Soundcloud's digital mastering option--how can I do that on my own?

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Rahodees
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Joined: Sun Apr 17, 2022 10:35 am

Soundcloud's digital mastering option--how can I do that on my own?

Post by Rahodees »

To be honest, many times the "mastered" sample Soundcloud offers does in fact sound a lot better than what my .wav sounds like as uploaded.

Is it realistic for me to try to learn how to do that on my own? Is soundcloud just doing some simple equalizer tricks for example?

Or is it doing something more sophisticated that I shouldn't expect to be able to figure out how to do without years of experience?

Or something in between?

If it's learnable by a beginner, can you describe some specific things you'd say soundcloud is doing when it "masters" a track?

(What I often like better about the mastered sound they offer is, it's got that ineffable quality of sounding "really there" whereas my original--even though I thought it was fine before hearing the remaster!--tends to sound a tiny bit "behind a wall" or "underwater".)

Appreciate any insights. It may look like I'm asking for a crash course in the entire field of sound engineering, but if that's what it honestly requires to do what souncloud is doing, I'm happy to learn that and shrug my shoulders and move on. I'm just hoping, though, that it turns out they're doing some cheap easy tricks a new person can realistically learn. Or something in that direction.
cactus-head
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Joined: Sat Sep 16, 2017 3:09 pm

Re: Soundcloud's digital mastering option--how can I do that on my own?

Post by cactus-head »

Try putting iZotopes Matering Essentials that comes with Mixcraft on your Master Track as an effect. There are some presets for "instant mastering" with that. See if it gets close to the sound you are after. Once it does, examine all of the aspects of the settings in the preset. That will give you an idea of the type of EQ, saturation, reverb, stereo field and compression you might want to use independently.

Then for more detail and a great intro into mastering, check out this video:

https://youtu.be/Flupinyx0gY
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Northfield.Lenox
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Re: Soundcloud's digital mastering option--how can I do that on my own?

Post by Northfield.Lenox »

I agree with using the built in Izotope Mastering tool. If you want a step up along with a bunch of other plug ins there s a crazy deal for 50.00 bucks that includes Ozone elements.

https://www.izotope.com/en/shop/soundwi ... undle.html
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TrevsAudio
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Location: Rhode Island

Re: Soundcloud's digital mastering option--how can I do that on my own?

Post by TrevsAudio »

Also have a look at Venus's video - quite informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flupiny ... l=Mixcraft
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