You absolutely can NOT really master on beatmaker at this time...
Mastering requires a few things beatmaker doesnt have...
Long throw faders...(to get the mix set in accurately)
A proper expander
A proper enhancer
A multiband eq with shelving etc (really needs to be linear)
A multiband compressor/limiter
A saturator...
A great reverb...
I agree, that's impossible and will be for a few years I guess... Lots of dsp and cpu power are needed... Linear phase eq is a real cpu drainer, not to mention convultion reverb, analog saturation, true analog mastering quality compression...
And on top of that, even if you had all of that...you need the best aears, various mastering quality speakers you know by heart and headphones that cost well over a thou...
If you really want a great master, get it done by a pro.
I've been producing and mixing stuff for over 12 years now and still haven't ever been able to top a master I had a pro mastering engineer make for me.
Great info to know! Thanks! I might have to use them until i can get myself into some mastering education/proper tools. How about tips on mixing my tracks?
In reference to mixing tips, i am a newb at this (if you can't tell already) so i've been researching stereo mixing, panning, etc. and was just hoping to get some tips from those who have been doing this a while....
Ok, so there are no hard rules for this, and a good set of ears is vital, but here are some good tips I've come to realize over the years, you'll need a real daw for this:
1. Keep your drum sounds flat mono (little to no stereo width)... Kick in dead center, snare a bit off right (front view of the drum set), hats a bit off left... All other stuff in dead center unless you are looking to recreate a real drumset... But for electronica styles, try to leave everything else in center unlesss you're looking for a particular effect.. I repeat, there are no hard rules, your ears should guide you, so break this rule at times... Kick ALWAYS at center in the stereo field. Eq, Compress every sound here... Don't overdo compression... Eq to remove unwanted (or better said, un-needed) frequencies).
Once you have your bassline done, duplicate the track... On The first one: put an eq on it, high pass filter everything from 22khz to arround 500hz... Also low pass cut it up to 45hz...So you're only left with the sub-bass & bass freqs.... Narrow the stereo field to dead mono... And leave dead center... The human ear can't seem to distinguish stereo width at this range.... Boost and cut other freqs to sweeten the bass sound... Compress the bass to control it... Be carefull with compression... Just a tad to keep it under control, to tighten and to glue stuff.
On the second bass track: low cut all freqs up to 500 hz, high pass cut them from 22khz to arround 15 khz ( unless you want/ need extra air) .... Sweeten the best freqs from the upper spectrum of the bass that you want to stand out, add a little compression to tighten things up. Now, put a stereo expander in this second bass track... So now you have a nice wide bass that is controlled correctly... The low freqs of the bass are dead mono and dead center, so it leaves headroom for other bassy freqs... And the highs are wide so it becomes a really punchy bass with bite and presence. ... Now route both tracks to an aux track... Add another Eq to rebalance this as one sound instead of two... Then compress to glue up stuff... You can further add a chorus or very slight delay or reverb to glue even further depending on what you want to create.
Ok, done with drums and bass... Now with all other sounds... Remember to eq only to leave desired freqs of the instrument... It's important that you try to give each sound their own frequency range... So for instance, if you have 4 sounds... Try giving one a warm eq, another a mid-ranged eq, the 3rd one a mid-high eq, and the last one an airy eq.... So they don't collide on the frequency spectrum..... That is, in theory off course, because in real life you'll find that many of the sounds you want to mix really all need to argue for the same freq range...haha... So... Remember to remove unwanted freqs ( specially bass freqs) from these sounds.... Thin out the desired freqs as much as you can without affecting the range you intend to keep... Compress sounds a bit to glue in the mix a bit... Always remember not to overdoo the compression, or you'll get nasty sounds in the final master.
Use a bpm calculator to set correct settings for your compressors.... Eq and pan stuff to open up the frequency range and try to have a plan that outlines where you would want to leave your sounds in that spectrum... Remember that if your sounds collide in the same frequency and panning, you end up with mush... With saturation that removes clarity and punch from your mixes.
