Author Topic: Tell us your master chain!  (Read 163469 times)

Zenkrey

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #60 on: January 07, 2016, 06:29:45 pm »
Hey so mastered my new track today and found some pretty nice thing !

So !

Utility to have -5 Db to get more headroom
J37 from Waves (Tape Recorder) Wich give a little bit of warmth in my mix
Ableton Eq M/S to cut Side 150hz so everything beside that point is Mono
Fabfilter Eq tu cut Everything 28Hz let me get more Headroom
Native Instrument Passive Eq to get some boost and cut where I needed
SSL Compressor to glue the overall thing (Not that much don't hit 4 GR)
Pro Q for little bit of surgical Eqing

And here's comes the limiter so
I've tried all the limiter I got , finally I Used Voxengo elephant then Pro L because Waves limiter in my opinion is really shitty , it cut the transient really fast and make the song crash instantly , with Elephant and Pro L I achieved a proper loud (mix -6.5 Rms loudest part) and still got the transient of my kick and the rest

Hope I Helped !

I don't know what genre do you usually produce, but if it's EDM, then -6.5 Dbs of RMS isn't that loud. My suggestion is to use Izotope Ozone Maximizer, which can bring your track to around -3 Dbs of RMS without distortion.

Volant

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #61 on: January 07, 2016, 06:31:34 pm »
I don't know what genre do you usually produce, but if it's EDM, then -6.5 Dbs of RMS isn't that loud. My suggestion is to use Izotope Ozone Maximizer, which can bring your track to around -3 Dbs of RMS without distortion.

It depends on the scale you are using. Some scales give you higher values, and on other scales once you get to -3 RMS you'll end up with a seriously distorted track.

Monoverse

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #62 on: January 07, 2016, 06:42:10 pm »
my master chain is usually something around this:

EQ: one linear phase removing < 35hz, one mid/side removing side <100hz, and then a 3rd eq to do any subtle attenuation
Imaging: ozone imager if necessary
Compression: series of compressors - favorites are oxfords inflator just to bring up the RMS, cytomics the glue, and TDR feedback compressor II. sometimes reach for the waves SSLG comp usually on more aggressive sounding tunes. if i do any multiband compression, it's before any of these and usually pro-mb
limiting: AOM invisible limiter doing most of the heavy work, and then if i want to push it any further fabfilter pro-l to go any further and also dithering

that's generally it. sometimes other additions: some subtle saturation using fabfilter's saturn or if a track is really, really dry a subtle ozone reverb. been doing some parallel compression pre-master chain and that's been yielding some awesome results

Axis

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #63 on: January 07, 2016, 07:51:25 pm »
It's different for every track... I always start with an instance of Invisible Limiter on the master, and may add other plugins along the way if I want to enhance the overall sound.  For example, I might add an instance of iZotope Ozone just to do some slight EQ'ing, stereo widening or dynamic processing, but most of the time it's just the Invisible Limiter.

Volant

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #64 on: January 07, 2016, 07:52:58 pm »
EQ: one linear phase removing < 35hz, one mid/side removing side <100hz, and then a 3rd eq to do any subtle attenuation
Can I just ask why linear phase? It often causes really weird ringing sounds when I use it.

FarleyCZ

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #65 on: January 07, 2016, 08:09:05 pm »
I'm probably not someone who should give advice on this topic, lol, but I think better you mix the track, less it need when mastering. Owsinski's books are great for that. Esentially you wanna look for balance, stereo width/placement and dynamics. In our generes, we kinda kill dynamics by limiting, though, so the real job is to get it spectrum-wise and width-wise on the similar level as records you wanna compete with.

I don't like all that "woodoo magic" of analog models, tape saturators and stuff. It messes up with frequency spectrum, adds wow and flutter and subtle saturations. Don't get me wrong, those are good things, but I think it's better to apply them while mixing or even better, while sounddesign stage.

So my chain: EQ, Width Expander if needed, Limiter. All in O-Zone, quickly out. (But again, I'm probably not the best example.)
"Earth is round right? Look at it from right angle and you'll be always on top of the world."
...but don't overdo it, because that's called being a d***k.

mattlange

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #66 on: January 07, 2016, 08:14:47 pm »
usually:

UAD Brainworx B2
UAD Massive Passive
Multiband comp:  Could be Fabfilter Pro MB, UAD Precision Multiband, McDSP ML4000... depends what I'm feeling on that day.
Slate VCC
UAD Maximizer
Slate FGX

Axis

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #67 on: January 07, 2016, 08:17:55 pm »
EQ: one linear phase removing < 35hz, one mid/side removing side <100hz, and then a 3rd eq to do any subtle attenuation
Can I just ask why linear phase? It often causes really weird ringing sounds when I use it.

Linear phase EQ adds pre-ringing to transient-heavy material, so it needs to be used with care.  My understanding is that it is useful when splitting the master into bands for separate processing and then re-combining the result.  Linear phase EQ guarantees that this splitting/recombining process will not add any phase artifacts.  I guess that for simple cuts or subtle attenuations/boosts a regular EQ works best.

ctrl+r

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #68 on: January 08, 2016, 01:24:01 am »
Voxengo Tube Amp going into Ozone for EQ, multiband compression, stereo width, and the master limiter.

valhallan

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #69 on: January 08, 2016, 02:06:50 am »
utility to bring the volume up >Live's multi-band dynamics to solo and convert a specific freq range to mono (i usually end up with everything under around 200hz in mono) >limiter just in case.

been experimenting with compression on the master channel using TDR's mastering compressor, but the most important thing for me right now is getting everything sounding good on it's own without all kinds of effects plugins and stuff on the master

Alexandervan

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #70 on: January 08, 2016, 02:12:19 am »
Multi band mid/side comp, and a mid/side limiter. If i want some color ill add different comps with 1-2 db reductions, or do some mid side distortion. Nothing crazy though, its just to get all the sound a sheen.  I try to get the color i want without stuff on the master besides a limiter to make sure I don't accidentally play a sound too loud and break my speakers or monitors. Ill have my master chain grouped and only turn it on when i want to hear what it sounds like.

LivingTombstone

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #71 on: January 08, 2016, 03:05:37 am »
Maximus -> FabFilter Pro-Q to cut the Side at around 200Hz -> Ozone 5 to Dither and Intersample detection. that's all

Pato

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #72 on: January 08, 2016, 03:42:58 am »

EQ8/Multiband Compressor/Limiter

Danny Chen

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #73 on: January 08, 2016, 10:20:53 am »
Like many others have said, usually got a AOM invisible limiter on the master as the final plugin in the chain.

Before that I have first waves SSLChannel to color the sound a little bit, Doc fear eq to boost if needed, SSLComp with some light compression, ozone multiband.  I'm in love with Fabfilter Pro Q 2, which I use for eqing everything.

wayfinder

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Re: Tell us your master chain!
« Reply #74 on: January 08, 2016, 12:10:37 pm »
I consciously try not to do any sum processing if I can get away without it, so there's only monitoring/analysis going on my master bus usually. I try to fix issues in the tracks, and sometimes I have a bus for certain elements that I want to treat together, but usually I'm just very very careful when I'm choosing sounds and mixing, and I try to have really clean premasters. My releases were then mastered by an engineer. For stuff I just put up on soundcloud I do a lazy limiting/maximizing pass that's literally just me in a wave editor looking at where the busiest portion of my mix sits and then dialing that into the limiter.