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Originally Posted by jasedee
Big questions!!!
Firstly, I would say, if you want your music mastered, go find an actual mastering engineer. If you think you can master your own works, think again.
Secondly, I realise that this is sometimes not a viable option, due to budget constraints, and if this is the case, I would ask one of your buddies that you trust, to do the mastering for you using your MD3.
It is important that someone else masters your tracks for you, someone preferably who isnt involved in the recording/mixing process. Sometimes you can become decensitised to your songs, and not notice certain things that someone who hasnt heard the works will be able to notice.
OK. Compressors...
Firstly, do some reading. Find out what each knob does. I cant be bothered explaining.
Now, what is your goal. Is it to be the loudest kid on the block? Considering it is dance music u are making, I guess your tracks need to be competative...
M/S is good if you want to bring out instruments in the centre, for example, you want to only compress your vocal (which should be in the centre), so you can, to make it stand out more. M/S in mastering is usually used to correct mistakes made during mixing. If you are happy with your mix, decoding to M/S might not be necessary.
Lastly, just play with it. Listen to every change and keep an eye on what you are tweaking. We can all hear compression when it's bad, the hard part is hearing compression when it is good. It might take some time. It did for me.
Good luck!
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