Watch me master an ambient track START TO FINISH!

[@darrenjharris9907]

Thanks very much for featuring my track Marcus, and weaving your magic on it. I'm happy to focus on composition and leave the mastering to your expertise ❤

[@holosuitemastering]

It was a pleasure Darren, can't wait to hear it in the wild!

[@onelyofficial]

Thank you! I needed a video like this

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks for watching, glad it was helpful! I'll do more in the future for other kinds of experimental music

[@freddiefranklin1]

Hey great video. Really interesting to see your workflow and the processes you're using at each stage. It's amazing what the culmination of all of those small changes make. Particularly adding the stereo width at 400 and 1khz. That added loads!

[@holosuitemastering]

Hey Freddie, good to see you! Yeah it's always a lovely surprise when I make lots of little adjustments and then go back to check against the original and find I've made it sound so much more alive!

[@pazuzu1]

i found your channel yesterday and it was the fastest subscribe i have ever made. already know my music is gonna improve infinitely thank you man

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks so much for your support, glad I can be of some help! Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to cover!

[@lordweevil]

PRO! Thanks so much for your uploads - as an ambient/drone 'producer' (don't like that word!) it's difficult to watch most 'mastering and mixing' how-to's as so many of the techniques and tips don't transfer well to ambient music. Question... There must be times when you wish you could get your hands on the mixed project, or stems to fix issues... Do you get sent 'finished' mixes to master that you send back as there are issues in the mix?

[@holosuitemastering]

Yay, another winner! Thanks for watching! It really depends on the project - I will always work with the artist to help them fix the issues in their mixes first, but if they are lacking in the knowledge or resources to do it themselves, I'll offer to stem master if it's in their budget. If neither of those are an option (e.g for artists who recorded everything down to stereo from hardware and don't have multitracks), sometimes I can pull off some pretty amazing stuff at my end - Izotope Ozone and RX are indispensable for that. And sometimes we just have to accept some compromises...

[@Permutative]

Pro! Great video, a bit of crackling in your mic recording though, especially at 16:30 there for a couple minutes, but tiny bits throughout, 26:00 too, its funny that both times it was when you said "just around 1 db of change/reduction". Good choice of demonstration track, and I really like that mid-side eq trick about choosing a slightly different freq for the mid vs the side, it creates a unique result, I actually do something similar in a synthesizer so cool to see that it can apply at the end of production too. Also love the "make the track more like itself" bit at the end

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks as always for the support! Yeah I put a gate on the mic channel because I had the music up at 80dB on my speakers, so I wanted to make sure that it didn't end up in the mic when I wasn't talking. I set the threshold a bit too high so some of the quieter words got cut off. Will I added a bit of ADR where it wasn't clear what I said, but in the other cases where it was obvious what the missed words were, I decided to just leave it :P

[@lofimat3856]

Hibrudiee!! Will yu switch Hybrid Masterin also on day?

[@tristen_grant]

???

[@lofimat3856]

@@tristen_grant Outboard gear.

[@holosuitemastering]

Thanks so much for watching! Definitely, when I can afford it! Putting my pennies away for a Massive Passive

[@lofimat3856]

@@holosuitemastering So Massiv P is the best ambietn mastering EQ? How about the first Compressor hardware also?

[@holosuitemastering]

I don't know if it's the best EQ for mastering ambient, but it's one I've come to know and love! I'm sure there are plenty of options. I haven't thought much about hardware compressors but I think multiband would be the best way to go, because ambient doesn't really need that much compression in the bass or mids - the Drawmer 1973 would be at the top of my list because I love the software version.

[@beatskool101]

Hi Again, sorry I haven't supplied anything yet, just when I think I have things good enough, I realize it's not. So looking forward to this video to see if I can pick up anymore tips. I'm only 10 minutes in so it hasn't got into it yet, but if you don't mind me saying I think you voice is quite low in this, perhaps the whole thing, am I wrong?

[@tristen_grant]

You're not wrong. His voice is quiet.

[@holosuitemastering]

Hey again! It sounds like maybe you could benefit from another set of ears - please do send it over to me and I'd be happy to take a listen and help you work out what needs to be done! I use Capcut to edit my video, and its audio editing tools are severely lacking - adding to that I also record my mic and the DAW audio on the same stereo channel, so it makes it hard to get the audio the way I want it - so apologies if I'm hard to hear! Working on improving that cos it's a huge pain in the butt. Embarrassing to be a mastering engineer and have bad audio in my videos...

[@beatskool101]

@@holosuitemastering I mean quiet compared to most YT videos, if it was a creative decision, so ppl can hear the music, or so you don't come across like a radio DJ, with music ducking all the time, bear in mind I don't have the laptop pumped into external gear. Also what I've been working on is perhaps too high in places, I took things down & just brought them all back up again. I'll send you the link in a moment.But I realize now it was my ears, after a long day mixing & bashing my eardrums peaking at +24db, a good sleep has helped them re-adjust

[@chrisb6296]

ta

[@holosuitemastering]

You're welcome! Thanks for the support!