My Home-Grown Mastering Process

Thu, 03/06/2008 - 15:47 — Alan

Introduction

When I master tracks myself, I do it within Logic Pro. I do not delude myself into thinking that the results of my efforts will be better than that of a professional mastering engineer. My view is that that there are times when mastering tracks yourself is the pragmatic choice. In this article, I provide details of my mastering process. This builds on the article about why process mapping is relevant to music and audio.

Process Map

Click the process icon to see the larger, more detailed process map.

The Individual Tracks

After mixing and applying eq for the track itself, I check the stereo-image (especially mono-compatibility), then export the track without dynamic compression at 96Khz/24bit and type 1 dithering, just to handle dithering from Logic's internal bit-depth down to 24bits. There's a lot of debate about whether dithering at this stage is necessary. I'd usually say that if I can't hear the difference, then I don't do make the change, but for some reason, dithering at this stage is one step that I do perform. By exporting at that stage, I receive the clearest version of the source file that I can have.

Putting the Tracks Together

I then import the track into another, empty, Logic Pro Song that I use just for mastering CDs. This is where I'll look at the mix of tracks and applying effects across the CD. I'll apply any eq to even out the tone across the whole CD, automate the fade-in-out levels and pass the mix through a compressor if appropriate.

Once I'm happy with the mastered sound, I export that to the destination format. Assuming it's a CD, then 44.1kHz/16-bit with type 3 dithering (or noise shaping). At the same time, I'll export an mp3, complete with mp3 ID tags.

Burning the CD

I load the CD tracks into Waveburner and burn the CD from there. This involves setting the gap between tracks to 0 seconds since the fade-ins and fade-outs have already been rendered as part of the "mastered" mix from Logic in the previous steps.

Convoluted?

I think my process is too convoluted. I would use Waveburner earlier in the process instead of loading the tracks into the empty Logic Pro track. I did try that route but I was never comfortable with its stability. It just crashed at odd times and I'd have to start again. I found the safest way was to use Logic Pro a second time for arranging all of the tracks together.

Caveat

I'm not advocating that we all should master our own tracks. Mastering engineers have a role to play for finishing your CD or other production.

Why am I publishing this?

I've never seen the process described well enough that it makes any sense. I understand the principles well-enough, I've no problem with that side of things. It's putting those principles into use using the software applications at hand that causes the issues. I've seen snippets of information but they never fully answer when you should dither or not and how, when to compress, etc. I want to encourage debate about the processes we use and I'm volunteering some of mine to get the ball rolling.

Ideally I'd like some of the processes to start tackling the main questions I see on recording forums. Hometracked.com has a list of 7 popular questions which align very closely with what I see as well.

Talk

The process diagram is a bit simplistic, but it should be enough to get the debate started. I can add in the extra detail as conversations progress. Want to share your own processes, let me know.

For more background on process mapping, I've started an online book on the Fundamentals of Process Mapping.

Process Diagram License