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Originally Posted by Stiff  Well, why not try out a mastering pack like those offered by iZotope and Flux? I use Flux Solera sometimes and it's really simple to just dial up presets, blend them and tweak them a bit for quite simply almost always better results. |
I'm in a similar role as the person who posted this topic. I master my own stuff and get asked by friends to do their stuff on the cheap. Mostly just their cd to sell at their gigs, so nothing major. I've noticed this - DIY mastering has a sweetspot for guys like me. A good pro-level mix is very, very hard to improve on unless you have the right equipment, monitoring setup, room treatment, ears, knowledge and experience. I did a few tracks at a good studio and was trying to make them blend with my other stuff for my album. I would improve it on my speakers but it always sounded worse on other speakers. In the end I just matched the volume and left it alone.
As well, the stuff that they do remastering really noisy recording from old live concerts etc. is really, really hard. You'll get swimmies trying to do the noise reduction and it'll drive you crazy unless you have the equipment and knowhow.
However, the mixes I get from friends are flat, dull, boomy, or overhyped on the treble. It's almost hard to go wrong with the eq. There is so much crap to remove with reductive eq it always sounds way better after. If it's dull you put in a little shine and then listen on those annoying PC speakers with the brassy tweeters to make sure you didn't add to much high end (half of the people I know wind up listening to it on crap computers speakers anyway). Yes, a real ME in a real studio will do a much, much better job, but that's financially out of the question and besides sending most of this stuff to a real ME would be ridiculous - spend the money on doing a better recording in the first place.
For myself I just invested in PSP Neon for a reductive eq. It's linear phase so you can be pretty agressive about removing stuff and it sounds really clear afterwards. It's not very useful for using in a multitrack though because it adds a huge amount of latency (although you can turn of LinearPhase and oversampling and it's usuable). I added Tritone-Angeltone to add high end sparkle and occasionally a bit more thud to the low end. It really adds a nice shine and is easy to use. I also got Solera to finish off the package. The presets sound good, I often start there and it has a stereo enhancer that is the best I've found for PC (Waves - pretty good, Wave arts Panarama - hideous, PSP - sounded strange to me).
PSP Neon - $300
Angel Tone - $169
Solera - $600
So for a total of $1069 I have a pretty decent little setup for DIY Mastering. It'll pay itself off eventually...
I used to go crazy and try all sorts of other plugs but I find now it's better to keep it simple (less to go wrong). If little or no compression has been used yet I might throw on a compresser and start with the Mastering preset and tweak from there - yeah I know you guys hate presets but it's a good place to start for people who don't have too much experience.
Always A/B your mix with the original at equal volume - important!! You will think you have made soooo much progress only to realise that you've only made it worse. Which is why I backed off on overusing compressors, stereo widening, bass enhancers, etc.
Have fun - but remember, if you think the recording has a chance for radio play, do the right thing and recommend they send it to a real pro ME, it'll be worth the money!
Edit - Solera is great, same advice as the poster above. It also has a built in limiter set to 0. I often try turning off the decompression and like it more without, also play with the Angel's Share and Hysterisis. It's pretty complex, certainly lot's of room to grow with that plug if you want to deepen you knowledge and skills. I was using L2 before and now I look back at all those songs that have it with regret... Try the demos for these products. Except Angeltone - it's got this beeping sound just about drove me out of my head. I just had to trust the advice from the mastering forum which is that it is possibly the best eq plug for adding soft and sweet high end.