As well as having a more meaningful way of reading a song’s duration, you’ll also be able to gauge the duration of the complete playlist, which will be important if you’re assembling a Red Book CD.īefore you start applying signal processing, it might also be a good opportunity to do some basic top-and-tailing of the files. Rather than using the default Bar setting, change it to the Time mode, as a bars-and-beats division has little relevance for mastering. An obvious example is the timeline, which you’ll need to change using the small icon in the top right-hand corner of the Arrange area. Again, use colour-coding to maintain this distinction.Īs you start assembling your playlist, it’s interesting to see how subtle features of the application take on a new significance. Having a separate reference track lane will allow you to audition your audio material against commercial recordings, arguably applying a gain adjustment (especially if you’re comparing mastered and unmastered material). Ultimately, the ‘Masters’ track will be the final destination for rendered sound files, so that you have a solitary track lane for the final playlist. It’s also worth toggling between two colours for ‘mix’ files to keep some distinction between different songs.Īs well as tracks for the individual songs, it’s also beneficial to have a dedicated track for the final master files, and another spare track for reference material. Ensure you colour the mixer channels using the View>Colours option before you import the audio regions. Given that you’ll eventually have both mastered and unmastered versions of the project, it’s worth using colour-coding to distinguish between the two stages of production (mixes and masters). In the case of mastering, therefore, it’s best to work to a system that uses a different track for each song in your playlist, allowing you to audition and instantiate different mastering settings for each song, as well as getting some indication as to how the tracks might be best ordered to make a complete listening experience. Even if you’re not assembling a full CD, it’s highly likely that you’ll be working with a collection of songs, trying to ensure that there’s some consistency in level, punch and timbre across the various mixes. In mastering, though, the equation is slightly different in that we’re dealing with a series of songs that need to be knitted together in sequence to form a final playlist. In Logic, we’re typically used to working with a series of tracks, each representing a different instrument that contributes to a bigger overall mix. As such, it’s an invaluable insight into familiar features in a new application – whether it’s screensets, markers or track bouncing – as well as illustrating a typical mastering workflow in a step-by-step fashion. In this tutorial, therefore, we’re going to take a broad look at mastering workflow in Logic. However, given the different set of sonic objectives, it’s inevitable that your workflow needs a degree of tweaking, whether you’re using existing tools in a new way, for example, or using a different set of mastering-orientated features. Although professional mastering engineers tend to adopt a dedicated mastering platform such as Pyramix for their work, the majority of musicians usually turn to an existing music-based DAW to master their compositions.
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