I've inserted the same processors on the other bands and, with only a few exceptions, the settings could probably be the same for each of the four bands.įor any mastering task, it's sensible to start with some fairly conservative plug-in settings.Ĭonservative starting points are always a good plan for mastering. There are four active plug-ins, but I've also inserted an EQ (which is bypassed by default) in case some surgical intervention is required on any band. What about the processing in each band? The second screen shows my basic setup for the High-Mid channel. For instance, having the high-cut at 200Hz on the low channel requires a low-cut filter at 200Hz on the next. Feel free to experiment, but as a guiding principle, make sure adjacent bands share a crossover frequency, and that these filters turn over at the same frequency. But that's beyond the scope of this article, and I'll leave it to better brains than mine to explain. There's an interesting and complex technical discussion to be had about how these settings and the design of the low- and high-cut filters impact on the quality of our mastering process. The steepness of this slope can be adjusted between 6 and 48 dB/octave, and this affects the amount of frequency overlap between the adjacent channels. The other detail to note at this stage is that each active filter in the Pre rack is set with a 24dB/octave roll-off beyond the cutoff frequency. I chose crossover frequencies similar to those found in Quadrafuzz 2, the Multiband Compressor and (for example) iZotope's Ozone they can be adjusted, but they serve as a reasonable starting point. ![]() The Low-Mid Band channel's high- and low-cut filters are both engaged, and configured so the channel only focusses on frequencies between 2 Hz the other channels are set similarly. In this example, the Low Band channel's 200Hz high-cut filter limits this channel to frequencies below that cutoff point. The filters in the Pre rack are used to define which frequency range each Group track will operate upon. multiband mastering with parallel processing). The purple channels allow you to hear and/or export either just the unprocessed mix, just the mastered mix, or some blend of the two (ie. Both purple channels (the Un-Mastered Mix and Mastered Mix) feed the main stereo out. After processing, these four bands are recombined by routing them all to the purple Mastered Mix Group track. High- and low-cut filters in the Pre racks of these Groups give us multiple frequency 'bands' which can be processed independently. Note the settings in the Routing rack - this first track is routed (a) directly to the purple Un-Mastered Mix Group track and (b) via four unity gain sends to the four green Group tracks. You could approach this in various ways, but the main screenshot (of the MixConsole in Cubase Elements 9.5) shows a possible project setup, with seven stereo audio tracks plus the main stereo out.ĭIY multiband mastering is easy to set up, even in the Elements version of Cubase.The audio from your mixdown needs to be imported onto the blue Raw Mix Stereo track. And this approach can allow more complex processing in Pro too. Nonetheless, it's still easy to set up multiband processing using sends, groups and some filtering. Quadrafuzz 2, Multiband Compressor and Multiband Envelope Shaper), Cubase Artist and Elements don't. While Cubase Pro includes several multiband plug-ins (eg. But in purely practical terms it's sensible too, since the format of different mastering projects is likely to be fairly consistent, so you can save time and effort by creating a mastering template. In fact, I think they're best tackled in separate Cubase projects, and certainly at different times, so that you come to the mastering with fresh ears. In this article, I'll show you how to do just that.Įven if you plan on mixing and mastering in Cubase, it's good practice to keep these two stages of a project separate, so try to resist the temptation to mix through your mastering-style processing. ![]() What's more, any version of Cubase, from Elements to Pro, allows you to perform multiband processing - for example, separating the audio into low, low-mid, high-mid and high frequency bands, to give you greater flexibility/control. ![]() How to set up a multiband mastering project template in Cubase.ĭIY mastering is a pragmatic necessity for many musicians, and while there are some great third-party software mastering products, Cubase already includes all you need to get started.
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