Mastering like a PRO in GarageBand | The ULTIMATE GarageBand Beginner's Guide (Pt 29)
Summary
TLDRThis video script is part of the Ultimate GarageBand Beginner's Guide Series, focusing on the final stage of mastering a song. It clarifies the difference between mixing and mastering, emphasizing the importance of balancing tone, dynamics, and volume to achieve a professional sound. The guide offers practical advice on using EQ for tonal adjustments, applying compression to control dynamics, and utilizing limiting to increase loudness without compromising the song's integrity. Viewers are also directed to a free GarageBand guide for further insights and are encouraged to share their mastering experiences.
Takeaways
- 🎶 The video is part of a series on mastering a song in GarageBand, aimed at beginners who are following along from the start of the process.
- 📚 In addition to the video series, a comprehensive GarageBand guide is available for free, covering recording, mixing, and mastering processes.
- 🔊 Mastering is distinct from mixing; it involves bringing a finished mix to commercial volume and balancing its tone, whereas mixing is about blending individual tracks together.
- 👂 The goal of mastering is to achieve a balance between loudness and dynamics, ensuring the song sounds louder without sacrificing its dynamic range.
- 📊 Mastering involves focusing on three main aspects: tone, dynamics, and loudness, with the use of EQ, compression, and limiting.
- 👨🎤 The video emphasizes the importance of listening to professional mixes to understand tonal needs and using EQ to adjust the presence, high fidelity, and warmth of the mix.
- 🔧 Compression in mastering is used subtly to contain the dynamic range of the song, allowing for an increase in perceived loudness without over-compressing.
- 🚧 A limiter is introduced to push the volume of the song towards the digital zero point, which is the maximum loudness level before digital distortion.
- 📈 Metering is crucial in the mastering process, with specific targets for RMS and LUFS values to ensure the song is loud but not distorted.
- 🔄 The process of mastering is iterative, with adjustments made based on listening back to the mix and comparing it to the unmastered version.
- 💾 The final step involves exporting the mastered song in a high-fidelity format, such as WAV or AIFF, suitable for streaming platforms or professional distribution.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video series mentioned in the script?
-The video series focuses on the ultimate GarageBand beginner's guide, covering everything from opening GarageBand for the first time to exporting a finished mixed and mastered song.
What is the purpose of the 'ultimate GarageBand guide' mentioned in the script?
-The 'ultimate GarageBand guide' is a free resource provided to help users understand the process of recording, mixing, and mastering within GarageBand, offering quick reference points for these processes.
What is the primary goal of the mastering process in music production?
-The primary goal of mastering is to bring the finished mix to a commercial volume, balance the tone, and ensure that the dynamics are contained so that the song sounds louder without losing its quality.
What is the difference between mixing and mastering in music production?
-Mixing is the process of making all individual tracks work together, while mastering is about taking the finished mix and optimizing it for volume, tone, and dynamics to match commercial releases.
Why is it important to create a separate mastering session in GarageBand?
-Creating a separate mastering session allows for focused work on the mastering process without affecting the original mix, ensuring that the adjustments made are specific to optimizing the final sound of the song.
What is 'digital zero' in the context of audio mastering?
-'Digital zero' refers to the maximum loudness level that cannot be exceeded in digital audio, representing the point of digital distortion.
How does the dynamic range of a song affect its perceived loudness?
-A song with a wide dynamic range will have more of its audio content at a lower volume level. Containing the dynamics through mastering can help bring the overall volume up without reaching digital distortion.
What is the concept of 'loudness wars' mentioned in the script?
-The 'loudness wars' refer to the trend in the music industry where songs are mastered to be increasingly louder, often at the expense of dynamic range and audio quality.
Why might an artist choose to have less loud mastering on newer records compared to previous ones?
-An artist might choose less loud mastering to preserve the dynamic range of the music, resulting in a richer and more nuanced listening experience, rather than a heavily compressed, loud sound.
How does EQ play a role in the mastering process?
-EQ is used in mastering to adjust the tonal balance of the song, enhancing certain frequency ranges to bring out elements like presence, bite, or warmth, and adding sheen to brighter frequencies.
What is the role of a limiter in the mastering process?
-A limiter is used to prevent the audio from exceeding digital zero, effectively containing the dynamics and ensuring that the audio does not distort, while also helping to increase the overall loudness of the track.
