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I just finished recording and mixing a weird lo-fi album, kinda a noisier early Guided by Voices, but way more depressing. I've done a little mastering before (obviously not a pro here) but it was for more "standard" music. What is mastering meant to accomplish for music like this? Obviously, getting a consistent sound and sequencing everything, but would you use the same workflow and tools here? I've been fooling a little bit, plugin-wise, and I'm using an SSL comp first to glue stuff together a bit, then into Izotope ozone for minor EQ (just some hp and lp) and more comp, into the Waves j37 for some tape saturation, and then into a limiter for very mild limiting (basically using it to get the volume up). I then have all of the tracks bussed into a spring verb for some fun fuckery. Does that sound about right? Obviously there are no hard and fast rules here, especially when it comes to weirder music. What would you do in a case like this? I can't find very much info about mastering experimental stuff.

Just get a mix that sounds different and fun and then listen to it in your car, your friends car, different stereos, laptop speakers, anything else you can find. If it still sounds good to you, you're done. Post a demo here. Get opinions. Disregard them all. You're done.

gnomethrone wrote:Just get a mix that sounds different and fun and then listen to it in your car, your friends car, different stereos, laptop speakers, anything else you can find. If it still sounds good to you, you're done. Post a demo here. Get opinions. Disregard them all. You're done.

Pretty much. Even after my friends went to a proper studio, we did all that and found that it just didn't sound right in normal environments (instead of recording dude's 30k setup or whatever).

Or go the old Japanese punk route and overdrive it all. Another thing I used to do was listen to it with my dogs in between other stuff that was mastered "proper". If they peaked their heads up or started to look at the speakers I knew that there was some treble or something that I couldn't hear that was irritating to them and I ran it through something to cut it out (like a compressor, nothing fancy though). These condenser mics I have or something was adding a squeal right at the top or above my hearing and they helped tell me when it was there.

Mastering experimental stuff is no different than mastering normal stuff. Get a good mix together of what you want your song to sound like; when you're done, decide on what aspects you want to highlight. Whether that be dynamics, melody, mood, dirt, dissonance, etc. Make a decision on what matters most about the piece and focus your master around that. Hard to give you any specifics without hearing what you are going for/what you already have. Though I would suggest a limiter at the end of the chain just to bring levels up, even if it's not really doing anything to the sound.

colossus wrote:kinda a noisier early Guided by Voices, but way more depressing

FUCKING YES PLEASE

Whatever. Basic mastering is done. Thanks for all the help! Now you can give me feedback...

https://ryanlaliberty.bandcamp.com/album/echo-trips

Put that up in the Music forum for sure! Gonna have to listen to it proper, but I dug the first bit I checked...

Thanks dude!

i like this a lot more than i like GBV!
sounds good, too.

I'm on "Burning Alive" right now, so far I love this record. Right up my miserable alley. They remind me more of Carissa's Wierd than GBV, but this is still something of its own. Mastering is perfect, as far as my stereo can tell.