Mini Masterclass: EQing Your Masters (The right way...)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- There's an art & science to using mastering EQ that few understand. But just because mastering seems mysterious doesn't mean it has to be hard. Justin Colletti shares how to use the mastering engineer's most powerful tool.
Big thanks to FabFilter for helping to make this one free to the public. Try out anything they make for free for 30 days at fabfilter.com
Learn more about mastering from Justin at masteringdemys...
Or try a free intro workshop at sonicscoop.com...
Thanks to the artist Woodz Deep for allowing us to use their track "Sun Shining". Check them out here:
/ woodzdeep
open.spotify.c...
Thanks also to the band Sebastapol for allowing us to use the track "Animals". Check them out at sebastopol.rocks
#mastering #eq #audioengineer #audiomastering #musicmastering #musicproducer #musicproduction #equalizer #proaudio #fabfilter #justincolletti #sonicscoop #proq3
You do such a great service to the music community, Justin - thank you for another excellent video!
I watch a lot of mixing/mastering channels and this is one of the top 3 for sure, if not the most educational full of wisdom
So awesome to hear, thanks for watching! We are starting a members only section where you can go even deeper too. Hope to see you around!
-Justin
Thanks for the shout-out Justin! So interesting to see the moves you made to my song. I'll have another one coming your way in a week or so! Peace.
Cool track. Well done!
Thanks so much for sharing your music with us!! Such fun tracks to listen to. Everybody, go check out the Woodz Deep links in the description. Or right here! VERY good stuff:
instagram.com/woodzdeep/
open.spotify.com/artist/4uNipRPD9GNTYhQH6QJkru
We should talk about that hideous resonance in the vocal that looks like it sits just below 900Hz that both you and Justin seem to have missed... are you completely oblivious to how bad that sounds..?
You simply won't hear a 'whistle' like that in a professional mix or master. I wouldn't use his services again if he can't hear a thing like that.
This was the most eye opening Mastering Class I've ever seen. Thanks for sharing!
Thank You for being so consistent and explaining everything so clearly and easy to follow. 🙏🏽🤝🏽
very educational, much appreciated brother! osss
Great timing, as I was just doing that very thing last night.
Justin this is absolutely fascinating! I wish my ears were as trained as yours, but I can hear the differences in before and after and it’s very impressive. Many thanks for sharing this.
Incidentally, I have watched quite a few of your videos and I am always really impressed by your delivery, a very warm style.
So great to hear! Thanks for the kind words Dave. Very glad to be useful :-)
-Justin
Great video Justin, thanks. Did prefer the "not pushed as much" versions 😎
I use the mid/side eq trick all the time with the Linear Phase EQ in Logic - although I do tend to pull back just a bit of the high freqs in the middle to balance in slight increase of them on the sides. Really enjoyed the video, great insights.
Me too :-) Thanks for the great comment!
-Justin
Thanks so much for all your content Justin! As a person who has mostly always had to master my own mixes it's wonderful to be able to hear tips and tricks but even more so the mindset from a mastering specialist. Your presentation and approach is refreshing and I've learned a ton of things I have applied from your channel 👌
Informative ! Thanks 🤘
I can understand everything you teaching us here! Thx alot...The problem I have is probably in listening. Identifying the problems. A lot of things when listening work on a subconscious level and you have to train your ears (and brain) to bring those things to a conscious level
This video was so interesting and helpful. I would love more videos in this format. I still plan to take your compression course when I have the money.
thanks for this Justin and Fabfilter. The more I master my tools, the more i find myself going to Fabfilter over my hardware emulations.
I bought a pair of Blue Lola headphones because of your video. Also learned the word spilcus😂 love your channel, so informative.
Haha, so awesome! I hope they treat you well.
-Justin
Dang this really showed my how good my mix and mastering skills are! haha. Always love watching your vids at sonic scoop and really enjoy the hands on comparison videos, it really puts things into context. Happy new year
Couldn't agree more. I like to use the Scheps Omni Channel by Waves (such a great channel strip). It really gives some great options for correcting the problems you've mentioned rather quickly. Then I go back and cherry pick any remaining specific issues. Thanks for this great video...
Excellent video, great job!
Great one, loving it
Thank you, very much appreciated.
Justin! Thnx a million, bro! Thnx♥
Hey Justin I just finished your compression course and I was blown away. My mixes will never sound the same. but there was one thing that I couldn’t stop telling myself I needed to get to the next level. EQ haha, I’m sure you might have been asked this already. Have you considered making a video on EQ? And if so do you have any idea on a date that you would release this video? If you made a video in a similar format as the compression course but about EQ, I would buy that course day one of release…
That’s so awesome to hear Martin!! Thanks so much for the kind words.
