Audio Post Production & Mastering 2

Audio Post Production & Mastering 2

Assignment 2 Report

 

The project I was given was to mix and master a given track. For the mixing process, I first loaded the wav files into Logic and was given the choice of using the midi files but chose not to. After listening to the tracks thoroughly, I started to arrange the tracks by instruments and place them into a summing stack. For example, drums, guitar, keys, vocals and backing vocals. Afterwards, I added a -6 gain on every channel strip and then began working on the drums first. For kick 1 and 2, I added the eq and compression with the same settings. For kick 3 which is the digital kick I added a tape saturation to not make it sound so digitalise, a compressor with a 2:1:1 ratio and a bus with a limiter on it. The snares, I added eq and compression with similar settings and for the digital snare I added tape saturation and eq. The hi-hats and the overheads have eq and compressor added to it. The digital hi-hat I added a tape saturation, eq taking out a lot of the low and low mid and a compressor. 

 

Besides that, for the bass guitar I have added eq, compressor and a bass amp to replicate the sound coming out from a modern bass amp. For the overall electric guitars, I added the normal eq, compression and a stereo delay on guitar 2 to add movement in the song. Reverb is only added to a few of the electric guitars because I do not want to clutter the mix with too much reverb. Furthermore, the Rhodes keys has two equalisers, stereo spread and a multiband compressor to control the low frequencies. For most of the keys, I did the similar settings with two equalisers, stereo spread and a multiband compressor to control the highs and the lows. Next, for the vocals I have added noise gate on both of the vocal tracks with the threshold at -50db to get rid of unnecessary background noise and to make more space for the mix. All the vocals have been flex pitched and gain reduction is added particularly in the chorus because it is sharp and piercing to the ears. 

 

The summing stack for the overall drums, I have added a reverb bus with -28db to add cohesive space to it. For the overall keys, I have added a tape saturation to knock off the digitalised sound and a reverb bus at -21. Also, for the overall vocals I added Eq, compressor, multiband compressor, deEsser to take out sibilance, a third compressor, a tape saturation and two reverb buses, an ambient space and a plate reverb. Backing vocals are done similarly to the main vocals with a bit more reverb added to push it to the back of the mix and not to overcrowd the main vocals. After the individual and a rough volume mix is done, I work on the volume and the panning. I started on the kick’s volume and work my way down to the backing vocals. Volume automation is added last to the vocals and one electric guitar to get rid of unnecessary noise. 

 

Lastly the mastering stage, I first loaded the final mix wav file on Wavelab and added the stereo expander plugin. The stereo expander enables me to widen the whole mix and the final settings for it is around 15%. Next, I added EQ and compressor by using the master rig. I decreased the 1000hz range by -0.9 db and boosted the 60hz,340hz,17.2Hz range by 0.6db. On the multi compressor, I only could compress the bass and treble. The setting on the compressor is a soft compression with -21db on the threshold and I also boosted the output gain to 2.2db for each band. On the limiter, I set the output level to 0 and added 12db of input to bring up the final master. Finally, I added the dither and change it to 16bit with dithering noise 1 and noise shaper on. I listened to the final product again with the decision to stick with the final master and render it out.