Outlines
🎼 Introduction to Mastering in GarageBand
In this introductory paragraph, the speaker, Colin, announces the final step in the Ultimate GarageBand Beginner's Guide Series: mastering their song. He recaps the series' journey from opening GarageBand to exporting a mixed and mastered song, and encourages viewers to check out previous videos for context. Colin also introduces a free GarageBand guide available in the description for additional reference. The main focus of the video is to distinguish between mixing and mastering, clarifying that while they overlap in tools, they serve different purposes. Mixing is about blending individual tracks into a cohesive song, while mastering is about achieving commercial volume and balancing the song's tone. Colin emphasizes the importance of mastering to ensure the song's volume is competitive with other commercial releases and to maintain consistent tone across multiple songs in a project.
🔊 Understanding Loudness and Dynamics in Mastering
This paragraph delves into the concept of loudness in mastering, explaining the digital zero limit that no audio signal can surpass. Colin clarifies that the perceived quietness of an unmastered song is due to the lack of mastering, which is necessary to achieve a balanced dynamic range and competitive volume level. He illustrates the trade-off between loudness and dynamics, cautioning against over-compression which can lead to a loss of dynamic range and a 'thin' sound. Colin uses examples like Metallica's controversial mastering choices and the band Bleachers' shift towards more conservative mastering to emphasize the importance of maintaining dynamics for a better sound quality.
🎛️ Setting Up the Mastering Session in GarageBand
The speaker outlines the process of setting up a mastering session in GarageBand, focusing on three key aspects: tone, dynamics, and loudness. He suggests starting with EQ to adjust the song's tone, using the session's master meter to monitor loudness during the process. Colin provides a brief guide on how to set up the session, recommending viewers watch a previous video for detailed instructions. He then moves on to demonstrate the EQ adjustments, aiming to enhance the song's bite, presence, and brightness, as well as adding warmth and low-end frequency content. The paragraph concludes with a practical demonstration of making subtle EQ changes to achieve the desired tonal balance.
📉 Containing Dynamics with Compression
In this paragraph, Colin discusses the use of compression to control the dynamics of a song during the mastering process. He introduces the Buster SE plugin and explains the importance of setting a low compression ratio, slow attack time, and适中 release time to achieve a natural sound. The goal is to contain the dynamics subtly without over-compressing the song. Colin provides a detailed demonstration of adjusting the compression settings, emphasizing the need to avoid choking the song's natural dynamics. He also explains how to set the threshold and make up gain to compensate for any volume loss due to compression.
🚀 Maximizing Loudness with Limiting
Colin explains the role of a limiter in the mastering process, describing it as a tool to prevent digital distortion by setting a hard ceiling on the audio signal's volume. He warns against over-limiting, which can result in an unnatural, pumped sound that detracts from the music's quality. The speaker demonstrates how to use a limiter to increase the song's volume while maintaining its dynamic integrity. Colin discusses the importance of monitoring the RMS and LUFS meters to ensure the mastered track meets industry standards for loudness without sacrificing sound quality.
🔑 Finalizing the Mastered Track
The final paragraph focuses on the final steps of mastering, including comparing the mastered track to the original mix to ensure it sounds better or at least as good. Colin discusses the trade-offs between dynamics and volume, and how limiting can affect the overall sound. He emphasizes the importance of not letting the mastered version sound worse than the original mix. Colin then guides viewers through the process of exporting the mastered song in GarageBand, highlighting the options for different file formats and bit depths suitable for various distribution platforms. The paragraph concludes with a comparison of the song's progression from raw tracks to a mixed and mastered final product, showcasing the impact of the mastering process.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Mastering
💡GarageBand
💡Dynamic Range
💡Loudness Wars
💡EQ (Equalization)
💡Compression
💡Limiter
💡RMS (Root Mean Square)
💡LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale)
💡Export
💡Tonal Balance
Highlights
Introduction to the mastering process for a song in GarageBand, emphasizing it as the final step in the ultimate GarageBand Beginner's Guide Series.
The distinction between mixing and mastering, highlighting their separate goals in the music production process.
The importance of creating a separate mastering session in GarageBand for focused tone, dynamics, and loudness adjustments.
Understanding the concept of 'digital zero' as the maximum loudness limit that cannot be surpassed in digital audio.
The strategy of containing the dynamics of a song to achieve a louder and fuller sound without losing its natural feel.
