so if i watch all the mastering tutorials, i can professionaly master? idk even know what professionaly mastered is. like i got pre mastered drum kits and sound is under zero Db. like i sidechain and can throw a maximus on somthing but its gotta be more than that right?

1st question: no
2nd question: yes

Do i need like a full sound board, or is there a program and a way i can professinally master just here at home. This drives me more insane than anything...

to professionally master, you need professional equipment. High quality monitors and headphones and a good ear. You can master a track n any DAW really...doesn't matter. You just need a good ear. Just so we're clear, mastering is different to mixing.

^Like they said, NO, just watching tuts will never teach you how to master.

I though, believe two types of "mastering" can be achieved. Mastering in the proper sense, made by professionals with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and "home mastering", which is making the track sound right in your home studio, with the tools you have.

Although what I call "home mastering" would probably not be called mastering by real professionals, it is actually "the best it can get" in your home studio. Basically, to master you have to have a "talent", a great ear and great knowledge of your equipment and its characteristics. Then you have to practice... A LOT! And listen to music carefully. What does it make it sound good on every system? How much do I have to compress the overall track. Do I also need to compress the bass frequencies with a multiband compressor? Do I need to give my master EQ a Fletcher-Munson curve to make it sound full at low volumes too? But does that curve make it sound good on every system? (car, mp3 player headphones, home cinema system, home stereo, radio speakers, etc. etc.).
Just a few questions you have to ask yourself when making that "home mastering" (and real mastering too I guess).

I'm sorry but...... NO to all of the posts above. You CANNOT master your own song in your house, and you certainly should not do it yourself if you can hire a studio of trained professionals to do it FOR you. If you don't know what mastering IS, then you'd be wise to learn. All of you are mistaking MIXING with mastering, which is a common, but serious error that causes a lot of confusion during the stages of creating a song and being one of the main reasons for creating badly mixed music. (I know this last part because I used to have this problem too)

Look at this nicely summarized Wiki page about Audio Mastering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mastering

Once you've done all that, check out this video too for preparing your track to send to a mastering studio:

Havent seen this one yet but it is long so it provides more details:




Right now, all you need to focus on is making the BEST MIX POSSIBLE.

This could be an interesting read for some of you. Here's the "essential guide" by various mastering engineers and producers (tv, film and music). http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/gman_mastering.htm

Thanks EX im about to leave my house but im gonna definatly watch those when I get back. My story is i use to dj, just beat match nothing to crazy or turntablism, but i got tired of it because its became pretty easy to dj. To make a perfect mix with tracktor is fairly simple. I want to produce. Have no teachers at all. never have played any instruments. But I wanna get good at FL it. Ive been messing with it for about a year and half.

This is my first posted song. not even a full song and very simple compisiton but i added this so you guys can jugde my sound quality. Wat you think?

 http://warbeats.com/Beat-Feedback/T...k?tid=5893

i watched and read. finally it makes sense now.  I probably spend more time trying to master my own stuff than actually making music. ok so have a good mix, dont compress, leave headroom for the masters. the song i just posted i slapped together in 15-20 mins just to get quality feedback, ill put more time into the song and mix and post new songs soon. Thank you so much. best tip ive ever recived

It takes years and years, just focus on improving with every song you make. Focus and learn on one thing a day, a lot of small steps is much more effective than trying to leap into a perfect mix

Yeah also I gotta ask: do you have a pair of good, reliable MONITORS? It is the number one most important thing to have in order to produce music.

I have like a regular $80 dollar stereo in my room that i hooked a 200 watt car sub too. I think it sounds nice gets pretty bassy, Sounds great when im listening to the pros. ive dj a couple house partys with them. I also have a 400watt surround sound system in my living room. 8 speaker, 1 sub. Should i invest in some new monitors? unfortunatly im on a biz trip and only have like $20 dollar headphones til i get home.

Well see, that's you whole problem right there. Not only are you using an ENTERTAINMENT system, a cheap one at that, but you're using a SURROUND system! Please, you absolutely MUST have a pair of studio monitors to mix. I just listened to your mix with my monitors (BX5a's by M-Audio), that's how I could tell what was wrong with it.

The reason you must use studio monitors is the simple fact of how they are designed vs. how a typical entertainment stereo is designed. The goal of the entertainment system is to sound GOOD at all costs. The goal of a monitor is to be ACCURATE. Therefore, its frequency curve is "flat" and the better a monitor is, the flatter its curve is. Also, the more expensive. the good news is, you don't $5000 to get the best ones, and you don't even need a seperate subwoofer (in fact, I would actually advise against it if your room is not acoustically treated); mine were only $300 and they're just as powerful sophisticated as anything in the 1k range.