Short answer: YES. My next two processor courses should be on Reverb and EQ. Not sure which I’ll be doing first yet. But definitely taking votes on it!
I hope to have both done by early next year, maybe one this winter and then one in the spring.
(MixCon is coming in the fall and I probably can’t do one then.)
After that I’m thinking of a couple more, I so there will eventually be 5 processor courses, a mixing course and a mastering course.
After that I’d love to do a couple on business, both for producer/engineers and artists.
I’ve got a couple years worth of work cut out for me there! But these have been so much fun I plan to pick up the pace of I can.
Thanks for trying them! This is so great to hear.
Very best,
Justin
Thank You for another grate lesson. 🔥💯👀
I feel like you gave me permission to do a lot more in this video. I suppose I never thought that using saturation in mastering would be acceptable, or coloring things this much. It's great to know that it's okay to really make it sound how I actually think it should, as long as the artist is okay with it.
Check out the HG Blackbox MS! Excellent coloring for mastering/stereo busses.
Thanks
►Big thanks to FabFilter for helping to make this one free to the public! Try out anything they make for free at FabFilter.com
Learn everything Justin knows about mastering at MasteringDemystified.com
Or try a free intro to mastering workshop at sonicscoop.com/mastering101
Thanks to the artist Woodz Deep for allowing us to use their track "Sun Shining". Check them out at instagram.com/woodzdeep/
Thanks also to the band Sebastapol for allowing us to use the track "Animals". Check them out at sebastopol.rocks
Great topic! I have started using Ozone and the master assistant but often EQ before that which I need to learn more about how to get right. The Ozone master assistant alone is good but can be a bit bland sometimes.
Nothing is greater than automation(& clip gain editing) in mixing & mastering....EQ is second because it can further solve such issues in one frequencies w/o the need to manipulate frequencies that should remain unaffected. Dynamic EQ then is especially useful as this pertains to mastering.
Compression & limiting can clean up a few transient peak issues but anything beyond that still needing correction is likely choking the signal creating new issues while not addressing the root cause in unwanted frequencies being heard caused by jumping harmonics in the floor of a signal that only EQ & automation can subdue(because compression only affects what crosses a threshold but cant sedate nasty rising noise that becomes audible as the floor/body of a signal where most of it lives becomes audible & distasteful due to a dynamic performance).
Nice one, how about doing this and the Compression video with other plugins, I personally don’t have FabFilter plugins, so….
Thank you so much for this...!!! very simple, and always works...revisit your mix, change the shit, and get a better master... in the "even brighter" version you hear already all the harsh overdone brittle high mids... Simply change the mix...then you need no tricks...ha ha ha
Have you checked out the MPMidi plugin controller yet? Speeds up workflow immensely, especially for me since my right hand is half paralysed after an operation on my neck went really badly wrong, only thumb and index finger work kind of properly
How do you feel about AI EQ‘s, eg. Gullfoss, Sonible Smart EQ, Ozone Sculptor and Soothe etc.? And of course we now have the Kirchhof EQ, very good and very powerful in my opinion….
understanding what mastering does to a sound, takes time to understand. mastering is less about techniques, it's more about ear training.
Oh for sure, no one learns how to master well overnight! And the way you listen and what your goals are is certainly more important than the specific tools you use.
-Justin
Hi Justin, do you prefer stems IPO total tracks? I hear that some mastering engineers like the whole thing, and others stems? What is your favorite workflow? Thanks for spending a lot of time teaching us.
I prefer to get a stereo mix to master from. That is the convention in mastering.
To me, “stem mastering” is a form of mixing :-)
That said, I’m happy to do it! I even have couple videos where I do stem mastering. One in the Mastering Demystified course, and one right here for free on TH-cam: th-cam.com/video/6ZM-AjsMXLY/w-d-xo.html
One of the reasons I prefer mastering a completed mix is that, even if the mixer needs help with his mix, having him improve the mix himself based on notes can provide an even better learning experience.
It’s more like teaching a man to fish instead of catching a fish for him. I think that if there is the time and interest to learn, it’s a potentially more instructive process for the mixer.
That said, I am happy to do either or both! Mastering from stems costs a little bit more. So I often recommend trying mastering from a mix and possibly a revised mix first. And if we can’t get where we want to go, then we can try going from stems to go even further.