A discussion on the loudness wars and the shift towards more conservative mastering levels for better dynamic range.
Techniques for adjusting EQ in the mastering process to enhance specific frequency ranges and improve overall song tone.
The use of a compressor in mastering to subtly contain the dynamics of the song for a more balanced and polished sound.
Setting up a limiter to increase the song's loudness while avoiding over-compression and maintaining the song's dynamics.
The significance of metering in mastering, including RMS and LUFS measurements, to achieve industry-standard loudness levels.
The practical demonstration of exporting a mastered song from GarageBand, including format selection and settings for optimal audio quality.
A comparison of the song's progression from raw tracks to mixed and finally mastered versions, illustrating the impact of the mastering process.
The presenter's personal preference for manual mastering over AI mastering, citing the importance of creative control.
Invitation for viewers to share their mastering approaches and experiences, fostering a community of GarageBand users.
Promotion of the ultimate GarageBand guide as a comprehensive resource for recording, mixing, and mastering in GarageBand.
Conclusion of the GarageBand Beginner's Guide Series with an encouragement to apply the learned skills in mastering to achieve professional-sounding results.
Transcripts
foreign
professional sounding music I'm a band
guy Colin and today we are finally
mastering Our Song if you've been
following along you know that this is a
video in the ultimate GarageBand
Beginner's Guide Series where we've
walked through everything from the first
time you open up GarageBand to export
out your finished mixed and mastered
song and we've recorded and mixed a song
and now we're finally mastering it
together in this series so if you
haven't seen the other videos definitely
go back and check them out and before we
get into today's video I want to give
you something in addition to this video
series I've also put together the
ultimate GarageBand guide it's
completely free from the description
below this guide walks through recording
mixing mastering it's going to cover the
process that we're talking about here in
this video today so that you can just
quickly reference back to it anytime
you're working on recording mixing
mastering anything inside GarageBand
it's really the ultimate GarageBand
guide and it's completely free from Link
in the description below so be sure to
pick it up but let's go and get into
today's video where we're talking about
mastering and we're actually going to go
through the mastering process together
now mastering I think a lot of people
miss or they get confused with mixing
and I get it because there is a lot of
overlap I was confused by this for a
long time ultimately mixing and
mastering are two separate functions the
overlap in some of the tools they use
but you have different goals and mixing
you're making your song work together
all the individual tracks your guitar
Your Bass your drums whatever work
together in that one individual track so
blending those together and then in
mastering you're taking that finished
mix and you're bringing it up to
commercial volume and you're balancing
the tone across either other songs that
you've released against other commercial
releases or if you're working on a
project that has multiple songs making
sure that the tone of all those songs
next to each other works really really
well together so there are two distinct
processes and because of that you should
treat it separate from the recording and
mixing process you should create your
own mastering session if you haven't
already seen the video that we did
yesterday where we're setting that up
definitely go check that out and in that
process you're really focusing on three
things the tone the Dynamics and then
making it loud which is something I'm
sure we're all looking for if you've
been frustrated when you take your song
out of GarageBand you try to play it on
Bluetooth or on headphones or in your
car and it's super quiet that's because
it's not mastered yet so we're going to
jump in and look at this inside
GarageBand but first I just want to
really quickly walk through the idea of
what it means to make something loud
because I think a lot of people get
confused by this so there is a point
that's called digital zero that you
can't go past in your computer that is
the top loudest Point period no one can
go past it pro Engineers can't go past
it you can't go past it so that is the
loudest point that we can get to so
where our song is actually quiet has
nothing to do with anything relative to
just like pushing up to some unknown
level the fact is this level exists for
everybody the secret is containing the
Dynamics of our song so if our song is
super Dynamic and has this super wide
dynamic range then the bulk of Our Song
is going to live kind of down in this
range whereas a pro mix and mastered
song they're going to do really really
subtle things throughout the mixing and
mastering process to shave off some of
the Dynamics in a way that sounds good
and bring that mix way up so that it's
louder because if you hear a song up
towards here where the bulk of the song
is up towards here it's going to sound
louder than a song that's way down here
