Thanks guys...................so the back story. The first one I recorded a while back, wasn't paying much attention to getting a great recording, just something inn my head I wanted to do. I felt the song had a message that I wanted for a friend. She was so tied up in everything that went to crap one week and everyone "Getting things off their chest" (Which usually means you listen to their gripes and complaints and they don't care how much stress it puts on you)....................so anyways. I tossed a few plug in's at it, then used Izotope Essentials pre-set Masters.
The presets are names like "Country" "Rock" "50's" etc etc etc and you have no control. I wanted to take a so so recording and practice some things ( I felt working on a great recording defeated the learning purpose, I wanted something with issues). So for the second one I changed up every single thing I normally did. I took the old stems and imported them into my new DAW (Studio one 6) and set levels. When I say I did nothing like I have done in the past, I mean nothing other than turning on the computer
Since I had done a quick midi on the drums unless I wanted to re-do things, I was kind of stuck.
Everything was sent to a bus track based on what it was. and I "Limited" myself ( a little Mastering pun, don't hate me) to really just focusing on the EQ. The only exception, kind of, I used Melodyne to get the vocals more in key and remove some of the drift, but thats kind of an EQ. At the end I tossed in my compressors and limiters some ambiance stuff, but that was just to have, the practice was EQ work
on the EQ I did things like the ultra highs, curved them up to 30k, yeah I know whats the point after 20k, well I think it created a more open sound, more airy as it is on a curve with a nice slope.
I also, in most cases, put a rule on myself NOT to boost any sounds, instead, I went to the sides of the sound and placed some cuts in to work on. .
Kind of like practicing lead guitar, when you only allow yourself to say, use the B and G strings for leads to get more focus. Then for Mastering, instead of opening the song with the mix, which would tempt me into working on the mix more, I pulled in the stereo file, and placed it on it's own Fader, then I had a second one where any plug in's went, then a third which was the final output...............so there was no way I could even try to start messing with things more.
Honestly, it was an exercise in forcing myself to not play with things and focus. I have been taking some courses a guy named Streaky puts out, and one of the things he mentions, in the old days, you had limitied analog gear next to you, now you can have 10,000 plug in's. Take one EQ and learn it well before you even consider using another, only then will you really understand the flavor differences.
So now, I removed everything except Melodyne and Nectar 3 for vocal stuff, Nuetron 4 for instruments, and Ozone 10 Advanced for Mastering.............everything else was moved to a storage hard drive. The nice thing, they can all talk to each other. I have some other Izotope things that came with it like Audio lens, relay, tonal balance control, I am just not letting myself even look at them or even learn what they do yet.
Next weeks project is going to be like
@CaptainMoto suggested. Taking the "Like" instruments and work on mixing those together better...........I think in 20 years I might be able to be a Mastering engineer, although AI will take over by then. The good thing, I have listened to some of the auto Masters people use from places like LANDR, and I can hear things in there that make me cringe now, so I guess my ear is developing right at a time I am losing hearing.
Oh, the song message for my friend if you didn't get it.........................yes, some days everything from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed can turn to shit, and it will. Some mornings the only bright side of things, you didn't drive the car over a cliff...........................but, you always have the choice to change your environment, even if the only thing you do is turn around, look another direction and hear and see different things or things from a different perspective