy mastering which is part of Air Studios. We went to see him to ask him for his advice to anyone trying to mastering their own music.
You can contact Barry through Air Studios
www.airstudios.com/mastering/
Advice which changed my approach and actually made my mixes completely better, are:
1. Mix at low volumes. Work on each track, adding all the elements required (EQ, Compressors, limiters), then put all faders down to nothing and raise each track to a level where it compliments other instruments (I personally start by raising drums). This method helps to give head room and allow you to extend the volumes through mastering.
2. Less is MORE. Don't over compress or EQ, to give space for your mastering, which will glue everything together (sometimes).
3. Be patient. What you hear today, is not the same as what you'll hear tomorrow. Give yourself time and ears to rest. Come back later or next day and you'll see adjustments that need to be made.
Love this advice. Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks🤟
Yeah...mixing at low volumes made a HUGE impact on my work. Also...mixing in mono from time to time.
Good post thanks for sharing.
What I was told once was to turn your master volume down so low that if someone was to walk in the room and ask you something at a normal volume, you wouldn't be able to hear the music. In other words, JUST audible.
hearing the reverb change from the hall to the room is a testament to his craft of mastering.
The craziest thing about mixing is we listen to professionally mixed music our whole lives and we still don't know how it should sound like haha! Great video, thank you.
So true! Then when you analyze it, it sound completely different.
There are no rules
I love the sound of this treated room... I feel like just having a treated room to even just relax in would be lovely
3:17 Can you master your own work or will you lose that sense of objectivity?
4:25 Give yourself some time away from it
4:57 If your room is artificially boosting, what will be the consequences?
6:02 If you haven't got the best speakers in a specially designed room, what can you do?
6:58 Having a reference track will help to calibrate
7:32 Can you master just using the box standard plugins?
9:16 What do you have to use every single day?
11:01 Don't try and do it all in one plugin
11:50 What one piece of advice would you give people mastering their own stuff?
12:27 How can people contact you?
My studio is clearly missing a land-line telephone
Thanks guys!
I love how the noise in the shot goes silent as soon as he enters the studio. clearly a well treated room lol
Just working on mastering some of my tracks. I have some producing & mixing experience, decent but not expensive gear (good headphones) and stock plugins plus some additional ones. This video was really helpful in putting me at ease that it IS doable with what I have. Also gave me reassurance that a lot of what I already have in my mastering signal chain is exactly what's supposed to be there (stereo image widener an absolute must for me too), plus some very helpful ideas on what to do to achieve the final result I've been struggling to get at. Can't say thank you enough, splendid job sharing this with us!
The irony of Guy's mic audio being sub-optimal... 😎
Needs mastered I guess 😜
He’s a mastering engineer not a recording engineer 😉
Why did you put an end tag there? Where did the runs and hides block start?
No need for a multi-mic setup - everything’s fine.
I love pros who aren't elitist. they're the real pros at life. cheers to you both!
Exactly. Good mastering comes down to your ears, and knowing what you're hearing. I'm still trying to get a good handle on the latter. Thanks for making this.
Great solid advice from a professional is always worthwhile.... thanks Guy, this was really enjoyable!
Wonderful to hear from a Master! I have found that this is a very tricky process and he is so right about coming back to it later with a fresh pair of ears. Also I found that things sound suddenly different on a humble mobile phone .. so to master the art one has to sound good on any device and has to check it prior. Nice video.
Thank you for this, Guy! Years ago I worked in Nashville and met the late, great Denny Purcell of Georgetown Masters and was somewhat acquainted with Glenn Meadows (one of the best sets of ears in the world ) and learned a great deal from both of them. Hearing Barry answer your questions brought back a flood of memories... something I'm truly grateful to you for with this video!
This opened up my mind to some new ideas. Especially all the talk about limiting. Thankyou Guy, you help me out a ton!
Great Guy Thanks, thanks to Barry for share a little bit of his knowledge
Always informative, always inspiring!
Excellent info very useful, my ears were particularly pricked when talking about multiple limiters, many thanks to you both for putting this out.
GREAT ADVICE I needed to hear this.. Salute to Both of you... For real..Peace Outttttttttt
Brilliant advice, thank you.
