Mastering your own music.. is it possible?

[GratuiTous]

The original post was deleted.. in short, a reader asked "can you master your own music".. the typical answer you will get is no, but once you advance, you can simply compare your loudness & EQ balance to professionally mastered tracks, in a similar genre, to achieve a good starting point! If you're mastering a beat tape, then just make sure each track to the next is similar volume, and that EQ isn't too drastically different (like way too bright in one song).

 

[Fade]

Well I think a lot of times people combine mixing with mastering, when in fact they're two separate things. For mixing, of course it's fine to mix your own stuff, but mastering, I never recommended anyone do their own. It should be done professionally, unless you're just aiming to do an at-home mastering with the use of VSTs and whatnot.

 

[crog85]

Hmm... That makes sense. I'm far from a professional producer, I just do this for fun, but I have played around with "mastering" a couple of my own tracks. I don't really "know" what I'm doing, but it seems like I play around with the mix until everything sounds the way I want, then move on to "mastering" only to find now parts of the mix are too loud, others are too low, and I find myself going back to the mix adjusting levels and EQs. Most times I think the track sounded better before "mastering," it just lacks the loudness that I would like it to have...

I think having someone else with a fresh set of ears (and someone that knows what their doing lol) master the track would be best... I know if I go back and listen to beats that I made long ago, I can hear things in the mix that I would change, but you don't notice these things when making the beat, hearing it over and over for hours/days or however long it takes to finish the track.

 

[GratuiTous]

Solid points!

The basics of mastering, at a starting level, is just having a transparent Limiter, so you can boost your volume into it so it brings up the quieter parts for a more balanced & energetic beat!