Essential "rough mastering" before sharing a track for collaboration

[MitchClark89]

hello everyone

your favourite reason novice again.

i have one question to ask - do have any particular 'final' mix effects or mastering that you do or consider essential before you consider a track ready to be shared with someone else for their input and musical ideas? this is not the absolute final mix ready to be sent and mastered professionally but just the mix as good as you can get it and sounding reasonably nice enough to share and feel that it is a good resprentation of what you think it should sound like. this would be after you have gotten the levels nice and compression/eq on indvidual tracks already applied where needed

it may be a moot point to some but in my scenario you also want to feel proud and confident about your idea, sonically. so i gues im asking is there like a must have plug in or combi patch that should be applied at this point?

thanks!

MC

[Rook]

I don't think there are any easy shortcuts when it comes to this kinda thing. Each track is going to need to be treated differently. So, finding a preset or something that you can slap on any song and instantly get good results is probably not very likely.

However, if your mix is good, it shouldn't need much for a "rough master" anyway. A little saturation, eq, compression, and limiting should give it a nice sheen. I don't know what Rack Extensions you have. But, the chain I've been using lately is:

1. Softube Saturation knob - tiny bit of gain, around 0.5-0.8 on the neutral setting
2. Kuassa EVE-AT1 - on the "Gentle" preset, sometimes with the high end tweaked a little to taste, if it's too harsh
3. McDSP C670 - very light compression, maybe 1-2 db of gain reduction
4. iZotope Ozone Maximizer - stock settings, except with dithering and inter-sample limiting ON and the margin at -0.3. Just bring the main fader down so it's starting to grab the loudest peaks (usually your kick drum) and the overall loudness of the track is reasonable

[selig]

I don't think there are any easy shortcuts when it comes to this kinda thing. Each track is going to need to be treated differently. So, finding a preset or something that you can slap on any song and instantly get good results is probably not very likely.

However, if your mix is good, it shouldn't need much for a "rough master" anyway. A little saturation, eq, compression, and limiting should give it a nice sheen. I don't know what Rack Extensions you have. But, the chain I've been using lately is:

1. Softube Saturation knob - tiny bit of gain, around 0.5-0.8 on the neutral setting
2. Kuassa EVE-AT1 - on the "Gentle" preset, sometimes with the high end tweaked a little to taste, if it's too harsh
3. McDSP C670 - very light compression, maybe 1-2 db of gain reduction
4. iZotope Ozone Maximizer - stock settings, except with dithering and inter-sample limiting ON and the margin at -0.3. Just bring the main fader down so it's starting to grab the loudest peaks (usually your kick drum) and the overall loudness of the track is reasonable

I only add #4, Ozone, set pretty much as you describe. I only do this so the track I send out sounds reasonably close to the average listening level (often doing little actual limiting) - I hate getting a rough mix that is SO low I have to crank the playback level to the point that the NEXT song I play blows me out of my chair.

[raymondh]

If you are collaborating, generally you are going to have multiple iterations. I think your first iteration at the very least should be extremely rough, with any fx and mixing simply enough to convey your musical ideas.
The more you do to make the track sound completed, the more you will shut the door with your collaborator.
Part of the success in collaborating is all parties feel a strong stake in creating the track. The more polished you make the track, the less motivated your collaborator will feel.

[MitchClark89]

I don't think there are any easy shortcuts when it comes to this kinda thing. Each track is going to need to be treated differently. So, finding a preset or something that you can slap on any song and instantly get good results is probably not very likely.

However, if your mix is good, it shouldn't need much for a "rough master" anyway. A little saturation, eq, compression, and limiting should give it a nice sheen. I don't know what Rack Extensions you have. But, the chain I've been using lately is:

1. Softube Saturation knob - tiny bit of gain, around 0.5-0.8 on the neutral setting
2. Kuassa EVE-AT1 - on the "Gentle" preset, sometimes with the high end tweaked a little to taste, if it's too harsh
3. McDSP C670 - very light compression, maybe 1-2 db of gain reduction
4. iZotope Ozone Maximizer - stock settings, except with dithering and inter-sample limiting ON and the margin at -0.3. Just bring the main fader down so it's starting to grab the loudest peaks (usually your kick drum) and the overall loudness of the track is reasonable

thanks rook that is a good point above and it is also interesting to see your chain of fx. i dont actually own any of those unless they came factory with r8 but i am expanding my RE slowly thanks to the likes of yourself and others here as i learn

[MitchClark89]

If you are collaborating, generally you are going to have multiple iterations. I think your first iteration at the very least should be extremely rough, with any fx and mixing simply enough to convey your musical ideas.
The more you do to make the track sound completed, the more you will shut the door with your collaborator.
Part of the success in collaborating is all parties feel a strong stake in creating the track. The more polished you make the track, the less motivated your collaborator will feel.

thats a great point raymond, thinking about it now i definitely agree with you. thanks foer the advice

[guitfnky]

I wouldn't do any sort of pre-mastering at all. the process of writing and collaborating is, by definition, done on an unfinished piece. presumably your collaborator is aware that it's not going to sound finished yet, since that's sort of the idea, at this point.

[selig]

All of the comments saying keep it rough and don't do any "polishing" only assume ONE type of collaboration. I have often needed lyrics for my finished tracks - should I keep those tracks rough for some reason? Another thing that has often come up is that I have the first half of a song finished, and need my collaborator to take it from there - why keep THAT rough?

I would definitely agree that if you are looking for a totally equal partner from the ground up (and will go through an iterative process), definitely keep it simple - but still, in some cases you need to communicate the final picture YOU see. The beauty of modern technology is you can create two versions, or you can strip off the "polish" so easily.

I'd say the answer to this question is, like just about everything else in the arts, very subjective and "case specific".

[Peter]

Maximizer for sure...louder sounds better...all the better to impress and motivate your collaborator.

[Dave909]

If you gotta look (sound) polished to collab there's something wrong IMO. Songs in progress shouldn't get mastered or polished up.

[selig]

If you gotta look (sound) polished to collab there's something wrong IMO. Songs in progress shouldn't get mastered or polished up.

I gotta disagree, if just for the cases I previously mentioned - ESPECIALLY for sending tracks to lyricists or vocalists for collaboration. You don't have to do a final polish to any degree, but you really have to present the track in a good light as possible as these folks are not always able to "hear" the big picture without a little help in my experience. Maybe your experience has been different, in which case I'm not trying to suggest otherwise. Just saying it's not been that way for me!

[Dave909]

If you gotta look (sound) polished to collab there's something wrong IMO. Songs in progress shouldn't get mastered or polished up.

I gotta disagree, if just for the cases I previously mentioned - ESPECIALLY for sending tracks to lyricists or vocalists for collaboration. You don't have to do a final polish to any degree, but you really have to present the track in a good light as possible as these folks are not always able to "hear" the big picture without a little help in my experience. Maybe your experience has been different, in which case I'm not trying to suggest otherwise. Just saying it's not been that way for me!

I guess you are right. Im a vocalist and producer at the same time. That might make me think a bit different

[MitchClark89]

my fault for not being specific about the type of collaboration but all of the replies make sense. for this project it will be another artist adding vocals and some guitar to a production containing all other things (drums, synths, bass etc). i suppose i just want it to sound as nice as could be reasonably expected to help inspire the vocalist and get the feel of the song, without going over the top and spending hours (days/weeks!) tweaking the mix

thank all for the replies and thoughts- it is very helpful to me