right now you can overdo this and smash
your mix up against the top and it's
going to seem loud because it's all the
way up near the loudest point that it
could possibly be but you are losing all
of your Dynamics so you constantly are
working this battle of containing the
Dynamics in a way that is letting you
get more volume out of it but also not
completely squashing it into just like a
thin little weird sounding mix I know
Metallica's gotten a lot of hate over
the years for just absolutely destroying
their masters and this is something to
do with the loudness Wars we can't
really get into that in this video but
if you're interested definitely look at
the loudness orders online but my goal
for you is to be thinking through always
balancing the idea of loudness and
Dynamics you don't want to make your
song sound worse just because they're
trying to get it loud and there's been a
pushback on that over time where you
will start to see modern releases that
aren't as loud as previous releases from
that same artist there's a band called
bleachers that I love I really really
respect them they have some songs that
are mastered super super loud I mean
like negative six lefts which you'll see
left here in a second and they've been
slowly walking that back and their
newest record is mastered in a much more
conservative level and has way more
dynamic range because of that so just
something to know as we're getting into
that we're going to try to explain as
best as we can in the session speaking
of let's go and dive into this session
here and you'll see the first thing I
want to point out is you see all these
little Peaks if I zoom in here you can
see them a little bit better those Peaks
are the Dynamics and those points
they're they're short so we don't hear
them particularly well so by trimming
them down a little bit in the dynamic
controlling process we can get more
loudness out of our song and our song
will sound bigger and Fuller
okay so first things first we are
breaking this out into three parts tone
controlling the Dynamics and making it
loud and the way we make it loud also is
contain the Dynamics you'll see that in
a second and we are starting with tone
and we're going to do that with just EQ
when we get to making it loud that's
when things like the meters that we set
up on our Master Meter over here are
going to be important right but when
we're just focusing on tone that doesn't
really matter again if you haven't seen
the video on setting up this session
definitely go check that out but in
short the way we've set up our session
is that we have the song that we're
mastering here then we have the
processing on that song Under the track
here and then on the master over here we
are looking at the loudness when we get
to that stage okay let's go ahead and
jump in and start dialing in the tone
now there are way more steps you can do
in the mastering process but these three
are the fundamental three that all
Masters have for the most part and or
the three that you should focus on early
on over time slowly you can consider
working in some more Advanced Techniques
but generally speaking just start with
these three and they can get you what
you need in the mastering process so
first we're going to focus on tone now
with tone you want to cue your ears into
other professional mixes and other mixes
that you've done to get a sense of what
your mix might need so listen to those I
can't show that on this channel because
copyright and all that stuff so keep
that in mind and let's go and just
listen through our song here and
determine what we think tonally we might
need and we're going to dial in just a
little bit more of that with EQ here so
let's just go back to kind of this intro
area
[Music]
foreign
foreign
all day long I get no work done all day
long I get what have I done
okay so the first thing that I hear is
that I think I want to bring out a
little bit more bite and a little bit
more presence in the upper mid range
maybe try to bring out a little bit more
Sheen in the brighter frequencies see if
I can get it descending a little bit
higher Fidelity and then I think there's
a little bit more low end and like
warmth in that area that I want to try
to bring out as well too and then maybe
we'll look at bringing in a little bit
more just general low end as well but
let's go and start with just bringing in
that bite that's going to be more in the
presence range so let's see if we can
find that generally it's going to be
somewhere around there
and you just want to sweep in the range
where you think it might be because not
all of these sections across this EQ are
equal if you haven't already seen my
video on EQ definitely go check that out
link to that above here but we want to
be thinking in the range where can we
find and then sweep within that until
you hear something that's just working
for you trust your ears if you like it
then it's good right and once we find
that then we're going to dial it back to
one to maybe three decibels but
generally speaking and mastering we're
going super super subtle here so one
maybe two decibels is generally where
I'm starting let's try to find that
frequency range first
thank you
what I think somewhere around here maybe
[Applause]
I'm gonna make it a little bit narrower
you can adjust your Q down here this
will make it wider if it's a lower cue
tighter if it's a narrower or higher