Also... Very important... Remember to mix everything so you don't go much further from -6db in your master track... Meaning you should mix rather quietly.... This is to leave proper headroom for the mastering engineer so he can regulate master levels properly... Fail to do this, and he won't have much room to work with and the master won't sound as good (a bit over compressed).
I know this is a very small guide... I'm not covering all, just giving you a few ideas that work.... You should read more from proper sources... There are great books out there:
That last one has genre-specific tips... But you can apply them elsewhere and thevwork as well.
BTW... I forgot to talk about sidechaining the bass... It's a great secret to get full kicks stand out without dropping your bass fullness... Investigate this further, you'll need it.... Also test is key... Test your mixes in as many speaker systems as you can... You will be surprised to see that what works in one system, sucks in another... A good mix should translate most of the songs attributes to all kinds of systems. Try using reference monitors that reveal bass problems (krk, yamaha ns-10, genelec)
Read, read, read... Always read to improve... And test, test, test.
Hey great to hear every ones thought on this ( And definitely to Ragno for the quality post). Yes given we can't do pro mastering (really any master) on BM, but instead of moving to a DAW with our BM tracks i would love to here what people do just to make there BM tracks sound better with the given EFX..etc in BM now.
Not much really... panning (but I end up redoing my pans once stuff is in my DAW), a little bit of eq with the 3band eq on bm2... a lot of delay, sometimes a bit of crusher... I never use the compressor because I compress on my DAW to get much better results... reverb... but I try to avoid it, it's very lacking still.
Not much really, there's not much to do in bm2 (mixing-wise).... but creatively, that's another ticket... I sequence stuff like crazy... work a lot with filters (animating them)... in fact, I animate many many parameters there... it's one of the strong points I think. But the effects still need a long way to go.
Wow! Phew! I got out of breath just reading that quality post! Thanks ragno! I will keep all that stuff in mind. However it sounds to me that i need more tools to get "better" quality mixing done. I have no DAW to work with at all....in fact no computer neither! Just my ipad! Hahaha!
But with BM2 i'm sure i an get some decent stuff out until i can hopefully invest in more tools soon. Thanks again for the tips! And if you come up with any more tips down the road....i am all ears....
Yep... One more.... If you have no DAW or no computer, consider buying meteor multitrack from the app strore... It is still not the same as a real DAW, but it's closer... The effects are closer as well, so you can actually even sidechain with it's compressor. It could be considered a proper idevice mixing platform.
I find the interface a bit uncomfortable at times, but once you get a hang of it it will become easier... It aims to be the Cubase of iOS I guess... I've never been a Cubase guy myself, always have used Pro Tools and Ableton (And a little Logic now and then).
I'm glad my tips are of use, if you have specific questions let me know, maybe I can help... If I don't know the correct response then I promise to tell you so as well.
If i had to tell people how to master or mix...oh goodness...what a job.
I have tips that i use for my projects
Pay extra close attention to lo end (bass frequencies). As this is where most people have the most issues. Build bass traps in every corner of your room using rockwool, 1x2's, and wool sheet material. Most people roll off 30db and lower as humans tend not to hear any of it in most cases, and this usually gets done to every track. Do not eq by looking at an fft unless you have something stand alone and expensive...as the ones on daws are far from accurate in my experience. 50hz and 80 hz are two common kick drum areas to note. Watch the interaction between sub bass, bassline and kicks....this is usually quite the challenge to get right. Try to understand "summing", because until i did i had no freakin clue what was happening...look it up! Depth is a combination or reverb, volume, and panning....be careful about busy music with busy lyrics or lazy music with lazy lyrics...usually i do what is called spotlighting...when one instrument(incl.vox) is shining....all other things in the mix are supporting. The song is a creative way to showcase each part. For example when lyrics get busy, music gets lazy, on and on.
Most times when people make music, they tend to over produce...or add way too much in the music...its a friggin song...keep it simple! I try to restrict the number of instruments based on whats needed and it will change in situation. Example...drums,bassline,melody, chords, vocs is a good verse number...5 with 6 or 7 being the hook number...no rules...just what i do.