It's wonderful to have the opportunity to hear from a professional like this! Would also be nice to do a brief section on loudness standards since that is such an important part of mastering and delivering in the desired format (streaming/cd/vinyl). Lot of nuance in there, especially for streaming, and I bet a lot of mastering engineers have a hot take on!
Good idea
@@ThinkSpaceEducationI completely agree with Hank. He makes a good and very valid point Guy. I have watched so many of your videos on your channel and have learnt a lot regarding composing the use of Cubase and music ideas etc. It would be amazing to have an insight of one of your pieces 'produced' and mastered by your team etc
Have a fantastic weekend and please continue to enlighten our days with your fab sense of humour! x
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16, 18
For those who don't know about it, here's a great site www.loudnesspenalty.com/# to drag our finished wav or mp3 files to and it will tell you whether your loudness is correct for specific numerous platforms - if it isn't, that platform will adjust it auotmatically which can adversely affect the acoustic balance of that mix you spent hours perfecting. Takes seconds to check it then we can adjust as required before uploading your new baby to youtube, spotify etc.
@@kdcyp One of the misconceptions I got into when using this website was that my music would have to be at the threshold and have 0 dB of loudness penalty. It's actually really loose, the only situation where your song will be compressed is if it's actually below the standards, and not normalizing down. So I had it the other way around. Oh yeah and let between 1 to 2 dB's of room when uploading on streaming platforms because I heard some of their streaming algorithm will make the song clip otherwise.
Gotta have good ears, doesn't hurt to clean em out really good before putting those headphones on.Also take breaks.Usually helps me when I start feeling worn out from numerous takes or playbacks.🤖📡🪐
Love it! Thank you Guy!
I love doing a bit of mastering.
My favorite part of engineering by far. :)
Thanks for this, very informative.
Thank you !!! For everything.
Thank you, Guy!
That centerpiece Sontec EQ is gorgeous.
Wonderful Interview ✨ thank you so much
Very interesting interview thanks man!
Incredible as always, guy. I have learnt so much from you. Thank you for that. I do have one question though, where does one start trying to find short films or animations to practice scoring too? I look all over the internet and before I know it I've given up because I'm back at square one ,haha.
Great advice!
Please do more of these videos!
]
Thank You Very Much
🙂🙏
Mastering is a dark art! Very excited to watch this and learn from one of the best in the biz! Thank you Guy!!!
Not so dark, if you read a Gibson's book "The art of mixing", don't remember real name, but something like that. sorry for bad english. I'm from Uzbekistan, but i'm trying my best ))) I think that mastering, it's like polish for woodworking.
@@MaVaNi_ what you're forgetting is, before you can polish that piece of wood, first you need to cut it down to size and mould/shape (the sound in order) it to fit with the rest of the pieces.
Very cool video Guy!
What a lovely and informative interview. Never knew Martin Freeman's dad was a world class engineer!
Just what I needed
Hey Guy,
Thanks for all the awesome work; your channel is the one I find myself linking to the most.
Building on the practical introduction to scoring, I’m missing two videos on the technical side:
What is the workstation setup for the various parts of the workflow for scoring? E.g., how would you advice beginners to set up to score to video - and to get the the music correctly output to the video producer? I hear a lot about using ProTools slaved, but how do you run it?
Then we have the counterpart for game scoring; what are the software tools and work environments one should use and how are they setup?
I feel this may be a rabbit hole on its own, but I also suspect it plays into context with what you and Thinkspace are already doing. Spitfire did something along the lines some time ago, but I think your very practically oriented format would be gold.
Anyways, please add it to the wish list!
Cheers,
Petter
Great stuff.
Great post.
thank you!
6:18 best tips ever! Thanks
wow the difference in audio quality immediately changes when you go into the studio that was crazy
The most important point I learned in this entire 13 mins is if the mix sounds good then leave it alone. My thought always that mastering is crucial whether the mix is good or not good.
Studio One has a nice mastering suite in it
'What your listening with' is a great tip. listening to your music in your car, headphones and then hi-fi would help a lot.