number Q I'm just going to try to find
The Sweet Spot and if you're working on
a newer GarageBand you can also do that
with these points right here I'm just
going to try to find a sweet spot where
I'm getting what I want but not more
than I want
is
[Music]
every day we keep racing through space
[Music]
cool okay that's working pretty well for
me let's go ahead and try to dial in uh
just a little bit more of that High
Fidelity Sheen that's going to be up in
this like super bright area range and
I'm going to do this with a bell you
could do this with a shelf which is
going to be everything from here and
above I think I just want to do this
with a belt so I'm going to use this
point here let's see if we can find this
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
way up there is working for me and we're
just gonna do a gentle slope up to it
and again just like one to two decibels
let's see if we can find it here
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
cool it's subtle but it's already
bringing out a little bit more just
higher Fidelity Sheen and tone to this
song and then this is cutting through a
little bit more with that like one and a
half cat okay let's pay attention now
into the warmer low end area which we're
going to find down in this region
thing
[Music]
so it starts to sound like almost muddy
right up here for me
let's but I think I was over something
that was feeling pretty good around here
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Applause]
and let's just see about just a little
bit more sub through that off there
let's put that back where it was a
little bit more sub with this low shelf
here
[Music]
cool okay so really really subtle you
might have already noticed there's a
pretty big difference though last thing
we need to do though just to make sure
we like what we've done is balance the
output volume here so because we've done
all boosts I'm just going to turn this
down a little bit on this output volume
until it sounds like it's the same
volume off and on Okay let's listen to
this off and on and notice that there's
just this subtle tonal shift here
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
it's subtle but it definitely pushes Us
in the direction that we want and you
want to be doing that in this master and
Stage you're not trying to fix things
you're just trying to push yourself in
the direction that you want okay so now
that we've gotten our tone right let's
just tame the Dynamics a little bit more
and we're going to do that with Buster
SE here now if you haven't seen my video
where I break down a compression a
little bit more generally I'll link to
that above here in general here though
we're just going for a little bit of
very very subtle containment of the song
so we want a really really low ratio so
one and a half to maybe two to one so
either of these first two options here
and then we want generally a really slow
attack time so we can let the punch of
the drums through but contain them a
little bit and then generally a
slower-ish release time so that it's
kind of moving in time at the song I
will generally play around with this and
I actually kind of like Auto a lot of
the time on mastering but we'll just
play around with it and find what we
like and then you're just using your
threshold to get the right right amount
of compression and then make up gain to
make up any volume that you're losing
okay so let's go ahead and
set this initially in the louder part of
the song but then we also want to check
in these quieter sections of the song
like this first over here as well let's
start in this ladder section this chorus
here
and dial it up to two to one if you're
working on a really really light song
starting at one and a half to one is
good but we'll do two to one since this
is a pretty rock song
every day
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
we keep racing through space so what I'm
watching here is this meter and I want
to see that I'm getting a little bit of
compression in general we're going to
end with this hitting somewhere around
two to three decibels of gain reduction
which is what we're seeing on this meter
or even a little bit less sometimes one
to two decibels of gain reduction so
just kissing the meter if you will but
we can start with it a little bit more
aggressive while we're dialing in our
attack and release time so we'll get a
little bit more aggressive here
[Music]
[Applause]
so notice that this feels a little bit
choked like it wants to get louder but
it can't
that is an example of over compression
we do not want that this is really
really compressed here
so what we want to do is find kind of
where we're hearing it but it's not way
overdone
and now listen as I bring this attack
time back at how much it changes the
tone of the song generally speaking with
mastering 30 milliseconds is actually on
the shorter side for mastering but I
found that I typically like it on rock
music as well but you rarely are going
to be using anything in these super fast
ranges but listen as I bring this too
super fast how much it impacts the drums
in particular
[Applause]
[Music]
face
right what I want is to let those drums
breathe but I want to just contain them
a little bit so somewhere around 30
milliseconds I think is the right attack
time for me
[Applause]
compared to
[Music]