Not much really, there's not much to do in bm2 (mixing-wise).... but creatively, that's another ticket... I sequence stuff like crazy... work a lot with filters (animating them)... in fact, I animate many many parameters there... it's one of the strong points I think. But the effects still need a long way to go.
I've recently started doing this too. The blue touchpad in the effects is great for automating the sounds and recording it to make it more interesting and alive.
I use the fabfilter pro-q and pro-c a lot on my mixes... And psp audioware is pretty good too... It really looks awesome... Maybe once it comes out I'll be able to ditch my desktop all in all for certain projects.
Thats what i am thinking...
The ipad is killing the daw and laptop...
More storage and power is imminent...
Intua, i surely hope you are bringing beatmaker2 on into the future?
Akai dropped the ball in my opinion...
Who the hell wants a mpc2000 on the ipad...with akai os, not jjos? The akai mpc2000 is the weakest piece of junk on the planet. That interface has no IO? Wtf? Really, no io, so i gotta use the earbud mic combo...and it uses the idevice plug so nothing can be plugged in there...hahahaha dumb! So essentially i trade inputs, outputs, for a midi controller that costs 300 bucks? No thank you...pad control plugs right into the io dock and those two together is 300 bucks...phuck off akai...your thinking alone is why the ipad will destroy your company...we dont want the ipad to be reverted back to the past with limited everything...we want the ipad to do it all. Anybody not on this boat, is not only gonna drown, but ima smack em in the head with the oar.
Akai mpcfly=FAIL too little too late...embarrassingly bad hardware fail
Auria Is looking like my next purchase...besides ikaossilator...but i sure hope apple puts logic out for ipad instead...whats really messing with my mind is the lack of anyone that has a daw doing anything for ipad? How is this so?
No cakewalk? No cubase? No logic? No protools? No reaper? No ableton? What the fuck is wrong with these morons? They better be glad im not CEO they would all be homeless using heroine in vegas.
Hi everybody,
I don't know if this thread will be look at anymore or not, but I would like to say my opinion, and certainly listen to you guys at yours. I have been trying to record audio with different apps, and I I have to say, I go by ears by the way, that I think the best quality out there is given by hokusay.....I am only talking about audio recording, nothing else. In fact I think they using an higher rate of something, I don't remember very well actually. With Meteor I cannot obtain the same results. Multitrack daw is quite good, Music studio, not that good quality of recording. I know that you get what you put into, but putting into different apps, the same stuff, that is what I have found. Now I just got to know that Beatmaker will support, if I understood well, recording of more than one track at the time, if a quality like the one in multitrack daw is going to be possible....I'll be jumping around quite a lot, and probably my laptop will take some more dust! Regards. Luca
Comments
Mastering requires a few things beatmaker doesnt have...
Long throw faders...(to get the mix set in accurately)
A proper expander
A proper enhancer
A multiband eq with shelving etc (really needs to be linear)
A multiband compressor/limiter
A saturator...
A great reverb...
Its gonna be a while
And on top of that, even if you had all of that...you need the best aears, various mastering quality speakers you know by heart and headphones that cost well over a thou...
If you really want a great master, get it done by a pro.
I've been producing and mixing stuff for over 12 years now and still haven't ever been able to top a master I had a pro mastering engineer make for me.
I lately get my stuff mastered by Metropolis LTD, they have an "economic" (if you could call it that) option: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.imastering.co.uk/">http://www.imastering.co.uk/</a><!-- m -->
They're the best in the music industry if you ask me.
1. Keep your drum sounds flat mono (little to no stereo width)... Kick in dead center, snare a bit off right (front view of the drum set), hats a bit off left... All other stuff in dead center unless you are looking to recreate a real drumset... But for electronica styles, try to leave everything else in center unlesss you're looking for a particular effect.. I repeat, there are no hard rules, your ears should guide you, so break this rule at times... Kick ALWAYS at center in the stereo field. Eq, Compress every sound here... Don't overdo compression... Eq to remove unwanted (or better said, un-needed) frequencies).