This was fascinating. I always think that one of the best courses ever created by Thinkspace Education is the mixing course with Guy and Jake Jackson (Chief Engineer at Spitfire Audio). That course is an education in its own right from start to finish, and started on the path to orchestral mixing.
Thank you thank you thank you!
thank you
Interesting. Want to add that I have personally found plugins like "NX Ocean Way" very useful.
Nice Episode Man i Also Love The M1 Mac Studio Episode I Am Very Interested In More M1 Mac Studio Episodes i Also Am a Long time Cubase User But i Am Waiting To See How Every Thing Runs M1 Natively And i Am Waiting To See What The New Mac Pro Is Going To Be thanks
Great!
Nice one!
I didn't mean for my first comment to come off as an ad, sorry about that haha. I'll leave out recommending any paid services this time.
On the point made in the video about mixing/mastering with headphones, AutoEQ is a free collection of EQ profiles designed to flatten the sound of a huge selection of headphones and it's very likely to give a much more accurate frequency response than one tuned solely by ear. I'd highly recommend anyone who makes music with headphones to check it out if you don't already use any headphone calibration.
Great interview. As part of the mastering process Guy, what do you think of things like the Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin? is this a valuable tool to use?
Great video! Off topic observation... the wide shot is inadvertently pulling off the Lord of the Rings forced perspective trick. Guy looks like Gandalf and Barry appears hobbit sized! 😉
It's perfect, right down to the sight lines.
#nobudgetpracticaleffects
Great Interview and Barry is such a nice guy, loves a joke and is someone I certainly look up to!
He certainly feels no need to surround his craft with needless mystique. His carefully worded message was that it is possible to self master your tracks but that it may not be easy.
@@martifingers absolutely totally agree.
Masterful interview Guy (pun fully intended.) Guy could you do a show on creating a demo reel. I am about to embark on updating my own after five years nd thought folks could benefit from your approach. Many thanks my friend and greetings from Kingston Canada
Brilliant. I must add a tip regarding stock plugins... They are fantastic and definitely have their place in the process but their performance usually pale in comparison to 3rd party plugins. So this begs the question as to why they are good? Well its a matter of CPU useage - go into your DAW and load up many instances of your stock mix related plugins and then do the same with 3rd party plugins. Notice how your computer resources struggle faster by tenfold while loading in your 3rd party ones. Unless im absolutely sure that I will be shortly rendering to audio, I will almost always use stock plugins in the mix. With regards to mastering, I will ALWAYS use 3rd party plugins by developers such as: fabfilter, izotope, sonnox etc...
Nice acoustic treatment in that room.
GREAT JOB YOU GUYS... My 64 Thousand Dollar Question would Be... When You Grab A Reference Track, Where Is It Best To Grab That Reference Track From, The Internet Via iTunes, Spotify, Or A CD ..? Would it be Best To Convert A CD Quality Down To MP3 Levels/8-14 LufS or Vise Versa... Or Does it Truly Matter?
The EQ on the Barry audio channel is fantastic. Sounds like a DPA microphone. Was that from the Sony MI Shotgun mic? Might not be the EQ only. How was that processed?
I was so simple back in the day: "Everything louder than everything else"
Ooh he has two Aeron chairs, very comfy :)
Using more than one limiter is a new idea to me i wished he'd expand on that
But what about mastering film music vs chart music, clearly there are different genre expectations for the music (mostly) - but are there technical differences for a mastering engineer (like levels, brightness, low end ect)?
6.13 Godly Tips 💜
Mastering : Adds Sparkle to the Bass, and Bass to the Sparkle.
Every time Guy says “Fairy dust”, the Troggs Tapes play in my head!
Not gain staging for me was the biggest mistake. The next being not using EQ’d send busses for things like delays and reverbs. I’d have love o hear what his personal guidance for gain staging is, since everyone has a different db level to aim for when gain staging.. is there a right and wrong answer here? 🤷♂️
So awesome to watch this! I myself have been struggling to figure out how to actually get to that commercial level. And obviously it's something I can't do just by myself, but at least I can try to get closer to the commercial level. I have one question though. Did I get it right, that you'd use several limiters for one track? Does that mean you'd put a limiter on your violas for instance, and then another limiter on your 1st violins etc. so on each instrument? And then add one limiter on the master at the end? Am I getting that right? I know it's not only about limiting, but I'm really trying to understand how to actually use limiters properly. Thanks in advance!