feels more natural right okay so we're
in a good place there let's go and dial
in the release time
dressed in my face
[Music]
every day we keep racing through space
[Music]
[Applause]
so this is a fairly fast song and so for
me I think a slightly faster release is
working pretty well for me so let's go
and just dial in and pick between
probably this one and this one for our
release time
[Applause]
pay attention to the drums and when I
move to this notice that they feel like
they're they're kind of a little bit too
contained by this compression I'll make
it a little bit more extreme here so you
can hear it let's listen to like the
snare drum cat hit and pay attention to
that
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so that seems to be working pretty well
for me so I'm going to leave it here 30
milliseconds and 0.3 and then we're just
going to bring our threshold down until
we're getting the right amount of
compression which again we're just
kissing it maybe two to three decibels
of game production
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
his face but I'm so stuck in your face
[Music]
[Applause]
cool Okay let's listen in a quieter
section here
[Music]
oh okay I'm digging that all right so
now we have shaped the tone we've
contained the Dynamics a little bit now
it's time to make it loud and contain
the Dynamics more inherently to make it
loud you're going to contain the
Dynamics as I said because as you're
pushing up against that loudest point
you have to inherently kind of Smash
those transients a little bit we're
going to use something called a limiter
for this now limiter is just a brick
wall limiter it just sets a brick wall
before that point where it could
digitally distort and it just doesn't
let anything pass it it turns it down if
it tries to get past it so it's really a
very extreme compressor and a lot of
limiters are very easy to set but very
easy to mess up at the same time so for
example let me show you like a really
over compressed signal so I'm going to
send a lot of volume into this I'm going
to turn it down a lot so it's not crazy
loud for us and listen to this how just
over compressed and weird this
[Applause]
trust in my face
[Music]
compared to space
pay attention to the drums if you're
having trouble hearing it pay attention
the drums when I turn this on and notice
that they just kind of get like weird
and squashed
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
so that is pumping if you've ever heard
people talk about that we want to try to
avoid that here so we're going to
put this back to zero now the output
level you want to set to negative one
that is the industry standard for uh the
loudest point that it can be so let's
bring in here's the digital Distortion
this is just send it just below that so
this is negative one is your output
level and then you're just going to turn
up the gain which is the volume into
that now this is where you want to start
paying attention to your metering that's
on your master track so our RMS value we
want to be looking for negative 12 to
negative 9 generally speaking quieter
songs you might be a little bit lower
but in that range still usually
and then on here we're looking at our
left score now lefts are a kind of
complicated science of a meter but
really what you're looking for is on
your integrated score that you're
hitting at least negative 14 and
generally a little bit higher so in a
previous video at that time it was
really the understanding was that hey
Spotify is saying negative 14 is the
loudest that it can be so if you go
louder than that you're stupid because
they're just going to turn it down
that's not actually played out in that
way quite as much over time and so what
we found is that people are still
mastering that Pro Engineers are still
mastering to negative eight as a
standard
um as they're like on a louder song
quieter on some quieter songs but as I
mentioned even bands like bleachers have
moved away from being quite that loud
because as you get really close to that
number you're having to smash your song
way up to that meter or up to that limit
and that's going to like destroy the
Dynamics as we just heard so
the secret to doing this is doing it in
small amounts so if you are starting
with just a little bit of containment on
with compression for example and you've
already contained it with some in your
actual mix then on your limiter you
might be able to get by with just one
limiter but sometimes stacking limiters
can help you get to that louder score
without it being as obvious like we just
heard where it's really really pumping
so let's go ahead and see where we are
currently on both the RMS and the left
meter and try to get closer to those
numbers that our goal range is
[Applause]
trust in my face
[Music]
every day we keep racing through space
so we're seeing about negative eight
point or 18 so 19. so we can come up
quite a bit to get to that minimum like
negative 12 range and then on our left
score let's see what we have here and
integrated is over a short period of
time we're just going to look at Short
Term here since we're not listening to
the whole song but when we get done we
want to check our left score integrated
which will mean over the whole song
[Music]
foreign
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
okay so we're seeing about negative 18.
