I just finished recording a new CD of original songs using a Roland VS-1880 Digital Recorder. Now I want to take those tracks, edit them and master them on my Mac G4 (OS X) and I'm educating myself on the processes involved.

Is the editing process where I would equalize the volumes of each song, so each is at the same level? Or is that part done in the mastering process?

Also, one song has some background noise (a car passing by - lol!) that is audible at the ending of the song, as it fades to 0db. Agian, is the editing process where I would remove that? Or would I best eliminate that in the mastering process?

Any knowledge shared about all this is greatly appreciated - I presently have ZERO understanding about editing and mastering.

Thanks.

editing... mastering... really in a sense its all the same unless you are taking your audio to a studio and are asking for certain services

but really... mastering is the process of equalizing volume levels and final EQ and such for a final finsihed product

editing involves more than mastering... such as overdubs, fades, and any general "ediitng" and is normally done during mixing or previous to mixing in big studios.

I wouldn't concern yourself over what the details of the 2... just remember mastering is the final step before final CD creation and everything else should be done before going to this stage

the track with traffic noise... just try to open that track in some audio editor and see if you can fade it out quicker to maybe get rid of the noise

Thanks, bro'

I got rid of the traffic noise the way you suggested. I just ran a second mix and faded a bit sooner.

I have mastering capabilities in my Roland VS-1880 and I master each song when I run the final mixdown. But from what you said, I'm thinking maybe I've got it wrong? Should I just mix each song down to stereo tracks and AFTER they are all done, THEN master all of them together in one pass??

Got any good books to recommend?

well, yes and no for best results... there are a few apps designed for mastering... wish I could remember the names of them... but anyhow, they let you take a CD worth of tracks and see all the waveforms for each track and then you can use cmpression, eq, limiter, expander and such as needed to make all the tracks flow sonically.... but, this is not a must have or do method.... you could use the mastering options of the Roland but you will need to have good ears and "fresh" ears as you want to make tracks sound equally loud in volume and you might even want to try to give them a uniform sonic impression to make the cd sound more cohesive rather than a collection of songs.... make sense?

If you are really serious about your music and can afford it... i would look into getting a professional to master your tracks for you. Some can had for as little as $100 bucks for CD and others go as much as $1000 or more... just depends on the person you ask. Note... before mastering though... its a good idea to leave some headroom in your final mixes... meaning don't try to maximize all the levels and don't over use compression on the whole mix because this makes it more difficult for the mastering process or mastering person. There is a good interview I did with Mr. Seva (mastering engineer) that you may get some nice tips from here on the site.... look it up hmm don't know any books right off hand though

This post has been edited by Synthetic: Sat 11 Oct 2003, 00:46

Can you point me in the right direction to search for your interview with Mr. Seva? I'd like to read it. What search perameters ... what category or area of the site should I search?

Thanks!

clicky clicky here!

LOL! Did he mention "Don't Clip Digital Stuff" often enough?

That was a good read, man. Thanks.

yeah... it might seem obvious to some but...

no problem... glad I could help