Mastering School 101: Mastering Vocals & Tracks

Audio engineering is the most important job when it comes down to mastering audio in any industry there is, Music, Film and so on.  On this topic we will be talking about “Mastering Vocals and tracks”.

What are Vocals in music?

Vocal music typically features sung words called lyrics, although there are notable examples of vocal music that are performed using non-linguistic syllables, sounds, or noises, sometimes as musical onomatopoeia. A short piece of vocal music with lyrics is broadly termed a song.

What is Mastering in music?

Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master); the source from which all copies will be produced (via methods such as pressing, duplication or replication).

First Thing First: Headphones are poor for mastering a track and vocals but a lot of people somehow like to use headphones.

"If you don’t have any studio motions than the best way to go is for the headphones".

For studio motions you do not have to spend such amount of money to get a great sound out of your tracks but if you want more of a clear where you will be able to hear each sound in a single song than you will spend amount of money.

Keep the artist not so close to the microphone a few feet back shall be good enough and make sure that everything is level before recording the artist to make things easier.

Let’s Work Backwards: Before adding the nice effects on the vocals the engineer will have to keep looping over each vocal and listen carefully to fade ever tiny little sounds that’s coming from the background, 

"The littlest problems can make a big different".

Nicely Done: Reverb, Delay, Desser, EQ’ing, Compressing and Great Listen Ears are a most to have when mastering vocals or tracks. The engineer wants to make sure that every word of each bar/line is clear and clean so the listeners can understand each word that the artist is saying.

• "Be carefully with the Reverb you don’t want too much nay less.

• Go easy on the Delay nay whatever fits you go for it.

• Only use the Desser if you hear a lot of “Shh”nay “Ess”, that goes for both Male and Female vocals listen carefully.

• Don’t add the Compressor until the final of each vocal; the Compressor shall be the last thing you can add to the vocal.

• EQ’ing is like the compressor but you can play around more with the highs, mids and lows of each vocal, which is added first".

It Became a Lifestyle: Episode ONE (Sneak Peek)

Copyright School: How To Copyright Your Music

You’ve been playing around writing songs and making beats for some time and now you are looking into taking your music career to the next level. The 1st thing you want to start doing is to copyright your music. And in order to do so you must know and understand what a copyright is and how it works.

 Definition Of Copyright

The legal definition of copyright is ” the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc. What this does is give creators exclusive rights to their work. Think of it like this, if you created something and everybody had the right to use it without paying you, less people would create anything at all.

What Can I Copyright?

In order for you to copyright a work it must be original (not copied from something else) and sufficient enough to be considered as a work.

HowTo Get A Copyright

Under U.S copyright law, as soon as you make a tangible copy of something, you have a copyright. Tangible meaning something you can touch. Many people think you have to register in Washington to GET a copyright, although there are some important rights you get when you register, but securing a copyright isn’t one of them.

What Are All The Rights I Get?

When you have copyright to a work, you are entitled to the following rights at no extra charge:

1. Reproduce the work
2. Distribute copies of the work
3. Perform the work publicly
4. Make a derivative work

So if you are a producer or singer/songwriter its important to understand what a copyright is and how it is used. This is just the basic break down of what a copyright is and how it works. If you write a song or make a beat you own copyrights to your work as soon as you make a tangible copy. Now to protect your copyright you would want to register your song(s) with the Library of Congress.

If you are a singer/songwriter
PA Form
If you are a producer/beat maker
SR Form

If you would like to know more about copyrights visit www.copyright.gov/ for a deeper look into the world of copyrights.

NO more "Crack aka Pirate" Programs

Once upon of time when I started making music by using the computer with programs back then it is FLStudio 6 was out and rocking but I had the demo at the time. A friend of mines I want to school with he was a computer wiz somehow he got the full program of FLStudio 6 for me in no time.

He was doing the same thing with FLStudio 7 and 8 he has been giving me crack programs to work with but at the same time something wasn't feeling right, it felt like something was missing a feeling that I wasn't getting the full pride of my art of music i wasn't satisfied because I was using “Pirate Files also name Crack Programs”.

By the time FLStudio 9 was about to be release to the world since that day I told myself that I will never use crack programs for my needs and wants no more. Since I started buying Programs for my needs and wants I been feeling every bit of pride and learning new experience throughout the years since.

Two years later by the time FLStudio 11 come out I knew how to work every settings, plugins much better than before because everything was “Bought" there iwas a different a lot of great things has change since then. I started to get customers who pay money to buy my beats for their projects been ask to produce some tracks for video games and so on; it was like every human who use to ask for free stuff was block out of my life.

I believe if I was still using Crack programs in today’s time none of this wouldn't happen to me. It’s a miracle and a blessing to follow your heart and listen closely to what it tells you, So if you want any changes you can start by investing into your wants and needs to go far.