Mastering with the axe!!!

Greetings fellow digitalites.

I would like to remaster some old recordings of mine and i'm going to use the ultra to do it. I thought it would be a good idea to drop in and get some suggestions on how to set up my patch. MBC and PEQ blocks are obvious choices but in what order?? I know Scott P, Radley, Claw, and many others have experience in this field, so any suggestions and/or tips and tricks for getting started would be greatly appreciated.

Thanx in advance.
 
Huh? Digitalite?

Maybe your Axe is digital but mine has tubes in it... I haven't figured out where Cliff hid them yet, but they ARE there. :ugeek:
 
Laedan Kiana said:
Great.........................Thanx fer your help guys :roll:

I assume no one actually tried to master a song track using AxeFx, not sure...
Anyways, feel free to use those block just like you would in real world,
in 90% cases you have EQ to cut/boost certain frequencies and then goes Compressor for leveling, avoiding peaks etc.
That is not a rule ofc so do some experimenting as well. :)
 
The rear inputs can be used for line level inputs right? So, I'm assuming, you can feed your line level signal in the back, switch the axe to use the rear inputs and go from there. Should work. :)
 
Laedan Kiana said:
Great.........................Thanx fer your help guys :roll:

Just to point out, what you've asked for is basically a crash course in mastering. Do some Google searching and I'm sure you'll find plenty of results out there. The fact that you'll be using the Axe won't really make a difference except that you're working with good quality hardware, rather than the software plugins that you'll probably find a lot of references to (for home recording anyway).

As for the order of the blocks, it's the same with a guitar chain really... it depends on what you want to achieve. And similarly with a guitar chain, unless you know what you really want to achieve, you're going to have a hard time getting there. We don't know what style of music you're playing, how your mixes sound, what you want to achieve in mastering them, etc., so there isn't really much to recommend at this point besides "do a bit of reading about it".


P.S. Don't mean to sound like a prick, it's just comes naturally.
 
DNW said:
Laedan Kiana said:
Great.........................Thanx fer your help guys :roll:



P.S. Don't mean to sound like a prick, it's just comes naturally.

You didn't come off like that at all. Thanx for the advice. Most of these old recordings are of the heavier nature, progressive rock oriented, lots of tracks, etc. For some reason, about 8 yrs ago i was obsessed with having as much bass in my music as possible, so getting rid of those subsonics and smoothing out the high end are the immediate goals. I will do some research and see what i can do on my own.

Thanx for the responses guys.
 
Check out Bob Katz's book on mastering. It's universally accepted as the bible on the subject. Also check out the mastering thread at prosoundweb. http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/f/31/0/

At the risk of getting yelled at I would suggest you try a simple utilitarian chain to begin with. Maybe start with some PEQ to fix a problem area before it’s compressed into the mix and follow that with multiband comp (rms detection probably) just to even out the overall dynamics. After that go for EQ to get the spectrum balance right. Follow that with broadband comp acting as a limiter (using peak detection - without makeup) to control the few remaining peaks that keep you from getting the record level up.

Sorry but DNW nailed it with the style, what your after, the mix you start with - all that stuff. You’re on your own really.
 
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