Once you have your bassline done, duplicate the track... On The first one: put an eq on it, high pass filter everything from 22khz to arround 500hz... Also low pass cut it up to 45hz...So you're only left with the sub-bass & bass freqs.... Narrow the stereo field to dead mono... And leave dead center... The human ear can't seem to distinguish stereo width at this range.... Boost and cut other freqs to sweeten the bass sound... Compress the bass to control it... Be carefull with compression... Just a tad to keep it under control, to tighten and to glue stuff.
On the second bass track: low cut all freqs up to 500 hz, high pass cut them from 22khz to arround 15 khz ( unless you want/ need extra air) .... Sweeten the best freqs from the upper spectrum of the bass that you want to stand out, add a little compression to tighten things up. Now, put a stereo expander in this second bass track... So now you have a nice wide bass that is controlled correctly... The low freqs of the bass are dead mono and dead center, so it leaves headroom for other bassy freqs... And the highs are wide so it becomes a really punchy bass with bite and presence. ... Now route both tracks to an aux track... Add another Eq to rebalance this as one sound instead of two... Then compress to glue up stuff... You can further add a chorus or very slight delay or reverb to glue even further depending on what you want to create.
Ok, done with drums and bass... Now with all other sounds... Remember to eq only to leave desired freqs of the instrument... It's important that you try to give each sound their own frequency range... So for instance, if you have 4 sounds... Try giving one a warm eq, another a mid-ranged eq, the 3rd one a mid-high eq, and the last one an airy eq.... So they don't collide on the frequency spectrum..... That is, in theory off course, because in real life you'll find that many of the sounds you want to mix really all need to argue for the same freq range...haha... So... Remember to remove unwanted freqs ( specially bass freqs) from these sounds.... Thin out the desired freqs as much as you can without affecting the range you intend to keep... Compress sounds a bit to glue in the mix a bit... Always remember not to overdoo the compression, or you'll get nasty sounds in the final master.
Use a bpm calculator to set correct settings for your compressors.... Eq and pan stuff to open up the frequency range and try to have a plan that outlines where you would want to leave your sounds in that spectrum... Remember that if your sounds collide in the same frequency and panning, you end up with mush... With saturation that removes clarity and punch from your mixes.
Also... Very important... Remember to mix everything so you don't go much further from -6db in your master track... Meaning you should mix rather quietly.... This is to leave proper headroom for the mastering engineer so he can regulate master levels properly... Fail to do this, and he won't have much room to work with and the master won't sound as good (a bit over compressed).
I know this is a very small guide... I'm not covering all, just giving you a few ideas that work.... You should read more from proper sources... There are great books out there:
Try Bobby Owsinski's books, theyre a good starting point: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers-Handbook-Second/dp/1598632515/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1324917036&sr=8-4">http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers- ... 036&sr=8-4</a><!-- m -->
I recently found an interesting one focusing on electronic music production that is made for ipad: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.google.com.mx/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=house secrets itunes app&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http://itunes.apple.com/kz/app/secrets-house-music-production/id452698237?mt=8&ei=n6H4Tqv4FIWlsALsmPy1AQ&usg=AFQjCNGbeeqm7nFfMH7LJe73NcmlgtdAUw">http://www.google.com.mx/url?sa=t&rct=j ... NcmlgtdAUw</a><!-- m -->
That last one has genre-specific tips... But you can apply them elsewhere and thevwork as well.
BTW... I forgot to talk about sidechaining the bass... It's a great secret to get full kicks stand out without dropping your bass fullness... Investigate this further, you'll need it.... Also test is key... Test your mixes in as many speaker systems as you can... You will be surprised to see that what works in one system, sucks in another... A good mix should translate most of the songs attributes to all kinds of systems. Try using reference monitors that reveal bass problems (krk, yamaha ns-10, genelec)
Read, read, read... Always read to improve... And test, test, test.
Cheers
ps...the jeep test is always the best.
Not much really, there's not much to do in bm2 (mixing-wise).... but creatively, that's another ticket... I sequence stuff like crazy... work a lot with filters (animating them)... in fact, I animate many many parameters there... it's one of the strong points I think. But the effects still need a long way to go.
