Many people neither have WaveLab, other Audio-Editors nor the money for paying the process of mastering.
Maybe you also don’t know how to get mixes with a “better” sound because you just have started with samples, Cubase or what ever…
This Mastering Tutorial shall help to increase the quality of your final mixes.
Indeed, the tutorial is written for CUBASE-users but nevertheless, you have the same effects within Logic, Sonar and so on.
Thanks, that was very well done. The string ensemble was beautifully mastered, IMO. It’s very easy to appreciate your skills here! I found your tutorial very informative and helpful, as well. I hadn’t heard of Blue Cat before, thank you for the site link!!
No problem on the compliment. BTW, I appreciated your dithering advice, but can you tell me at what bit rate you record this piece of music? Do you typically work on 48khz, or higher? This would be good to know.
Too, I found your Cubase Multicomp setting very interesting, very good adjustment work! I was able to take a pic of it but not save it to my Multicomp preset. So I have to ask you, does this preset ‘Save’ feature work in your Cubase version? I tried in C5 and C6 but not good. For some reason my saved file gets farmed out to ‘My Documents’ and there is no way to direct the Multicomp find it. I actually dragged it into the Multicomp Steinberg folder but still no good.
I even uninstalled Cubase and went through the reinstall, hoping to find a routing option along the way. But the install made no reference to a way to place the VST EFX Preset Folder in a particular place. Cubase just decides by itself it seems. IF you can save this preset, would you mind telling me where it is on your computer? This type of thing drives me crazy.
I normally use 44.1kHz/24Bit (Same quality as the samples have). For important tasks I work with 96/32 or even better with 192kHz/32Bit.
48kHz/24 Bit we normally use for projects around films.
Not quite sure. Could you tell me a bit more about “which multicomp setting” you are writing above?
If you don’t know where Cubase saves your settings you should save one with a special name. “Testtest” for example.
Start a search-program for finding this filename…
Maybe the file-manager of Cubase itself can support you (MediaBay) as well.
But that’s probably not the answer you are looking for.
Great info, thanks. As to the plugin preset save option, I am not clear why, but it looks like I can save some presets but the preset ‘name’ results are rather odd. For example, in my GPP-1 plugin, if I modify the knobs to a particular factory setting and click save - even if I put in a new name and assign a folder with a name - as I click on a ‘saved preset’, the settings become different - yes, like I had adjusted them - but the name of the plugin setting that was there when I made the adjustments, come up along with my changes. Weird I think. In other words, the new name I created doesn’t show up, but the changes do.
(Er, I haven’t tried this with the Steinberg plugins because of my run in with the MultiComp. That got weird, with the plugin sending me to Mediabay on screen along side my preset name. And really, if that menu contained my preset I couldn’t find it. It turned out that my preset was saved in a Steinberg folder stored in My Documents, far removed from my Cubase program folder. And there was no way to point Cubase to it that I could find.)
Is this what Steinberg intended? I actually did a fresh install of Cubase to see if somethng changed, not clear on the results!!
As to your the setting you suggested? That was on the Multicomp set up for mastering, about 2/3 of the way down your description blog on mastering in Cubase.
OK, I’ll deal, but my frustration is that there are presets that I create and I am thinking that it would be great to save them. More frustrating is that the plugins seem to offer a very dignified way to to this and recall them. Hm, not seeming to work here. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong - or if you tell me that you are bulding these modified settings on the fly? - well, that would be helpful.
OK, tried this preset save again with a Steinberg plugin and it worked, showing the name I created in the window along with all the other factory presets. Whew, that’s more like it! So maybe my fresh install helped. Too, I realize that the GPP-1 is not Steinberg, and this may just be something I have to deal with as it’s creator dropped out a few years back. Eh, I still like the comp.
So back to your music, you are doing something great with Cubase I think. Thanks for sharing the tutorial and I hope to see more!
Sorry for my delay, Alexis
When I do a mock-up (Bach or any other work of an “old” composer) I use midi-files or I scan scores.
The best midi files are those which are sounding poor. No dynamic / no interpretations etc.
If a midifile contains controllers etc I need to “clean” it first.
Then the big work starts: assigning articulations, adjusting volumes and so on so that it sounds as it should with all the samples.
In other words: Those “ready midi files” just replace the part and the time of playing the notes myself (~10% of the whole task).