now my goal is negative 10 ish maybe
negative 11 but I want to get there in a
way that's not hurting the sound either
so let's go ahead and use this limiter
here and I think right off the bat I'm
just going to bring it up and I'm going
to listen and if I start to hear it in a
negative way I'm going to stop but let's
check this out here
[Music]
[Applause]
trust in my face
every day we keep racing through space
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
okay so I'm getting closer here but I'm
not quite there yet and I feel like I'm
starting to hear it impact the drums a
little bit more than I want to it's
always going to be a bit of a trade-off
here but I feel like I'm getting a
little bit more than I want to so what I
want to do is try to spread out this
load across two limiters so I'm going to
reduce this here to about negative five
or plus five I mean and I'm going to try
to bring in a second limiter so I'm just
holding option and clicking and dragging
this down so this is now my first
limiter this is my second limiter we're
going to set this to negative one on the
output level and then I'm going to bring
up the gain until I get a little bit
more volume without it sounding terrible
[Music]
okay
so okay let's look at how we're doing on
our meters here
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so to me it's really starting to affect
the sound of the drums more than I
wanted to so I'm going to settle for a
slightly lower left score than the ideal
here but I'm going to be happy with that
because I know I'm not negatively
impacting my music and it's still going
to be loud like listen to how much
louder this is if I turn both of these
off listen to how much louder it is when
I turn them on
[Applause]
trust in my face
[Applause]
so I'm getting volume it's just maybe
not quite as much as I'd hoped but
that's okay right okay so
we're dialing in a good amount here I
think I'm okay with this point I've
scaled it back
[Music]
so now my last goal here is to make sure
that it's not worse than the mix itself
so obviously as I said there's gonna be
a bit of a trade-off in terms of
Dynamics as you're pushing that volume
up so I might have a little bit more
Dynamics in my unlimited mix but as I've
applied this limiting I'm going to
contain that a little bit so what I want
to do now is go to my unmastered track
here and I want to listen to this this
is completely unprocessed so it's the
exact same song here but I've not done
any processing on it and what I want to
do is try to bring my mastered volume
closer to this unmastered mode so I'm
just going to bring this volume fader
down a good starting point is typically
six to eight decibels
[Applause]
every
everything through space
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
this is actually a little bit louder my
unmastered okay so I just want to hear
here that they that I don't dislike the
way my master sounds relative to my
unmastered song and ideally I might even
like it a little bit better so let's
just listen through this verse here into
this pre-chorus and chorus one time just
flipping back and forth between these so
this is the master
[Music]
not get no work done all day long I get
what have I done
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
what
every day
[Applause]
[Music]
cool okay so yeah I like the tone of the
mastered a little bit more there is a
little bit of the pumping that I can
hear from the limiter but not to the
point that I don't like it and in some
ways I almost like the way it sounds on
a snare drum the way it kind of fattens
up the snare drum a little bit so I am
good with this and I'm gonna go ahead
and hold option and click on this to set
it back to zero and I'm going to make
sure that I've selected this region I'm
going to go up to share here export song
to disk
and then we are going to go through this
really quickly so ideally you are going
to want to save it as a way for
uploading to streaming platforms but if
you're just listening to in your car
sharing with your friends an MP3 is fine
but wave for all High Fidelity like
where it's being distributed sources and
then uncompressed 24-bit you can do
16-bit but generally speaking we're kind
of moving towards 24-bit and higher and
then expert cycle area that means it's
only going to export the selected region
here so since I've selected my song it's
only going to export that length if you
need to trim it down some you can use
the cycle region at the top and just set
it just for the length of your song so
that is how you export out the song now
instead of doing that for you in this
video what I want to do is pull in our
static mix and I want us to listen
really quickly from our earliest mix to
our finished mix and then to our
mastered version so you can hear kind of
the evolution of this song so this is
when we'd only set the volumes and we
hadn't done an actual processing on the
song that's what this sounds like
[Music]
sounds fine almost like a demo when you
compare it to the mixed version which is
what we have here
[Music]
[Applause]
and then now we have this full loud
version
[Music]
it's like a real final mixed mastered
song right okay so that is mastering in
GarageBand you can see here how we've
gone from raw tracks that we were
recording going through the mixing
process just incrementally doing small
little tweaks and now same thing in this
mastering process small little tweaks
and we have now shaped it into a very
cohesive professional sounding final
product so if you stick with this you
can do all this in GarageBand it's
completely possible now your song is
going to be loud now it's going to be
feeling up closer to those commercial
releases and as I mentioned there are a
lot of little tools that you can add in
over time but start with these three
basic ones EQ compression and limiting
and once you get a sense of those and
feel confident moving through those
three tools then maybe try in adding in
some of these other kind of advanced
mastering tools right okay before you go
be sure to grab the ultimate GarageBand
guide from the link in the description
below it's really going to help you out
as always I'd love to hear from you how
do you approach mastering in GarageBand
have you been doing it yourself if you
you've been doing AI mastering I'm
personally not a big fan of that have
you been using something like the master
desk classic still a great plug-in but
something I moved away from because I
just like to have the control and the
separation of the individual stages but
Master desk is great as well but let me
know in the comments below how have you
been approaching mastering before and if
you've never mastered before are you
going to try it after watching this
video let me know in the comments below
this video is helpful be sure to like
comment subscribe and I'll see you
tomorrow with the very last video in the
ultimate GarageBand beginners guide
series
one thing at a time
foreign
[Music]
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