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Old 19th February 2008   #5
8th_note
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Joined: Dec 2006
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Quote:
Most of the people coming to me are looking to get everything finished by me, no mixed at/ mastered at stuff.
I'm in the same situation. Most of my clients "release" their CD in one form or another and they don't have the budget to get it separately mastered. I do all the mastering here.

I use Ozone for mastering. It has an excellent limiter plus a multiband compressor, harmonic enhancer, stereo widener, EQ, and mastering reverb. I bounce my mix to stereo and master that. If something isn't right after I've applied the limiter and (sometimes) other effects then I go back to the mix and fix it there. I've done over 300 songs now with Ozone and I'm getting pretty familiar with it. It's a significant learning curve, however, so be prepared to spend some time learning what it can do. One of the best lessons on mastering is the Ozone Mastering Guide available for free on their web site.

I get the mix sounding absolutely as good as I can before I begin mastering. I don't intentionally leave any problems to get "fixed" in the mastering phase. If I've done my mixing job correctly I am strictly using the mastering phase to add more volume and excitement to the stereo mix.
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