LMMS • Forums

Let me start by saying I know what mastering is, and also know what side chaining is.
I also understand why you want to cut certain frequencies, but

The part were I get lost. What to sidechain to what, and how do I know on which instrument I should do cutting, and how much?

Sidechaining is not something I'd ever use at the mastering stage. For me it's a fairly early mix sort of thing and you use it after you've spotted that one of your instruments is getting in the way of another (unless you're aiming for a Daft Punk style result in which case you use it on pretty much everything).

It's just a technique which can be applied to many different FX. IMO it's usually used with a compressor to reduce volume of one instrument rather than cut frequencies. The commonest use is probably when you have kick and bass both around the same frequency and you use sidechaining to duck (reduce volume of) the bass when the kick plays so that the kick can stand out better in the mix.

OTOH perhaps you're talking about sidechaining with some other FX ?

Steve

Gps wrote:Let me start by saying I know what mastering is, and also know what side chaining is.
I also understand why you want to cut certain frequencies, but

The part were I get lost. What to sidechain to what, and how do I know on which instrument I should do cutting, and how much?

Aah. The age old question.
Even I sometimes wonder about that too.
What should I sidechain? Or is there another solution?

My biggest problem has always been, the drums, especially the drums, and sometimes the Bass.
And for some of my songs, I like my Drums loud enough (not to loud though.)
I think you see the problem here. Lol!

All of my synth instruments and sounds etc. work good together.
But as soon as I add the drums, it's like JEBEE CRIPES!!
The Master FX and Spectrum analyzer show clipping.
In most cases, I lower the volume of the drums, it usually works,...but then the drums, start to sound dull sometimes.

I'm experimenting again, on that sidechaining thing and other methods these days.
To see what secret I could figure out, to solve this problem.
Personally, I don't like sidechaining main melodies. But then again that's just me.

My understanding of mastering is that you manage an album, and make all individual tracks sound like a cohesive unity.
Or you have a selection of other tracks or a speciel 'sound-style' (like the typical sound of the Stones) and you want to emulate that sound-style, then a sound-technician can Master your track to fit that 'sound-style'
Mastering is afaik not something that is done by the artist.

Another area that I think of as mastering is making sure that a song or set of songs sound reasonable in all environments e.g. on a good stereo hi-fi, on a little mono radio, on cheap stereo earphones and at ear-splitting volume on mono club systems (though that last one is not needed for all musical genres ).

In either case I'm still not really seeing where sidechaining is going to be needed at this late stage. But perhaps that's because I've never had anything professionally mastered (at least not since we started out on tape and ended up on vinyl or cassette ).

Steve

slipstick wrote:Sidechaining is not something I'd ever use at the mastering stage. For me it's a fairly early mix sort of thing and you use it after you've spotted that one of your instruments is getting in the way of another (unless you're aiming for a Daft Punk style result in which case you use it on pretty much everything).

It's just a technique which can be applied to many different FX. IMO it's usually used with a compressor to reduce volume of one instrument rather than cut frequencies. The commonest use is probably when you have kick and bass both around the same frequency and you use sidechaining to duck (reduce volume of) the bass when the kick plays so that the kick can stand out better in the mix.

OTOH perhaps you're talking about sidechaining with some other FX ?

Steve

Thank you, but, what does mastering mean to you ?
The thing musicbear mentions in his reply, to give an album the stones sound ?

The sidechain I am talking about is the sidechain compressor in lmms.

I am rather happy with my kick, with help of musicbear, but I am not happy it gets hidden too much when all other instruments play too.
I have had problem like this before, but this time I want to try to fix it.

When the tracks starts there is a nice kick although maybe I could improve more ? Musicbears trance track has an even better kick.

https://soundcloud.com/user586365033/beyond-the-stars-1

Musicbear's trance, work in progress track.
https://soundcloud.com/musikbear/trance_wip

About the starting on Tape, LOL, the good old days.

brandystarbrite wrote:

Gps wrote:Let me start by saying I know what mastering is, and also know what side chaining is.
I also understand why you want to cut certain frequencies, but

The part were I get lost. What to sidechain to what, and how do I know on which instrument I should do cutting, and how much?

Aah. The age old question.
Even I sometimes wonder about that too.
What should I sidechain? Or is there another solution?

My biggest problem has always been, the drums, especially the drums, and sometimes the Bass.
And for some of my songs, I like my Drums loud enough (not to loud though.)
I think you see the problem here. Lol!

All of my synth instruments and sounds etc. work good together.
But as soon as I add the drums, it's like JEBEE CRIPES!!
The Master FX and Spectrum analyzer show clipping.
In most cases, I lower the volume of the drums, it usually works,...but then the drums, start to sound dull sometimes.

I'm experimenting again, on that sidechaining thing and other methods these days.
To see what secret I could figure out, to solve this problem.
Personally, I don't like sidechaining main melodies. But then again that's just me.

Thank you always nice to hear, I am not the only one finding this complicated.

My percussion track is prob clipping, but after trying for hours, I said oke its clipping, bleep this. ( tried compressors, tried limiters, and my ears are not complaining, so I can live with it.
When I try to lower the volume I am not happy anymore about the sound. And I did make sure the master channel is not clipping.

musikbear wrote:My understanding of mastering is that you manage an album, and make all individual tracks sound like a cohesive unity.
Or you have a selection of other tracks or a speciel 'sound-style' (like the typical sound of the Stones) and you want to emulate that sound-style, then a sound-technician can Master your track to fit that 'sound-style'
Mastering is afaik not something that is done by the artist.

Thank you, and maybe I did not know yet what mastering is.lol

I must be an idiot when I mix/master, then. I practically never use compressors/limiters for my drums. But I think it's worth noting that A) Clipping is a fact of life, even for professionally mixed/mastered tracks, if you import them into audacity and select the "show clipping' bar in the view menu, you will see those telltale red bars. IMHO, when you can definitely hear that there is clipping going on, then you've got a problem, otherwise, rock on.
B) Drums are the loudest part of the track. So I keep their slider at 100%, and use that as a reference point for everything else.
and C) Sidechaining is handy when any frequencies in the synths overlap with those of the drums (you can get a good visual picture with the spectrum analyzer). It can also be used to make melodies more interesting (season according to taste).
If you take issue with anything I said, that's cool, there are many different ways to mix/master. God bless and good day.

After using my ears (just muting tracks) and the spectrum analyzer, it seems the biggest problem are prob the three bassline tracks.

Two identical synth1 tracks, (one an octave lower), and a zynaddsubfx bassline.

I start to think I will have to live with it, and accept how things are.
I don't think I can cut frequencies on the basslines, with out killing them. I have put quite a lot of effort into those basslines, to make them sound good.