No, you'd put several limiters on the master track, getting to where you want to go SMALL steps at a time.
A soft clipper and a limiter.
@@karlhenriksvensson thank you for the response! How many would you usually add? What if you have other plugins on the master as well, would you then add for instance 3 limiters at the end? How much would you limit on each of the limiters?
Two should be enough. The trick is to set the threshold right for the first one so it JUST lowers the highest peaks. The second limiter then takes care of everything else the second time around with more "ordinary" settings.
@@deepytv I’d personally use a clipper followed by a limiter. 3-4db attenuation on the clipper set to hard clipping. With the output at -2 to -1db. The limiter does very little limiting because the clipper takes care of the loudness. Hard clipping is cleaner with less coloration on the sound. And the output of the clipper provides control of the peak level feeding into the limiter. I aim for -2db gain reduction on the limiter. 16x oversampling with a ceiling of -1db true peak. Good luck.
If you can learn the sound you can master your own work. However like every part of the process it’s another area to learn and it’s not expensive to get another set of ears. It is possible though to master your own stuff, just not easy. Get good speakers, check the room.
You're the Master in my eyes, learn this skill in 13 minutes and 8 seconds :)
how do you get into the film scoring industry? where do you begin?
wow, you can hear from the opening conversation how "Dead" that room is.
why arent we talking about his outboard gear, looks interesting
Hi Mr Michelmore, I know this is an old video, but I need some advice if you want to answer, I have a dance track, bad recording to be honest, but I'm struggling with electronic music, paired with a real bass part, also the choice of drum part, isn't the best. It resonates around 150Hz and up to 500Hz and gets annoying listening to. I tried remastering it, but it's difficult, very to be honest. I have a real 12ch API console and I used dynamic EQ's to filter out those frequencies, but with partially success. Also, the highs are way too loud, which I keep under control with a DBX hardware De-esser, so far so good. But with all the processing the song feels even more "empty" how you handle that kind of material. It's straight from CD it's the only song I'm struggling with the last years, I try to work on this track with fresh ears, but it seems a hopeless cause. How you handle this? Did you ever come across these issues with a song? Wish I got the multitracks, so I could at least replace the drum part, but there isn't known much from the track. There isn't even a copyright claim on it, on all platforms. Wow, I never boost or cut more than 1 db that's how I learned it. Same with compression, I hate it when it sounds squashed. In my former job, I had to do it for FM radio, but still not over the top. Even I went up to +1 or +3 dbfs. With the FM MPX clipper. But that is another beast we are talking about.
How many UA-cam videos do you watch where the presenter keeps looking at the script/cue cards above/beside the camera? When you watch Guy and his contacts, you can see its knowledge coming from their heart's. I'm not saying those that look at the Cue cards are bad because we don't want to watch content where people are saying errrmm, ummmm whilst they think what to say but I'm just saying, this is pure knowledge, skill and talent, and that can't be read from a piece of paper. Thanks Guy (and all).
You;re welcome. Back in the day I used to read the news and spent my life reading autocue. Now I just talk.
@@ThinkSpaceEducation absolutely and you have plenty of my respect especially with that coffee! You are as cool as Ice 🧊😎 BTW if your travels bring you to South Staffordshire, come and see my pet pigeon 🕊
Can you please provide a link for some references tracks ?
Its a strange new world, as old audiophile your basic mid level stereo system came with knobs you could tweek to hear a mix pretty much the way you wanted to hear. Some friends had their own hardware EQs which were popular, so you could customized your vinyl recordings
My own mastering efforts are a mixed bag. I can only use everything else I listen to as a reference on my ancient home stereo. By and large most modern mixes are pretty consistent, some of course are heavily limited and loud to the point of being in migraine territory. You cant change it out too much on a cellphone with ear buds anyways
For my own musical efforts, and the music I enjoy I like a very wide stereo field. But then the issue becomes a stereo mix that is lopsided if I go too far or not paying attention. I work on perfecting it, without many tools. My interface by its nature picks one channel to be louder over the other, often its the sample, even my favored sample packs are skewed, in my opinion. In many cases just recording an instrument in mono, double track takes, hard pan left and right. Easy for mixing harder to practice the part and do it right
Agree cant use just one limiter, I figured that out. So Ive started to use stock EQs in series to level up my mixes, something similar with simple compressors. Its getting much easier hitting the particular loudness level. Definitely better results working in stages
Mastering is still a mystery to me. I don't think a track that looks like sausages strung together is all that attractive.
