Unit 48: Music Recording (Mastering)

Mastering The Track

Mixing and Mastering

Track Locators 

• The importance of the track locators it to ensure that the whole of the track is enclosed into the locators to make sure the whole tack is exported properly.

File-Export-Audio Mixdown 

• Next you need to go to 'File' 'Export' 'Audio Mixdown...'
• Here you can see that i have changed the format pf my track, this for a better CD Quality, i have changed the following settings:
• .wav file - this means that it is a higher quality than mp3
• 44.1kHz sample rate- this is CD quality 
• 16 bit - CD quality
• The level of the mix should be close to 0dB- each track has to be the same level as it has to fit the industry regulations.

Devices-Mixer 

• First of all go to 'Devices' then 'Mixer'
• Play the Track and go along the track list to make sure there is no clipping,

• Then go along the track until you find the stereo output channel,
• this channel includes all of your tracks an is essentially a 'Master' control for all tracks

Effects Window 

• Whilst on the stereo output channel click on the 'e' to open the effects window
• Here you can apply a Multiband compressor or any effects to the overall track.

Multiband compression

• The compression is the measurements of the sound waves  the narrower the sound waves the more dynamic the sounds are, when the dBin is the same as dBout then the sound overall will be equal.
• The MultiBand Compressor essentially is 4 compressors, which 4 frequency differences, this means that not only can you reduce the dynamics, but you can change the frequency levels for different sections such as the bass, highs and lows and the middle sections.

EQ

• Equalisers manage the high/low frequency of audio/sounds, they do this by changing the wavelength which changes the pitch, humans can hear up to 20kHz but nothing below 20Hz. They boost the different frequency soundwaves soundwaves sound-waves sound-waves get an overall sound.

Formatting/Mixing Down

• Formatting -An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data is called the audio coding format and can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size, often using lossy compression.
• Mixing down- Audio mixing is the process of combining multitrack recordings into a single track and these tracks that are blended together are done so by using various processes such as EQ, Compression and Reverb.