Read up on them first here: http://www.sweetwater.com/shop/studio/studio-monitors/buying-guide.php
here: http://www.m-audio.com/news/en_us-2020.html
and here: http://tweakheadz.com/studio_monitors.htm

Then, check out some brands and systems that are good for your budget (try not to go lower than $200 though) and buy them.



Your life will be changed lol

Yea, while I think trying to learn how to master is great, at the end of the day it's much better if you just hire some professional's to do your mastering for you. I asked my music professor how long it takes to learn how to master songs, and he said "How ever old you are right now, double it, and you still probably won't be that great at mastering". He didn't mean it to be offensive, but it was to let me know that guys who are considered master's went thru hell to get as good as they are.

Lol – watching loads of tutorials won’t do anything but teach you some theory. To professionally master a track, you require a good ear, and professional equipment. To get a good ear, you need to no what sounds good and correct. To do this, you should compare how your tracks sound to commercially released CD’s and note the difference. This will straight away show you a significant difference. Your aim should be to match up to those commercial CDs... Ask yourself what sounds different about yours? Why do your kicks not rock as hard as the commercial CD? Why does your music sound flat in comparison? By learning all those things, you will develop a better mix. Now mastering is different. The master will put those final touches on your track and make it ready for release.

In reality, a master will not make a mix sound better. A great mix, can make a master sound good though.

You need to practice practice and practice.

I still do not agree that you can't make a lesser form of mastering by yourself. Of course it's not gonna be professional-studio quality, but it'll be better than nothing. Just applying the right and fine amount of Compression and EQ on your final mixdown will make it sound a lot better, hell, if you do it right, some people won't even notice it's not "properly" mastered.
(all that assuming you already have a good mix)

But then again, that "homemade" mastering is NOT just slapping a limiter and a bass boosting EQ on the track, you have to KNOW what you're actually doing, NEVER OVER-DO it and most important, THINK in perspective: how will this affect the overall sound? will this make it sound decent on every system? (example: will or will not that high frequency boost make the track sound horrible in a hi-fi system?)
and one more question would be: IN WHICH TYPE OF SYSTEM WILL IT BE LISTENED TO? Club speakers? Headphones? Home systems? Radio? Professional equipment?
etc etc.

If you sing, but you're not as good as (for example) Aaliyah and you don't use the hi-quality equipment she used, it would be false to say you're not singing. The same goes with mastering (AGAIN, if you know what you're doing).

My 11 cents.

@Megiddo: A lesser form, yes, but true mastering in the traditional sense? Not really. I mean, not without the acoustic room treatment the expensive gear and all those engineers......

But look at what I do, and a few other users do this too btw: Don't put anything on the Master channel of your original mix, save it as a .wav file (24 or 32 bit), and create a new FL Project file called "mastering"; fill the master channel of THAT project with all the plugins you think you'll need for shaping your final sound (before you want to distribute it on the net as MP3 for example) like Frequency Analyzers, EQs, limiters, etc. Load up your original mix and route it to that "mastering" channel. Save the mixer file and name it whatever you want. You should notice that FL also comes with its own "mixer states".

Do this for every song you make and want to distribute, once you get the hang of it, it should be pretty hard to tell the difference between it and a professionally mastered song because they will all be the same quality mix.



As for one plugin that could allow you to create a mix to sound good in every kind of environment, you've gotta check out ISONE PRO. But you MUST have some studio monitors before you get serious about mixing.

^ why wouldn't you just put all the mixing/mastering plugins you need on the master of your original project channel? The quality doesn't get any better than that.

@Dj Nance: I use a separate project simply because it's easier on my computer that way and with the amount of channels and patterns and effects an automations I have going in a single song that would MURDER my old computer. Quality-wise, there is no audible difference between a 32-bit wav file or a 24 bit wav file (with possible dithering) and the actual project's quality. The math is the same. On top of that, the file would be bumped up to 32 bit floating point for rendering in FL, which is impossible to clip in that environment. So no need to worry.

Here's a thread with another user asking about the WAV format: http://warbeats.com/Community/Forums/aft/9526

Buuuuuuut..... if you insist on using those custom presets IN your original project and your computer can handle, knock yourself out.