But with BM2 i'm sure i an get some decent stuff out until i can hopefully invest in more tools soon. Thanks again for the tips! And if you come up with any more tips down the road....i am all ears....
I find the interface a bit uncomfortable at times, but once you get a hang of it it will become easier... It aims to be the Cubase of iOS I guess... I've never been a Cubase guy myself, always have used Pro Tools and Ableton (And a little Logic now and then).
I'm glad my tips are of use, if you have specific questions let me know, maybe I can help... If I don't know the correct response then I promise to tell you so as well.
Regards
I have tips that i use for my projects
Pay extra close attention to lo end (bass frequencies). As this is where most people have the most issues. Build bass traps in every corner of your room using rockwool, 1x2's, and wool sheet material. Most people roll off 30db and lower as humans tend not to hear any of it in most cases, and this usually gets done to every track. Do not eq by looking at an fft unless you have something stand alone and expensive...as the ones on daws are far from accurate in my experience. 50hz and 80 hz are two common kick drum areas to note. Watch the interaction between sub bass, bassline and kicks....this is usually quite the challenge to get right. Try to understand "summing", because until i did i had no freakin clue what was happening...look it up! Depth is a combination or reverb, volume, and panning....be careful about busy music with busy lyrics or lazy music with lazy lyrics...usually i do what is called spotlighting...when one instrument(incl.vox) is shining....all other things in the mix are supporting. The song is a creative way to showcase each part. For example when lyrics get busy, music gets lazy, on and on.
Most times when people make music, they tend to over produce...or add way too much in the music...its a friggin song...keep it simple! I try to restrict the number of instruments based on whats needed and it will change in situation. Example...drums,bassline,melody, chords, vocs is a good verse number...5 with 6 or 7 being the hook number...no rules...just what i do.
I've recently started doing this too. The blue touchpad in the effects is great for automating the sounds and recording it to make it more interesting and alive.
I want it like right now.
I use the fabfilter pro-q and pro-c a lot on my mixes... And psp audioware is pretty good too... It really looks awesome... Maybe once it comes out I'll be able to ditch my desktop all in all for certain projects.
Really awesome stuff.
The ipad is killing the daw and laptop...
More storage and power is imminent...
Intua, i surely hope you are bringing beatmaker2 on into the future?
Akai dropped the ball in my opinion...
Who the hell wants a mpc2000 on the ipad...with akai os, not jjos? The akai mpc2000 is the weakest piece of junk on the planet. That interface has no IO? Wtf? Really, no io, so i gotta use the earbud mic combo...and it uses the idevice plug so nothing can be plugged in there...hahahaha dumb! So essentially i trade inputs, outputs, for a midi controller that costs 300 bucks? No thank you...pad control plugs right into the io dock and those two together is 300 bucks...phuck off akai...your thinking alone is why the ipad will destroy your company...we dont want the ipad to be reverted back to the past with limited everything...we want the ipad to do it all. Anybody not on this boat, is not only gonna drown, but ima smack em in the head with the oar.
Akai mpcfly=FAIL too little too late...embarrassingly bad hardware fail
No cakewalk? No cubase? No logic? No protools? No reaper? No ableton? What the fuck is wrong with these morons? They better be glad im not CEO they would all be homeless using heroine in vegas.
I don't know if this thread will be look at anymore or not, but I would like to say my opinion, and certainly listen to you guys at yours. I have been trying to record audio with different apps, and I I have to say, I go by ears by the way, that I think the best quality out there is given by hokusay.....I am only talking about audio recording, nothing else. In fact I think they using an higher rate of something, I don't remember very well actually. With Meteor I cannot obtain the same results. Multitrack daw is quite good, Music studio, not that good quality of recording. I know that you get what you put into, but putting into different apps, the same stuff, that is what I have found. Now I just got to know that Beatmaker will support, if I understood well, recording of more than one track at the time, if a quality like the one in multitrack daw is going to be possible....I'll be jumping around quite a lot, and probably my laptop will take some more dust! Regards. Luca