One other thing AI mastering tools are getting better. If nothing else, they can inform you, as far as decisions go
I tried getting into mastering about 2 years ago myself and couldn't wrap my mind around it to save my mother's life. The end goal is clear, but the path is so weird. To get results that sound good on all sound devices, I just decided to let the professional Mastering Engineers do it for me. It can be expensive, but I think it's well worth the end results when you want top notch quality.
The key to translatability is the mids - all speakers have them, even those with scooped frequency responses. So, mixes that rely on sparkly highs and phat lows will suffer. Mixes that have good mids supplemented by sparkle and heft will translate the best.
is that elysia alpha compressor?
Can you reload this video, AFTER fixing the excessive sibilance on Barry's mic track??
Speak to me Hammersmith!!!🤘🏼
Question is: Where do I find professional mastering engineer?
For example, I want to hire one for a specific song.
Where do I find one?
My god... That Alpha compressor by Elysia. That thing alone costs about as much as a sub-compact car.
Wait til you look up the price tag on the 432C equalizer that's below it.
@@maddietourmaline46 Well, now I'm afraid.
Looked it up anyway. @11,500... Used! My god. What does/did that damned thing cost new?
"don't do everything in one plugin"
Me: Opens Ozone9
Gottcha!!! You're specializing in orchestral reggae! :D
Mastering is just a last reality check. ideally the mix should sound fine but do they ever? What makes the most difference? Write better music haha!
The most important question missing to me is, how much processing should there be or not be on the mix ?
eg should the mix be not so compressed and not so EQ'ed so there is more room for the mastering engineer to operate?
Yes pretty much. A bit of judicious bus compression or even very light limiting to take care of a few errant peaks on the master bus of a mix is fine, just go carefully.
@@kubex Makes sense, thanks!
What speakers does Barry Grint have?
One thing I would like to add, is you need good well-trained ears capable of discerning detail in the mix. If you don't possess these then you are limited from the start. Speaking as a 66 year old - this is now a problem - mine are like a worn out set of car tyres... plenty of milage but no grip!
Is there anyone here with any top tips to choose a distortion free, neutral set of open back headphones that don’t cost the world?
Try and get a hold of Dan Worral. His knowledge is second to none.
This is probably a silly question, but why are his monitors so low?
that room is almost vacuum esque
what about the ears of the listener ? & the medium on which it's heard... ..I mean pop,crack vinyl ,cassette hiss & speed fluctuation ..CD (preferred) but skips' or online w/bandwidth issues or latency...and then ppl (like me ) w/ less than perfect hearing/tinnitus...I think a great mater/mix is very important btw'...cheers'
What brand of headphones would he recommend?
he mentioned the best that you can find~
i think he'd argue that its important to *learn* your headphones (and all its defects and "lies" if its not the top of the line)
so that you'll know if something is crystal clean, vs something that doesnt have too much high end clarity .. in a nutshell.
for example, i've got a pair of some sony MDR-7506s (a good flat response that i use for cleaning up), and DT 770s (which are kinda similar but these have more of a bass/mid presence)
It would be interesting to know what he thinks about all the new AI mastering tools that claim to do it all automatically.
I did ask him - I was filming a half-day of tutorials from our master's students on songwriting and music production. Obviously he felt he would always do a better job!
@@ThinkSpaceEducation Hi Guy. You're such an inspirational composer and teacher of everything music composition. Having you also connect with current production pros and such like is another fascinating experience for us all. Keep up the amazing videos and short tutorials - they have taught me so very much. Now considering which one of your courses to purchase and become a member of! Have a great day everyone!
Just give the AI mastering a try and you'll quickly see it's pretty much crap.