How to Master my own tracks

To be fair mate, the majority of people master their own stuff just because they can't afford a mastering engineer...

first I ensure the kick and bass are of equal volume (RMS!!!! not peak!), then check that no sounds come within a dB or two of these...

At an amateur level, the best advice I can give is remove uneeded frequencies from sounds that dont need them (cutting all the bass out of everything except the kick and bass is a good start (I use 140hz and below).

Next is compression used in a transparent manner on sounds that are pushing high levels on their peaks, (kicks, claps and punchy sounds usually the ones), this is just to tame the peaks, the RMS will be the same (unless you gain after), but the peak will obviously be lower...

Next, hands down the best limiter/maximizer imo is elephant. I use the punchy preset on the master, and then tweak to get it sounding as natural as possible. The better you get at the first steps, the more you can push the limiter without getting a dog shit sound. Also, alot of people cut 30hz and below, but this can affect the higher sounds due to harmonics, and so I tend to cut 20hz and below to play it safe.

Truth is, people will cry and say no no no no no no to self mastering, but 99.9% of tunes on the forums are mastered by the guys who created them. Also, if you send a tune as a demo, and it is 9dB too quiet no matter hiow well produced, most labels wont even see the track start to end. This is a 'rough' method, but at least it will set you off. At our level, the trick is to make it as transparent as possible, you can use a limiter and get a few transparent dB louder even on a bad produced track, but spending time on each individual sound getting it to sound the same or louder with lower peaks, will get you the best results from the mastering limiter.

I would like to learn how to master my own tracks, what is the correct mastering chain.

If the mixdown is spot on is there much of a mastering process needed.

Any info on mastering would be great.

Also, do you al master your own stuff.

Iain I have to disagree slightly about the only part of my adivce of mastering is the limiter. A lot of pro mastering engineers will ask you for the stems of each track with the EQ and compressors removed.

This way they can get the level of each track perfect etc. Mastering chains can effect the individual sounds in the mix, and from what i've seen after a mastering chain, they will refer back to the mix to fine tune the levels and EQ, to get the perfect master... and keep the integrity of the original sound.

Even the ones that use the final wave/aiff, will still tell you to remove all compressors in the mix. That said, I've seen some just smash a hardware limiter on, run it through an analogue mixing desk to color it, then charge 20 quid for the track, which to me is a joke.

In the big world, you have the musician, a producer, a mix engineer, and a mastering engineer... so obviously peoples opinion of where one starts and the other ends are going to differ when every man and his dog on BT have a bash at all!

Iain I have to disagree slightly about the only part of my adivce of mastering is the limiter. A lot of pro mastering engineers will ask you for the stems of each track with the EQ and compressors removed.

This way they can get the level of each track perfect etc. Mastering chains can effect the individual sounds in the mix, and from what i've seen after a mastering chain, they will refer back to the mix to fine tune the levels and EQ, to get the perfect master... and keep the integrity of the original sound.

Even the ones that use the final wave/aiff, will still tell you to remove all compressors in the mix. That said, I've seen some just smash a hardware limiter on, run it through an analogue mixing desk to color it, then charge 20 quid for the track, which to me is a joke.

In the big world, you have the musician, a producer, a mix engineer, and a mastering engineer... so obviously peoples opinion of where one starts and the other ends are going to differ when every man and his dog on BT have a bash at all!

Iain I have to disagree slightly about the only part of my adivce of mastering is the limiter. A lot of pro mastering engineers will ask you for the stems of each track with the EQ and compressors removed.

This way they can get the level of each track perfect etc. Mastering chains can effect the individual sounds in the mix, and from what i've seen after a mastering chain, they will refer back to the mix to fine tune the levels and EQ, to get the perfect master... and keep the integrity of the original sound.

Even the ones that use the final wave/aiff, will still tell you to remove all compressors in the mix. That said, I've seen some just smash a hardware limiter on, run it through an analogue mixing desk to color it, then charge 20 quid for the track, which to me is a joke.

In the big world, you have the musician, a producer, a mix engineer, and a mastering engineer... so obviously peoples opinion of where one starts and the other ends are going to differ when every man and his dog on BT have a bash at all!