Hope that makes sense!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop Thank you very much for your insights, every day I keep learning. And that is a good thing. Keep up the good work with your amazing channel.
in a VERY VERY DEEP respect over your fantastic work, the original sounds better than the master to me. Tell you why. The original is not that hyped (yes, too much energy in the lowlow bass), but the mids are very open, nice, after every single move with your eq, it sounds very agressive "midhigh" rangy and boxy. I personally feel the mix something between the original and you eq, but more to the original side of the thing. (Listening on my calibrated Kii3 speakers, so the sound is absolutely fine here). I appreciate all you mastering skills and you are right with all of them IMHO, but the result is not pleasant for my ear :((( Which is kinda strange. And I am very sad to say that!!
Is using a parametric EQ plugin for mastering common? I’m pretty sure a multi band compressor is common
I’ve heard using too many EQ plugins can cause phase issues. So if you’ve already got EQ on your mix, do you have to be careful when eq’ing in mastering?
I’m using FL Studio, and just doing poor man’s mastering, slapping a multi band compressor (Maximus) on master mixer slot
Yes, a parametric EQ is the most common and most useful and most important tool in all of mastering!
No question, hands down, bar none.
And it is not just me saying it. I ask any of the best mastering engineers on the planet! (As I have had the good fortune to do numerous times over the past decade or more :-)
EQ doesn’t create additional phase shift as some kind of unwanted side effect. Rather, EQ use phase shift to CREATE a side effect known as… the EQ curve you are trying to achieve!
Don’t worry though, very common misunderstanding, which made it into our EQ myths list here: th-cam.com/video/c6FCR3s8ikM/w-d-xo.html
Multiband compression is much more controversial and heavy handed of a thing to do in mastering than EQ. I probably use it in 20% of the masters I do. (Though probably use light, targeted dynamic EQ in 70%+ of masters. Arguably, that is a quite a bit like multiband compression in some ways, though more targeted and transparent for a variety of reasons.)
Hope that’s helpful!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop cool, thanks for the clarification :)
I was watching an EQ course today.
It said that the use of narrow Q (quality) surgical eq is more common in the mixing stage to eliminate harsh frequencies
And broad Q eq is more common for mastering to shape overall tone of the song
Will have to experiment with different techniques
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I think you are trying to explain something you didn't understand properly.
I’ve been working in mastering professionally for about a decade, and professionally in audio for about 2 decades. I’ve mastered gold records, and have worked with countless happy repeat clients.
I even have a full length 6+ hour long course on mastering you can find at masteringdemystified.com So I PROBABLY understand mastering… at least a little bit! :-)
Apologies if I didn’t explain it in a way that made sense for you personally. Maybe I’m not for everyone! But literally thousands of students have taken my mastering course, and benefited substantially from it, according to their testimonials.
In case it’s helpful, here’s a link to my free “Mastering 101“ workshop. I hope it’s useful! sonicscoop/mastering101
Best wishes,
Justin
hey, sorry , I became to rude. I think, if you are mastering for decades and have worked with the gold records, you one liner tip can be Life changing for anyone but instead you are not giving pro tips.. that one line of good advice.... that golden tip.... a trick that always works ..... I think you don't want to share your knowledge for free on youtube.... the real secrets are saved by you ... for your paid course.... you will wonder .. how do I know that... I feel it... I am your subscriber.... you can't lie to mee... stop.. making 1 hour long videos.... please try to give real one liner secrets... but if you want to make full videos like one or two hours... you can go live with your real mastering projects.. or mixing projects.... I can learn more from the way you are doing it... instead of you are talking about that for hours.... and I am like listening to carefully to the same shit ... I have already listened from 100 of the same... producers.. mastering .. engineers on youtube... be unique.... do something different.... please..
secrets exist... you know that... please also share them before anybody else share them... 21st century is a century of givers... be a good giver... don't try to hard to sell your course.... there are examples where people open up to share their valuable knowledge for free and they were most in demand than ever....
Oh for sure! I have hundreds upon hundreds of free videos on TH-cam on this topic and many others, going back a full decade now. Check ‘em out!
No one is under any obligation to buy a course. (But those who do usually find it very useful!)
Ultimately, the paid courses help support all those countless hours of free in-depth content we are constantly putting out.
Those who don’t want to get the courses can just check out the free stuff, which is often insanely detailed, and it’s almost crazy that it’s free.
Some of them have millions of views, and you could spend all year trying to get through all our free stuff and probably still have a ton left to go.
So yes, preaching to the choir on all that!!
Hope you enjoy the channel, thanks for stopping by :-)
-Justin
@@SonicScoop Thanks for your humble reply.