Mastering Tool Kit sampling

badrail · March 11, 2012, 05:19:22 PM

Okay, is there a way to listen to what a particular mastering tool preset effect will do to a song before actually mastering it?

fenderbender · March 11, 2012, 05:26:12 PM

I take it your using the BR600 like me
all you have to do is when you have mastered your recording
and dont like it -
drum roll -da-da--da-da
hit the undo botton

Ok?

?

badrail · March 11, 2012, 05:31:05 PM

That's simple enough. I was wondering if; when you indicate which master kit you want, instead of hitting record then play, if you just hit play will it give you a sample of the mastered work, or just a playback of the mastering source without the effects added? And if you don't want that mastering setting, you can try another one? I'm learning (still..) Thanks!

fenderbender · March 11, 2012, 06:00:46 PM

good question badrail
as far as I know yes it will but to be honest
I normally do all my EQing reverbing etc before I go to the mastering button-
then I may go to the mastering tool kit -but to be honest I would use the default settings -to see how it sounds
most times when I bounce the finished song I put it on my PC andinto Music Maker 12 and just normalise the song/instro and convert to mp3

Tommy

64Guitars · March 11, 2012, 07:21:19 PM

I believe you can press Play then select different mastering effects while listening. Although, I'm not 100% certain of that and I can't check it out at the moment. Give it a try.

One important thing to realize about mastering is that it's optional. I never use it myself. I just bounce my tracks down to a stereo pair for the final mix, then export it to a WAV file. The mastering toolkit isn't a bunch of magic effects that are guaranteed to make your song sound better every time. Sometimes they'll make your song sound worse. So, before you apply mastering effects to any song, ask yourself what it is about the song that you hope to improve. If you're happy with the sound as it is, then why process it with mastering effects that are guaranteed to change that sound? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm not recommending that you never use the mastering toolkit. That's my choice but it doesn't have to be yours. All I'm saying is that you should try to understand exactly what you hope to gain by using a particular mastering effect. And you should at least consider skipping the mastering process occasionally when you're already happy with the final mix. Mastering will change the sound. Why would you want to do that if you're already happy with it?

There are basically only two things that mastering effects do -- equalization and compression. If your final mix sounds a bit dull, then maybe you might use equalisation to boost the high frequencies a bit. A popular (though, in my opinion, very bad) trend is to use compression to squash the dynamic range of your song so that you can increase the overall level without getting clipping. You can do this with the mastering toolkit too.

One of the reasons I don't use mastering effects is that I believe it's better to apply equalization and compression to the individual tracks that need it rather than the entire mix. For example, if you listen to your final mix and decide that the rhythm guitar sounds a bit dull, you could use the mastering toolkit to boost the high frequencies a bit. But that will boost the high frequencies of everything, which could have the undesirable side-effect of making your cymbals sound too bright or emphasizing any sibilance in the vocals. Instead, you should use the BR's built-in Track EQ to boost the high frequencies of just the guitar track, then remix the song. That will make the guitar brighter without affecting anything else.