Mastering Publications?

[djglenn]

I've been trying to find some resources on mastering. There's really SO much out there on the topic. I've found anything from extremely useful to utter rubbish. I recently came across a publication that helped a lot....but not enough. In particular, it gave a lot of starting points for EQ'ing, Compression, and Limiting. The EQ'ing part is what really caught my interest. It got me thinking that I need to find a decent book that gives some good starting points for the aforementioned three things, especially EQ'ing. For example, if you're using a piano, pull up the Waves Q10 and dial in XYZ settings and tweak from there. On a Dhol drum, try these compressor settings, etc, etc...

I realize I'm seeking a sort of "holy grail' of mastering books, but I imagine there must be something out there like that. Something that has a comprehensive list of instruments with some detailed information on starting points. Yes, there are a lot of instruments out there, and they often differ from region to region, but basically they're the same, right? When you look at a lot of the EQ's and Compressors, they have presets for common instruments on them; which in general work well enough (with some tweaking) when applied. So I figure it wouldn't be impossible to write a book like this.

Anyone know of such a publication? Or just a really damn good mastering book that isn't too dry and has lots of examples?

Thanks!

[admin]

Glenn,

Hi it sounds like you want a book on mixing really if you're doing this on the track level. There aren't too many books on mastering but a few on mixing although most of them concentrate on rock styles which is the problem I always had when learning.

Although it does deal with rock mainly the Mixing Engineers Handbook by Bob Owsinski is a really good primer on all things related to mixing, a lot of which you can apply to dance so maybe that will help.

[Bitfiend]

I am prolly going to get shot for saying this, but, what about the Dance Music Manual & the few others on the specific electronica topic?
i've never read them but have seen them around.

[admin]

read them, not that great but maybe he'll get something out of it. most of the books I saw for dance music weren't too good in my opinion.

[djglenn]

Yeah, think I'll check that out. Thanks!

[admin]

Also for pure mastering Bob Katz 'mastering audio' is a great one and should be in everyones library.