If you're trying to make your voice-over sound better, be sure to remove background noise with gating, use subtractive equalization to remove problem frequencies, and introduce subtle compression to control dynamics. Additionally, ensure that you've achieved the right levels for the distributor you're using.
When making a vocal chain, you'll want to process in this order: tuning, equalization, compression, saturation, excitement, upward compression, and then reverb and delay sends. There are other chains of course, but I've found this to be a great starting point with an overall professional sound.
When mastering for streaming, you'll need to keep loudness normalization in mind, as well as how each streaming service utilizes normalization is a slightly different way. When in doubt, master between -14 and -10 LUFS and set your output level to about -1dBTP to avoid clipping during encoding.
When trying to achieve a clear mix, it's best to emphasize the high-frequency range while ensuring that the lows and mids are balanced. You can make your mix clear with exciters, equalizers, and frequency-specific compression, but some techniques like inverse equalization can also be very helpful.
When trying to make your master sound clean, it's a good idea to find and isolate any sources of unwanted noise, such as noise generators, and mute them. Additionally, cutting the side image's low-frequencies, as well as the mids by up to 20Hz can add some clarity to your master.
When using a sidechain, you can either enable an internal sidechain - which determines what frequencies trigger the processing, or an external side chain - which is an outside audio source that triggers the processing. Both have distinct pragmatic and creative purposes, and are typically used on a compressor.
BritChannel is a great way to add some subtle harmonic distortion and analog emulated EQ curves to your signal. The gain is automatically compensated and causes 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order harmonics when set to higher levels, and primarily 3rd order harmonics when in mic mode.
When trying to make your vocals sound clean, use a high-pass filter, try multi-band gating to increase the dynamic range while lowering noise, and ensure that your temporal effects are in-time with the BPM of the track. Additionally, try to control your sibilance with clip gain.
When mastering dynamic classical music, the biggest favor you can do yourself is to avoid any form of aggressive processing, be it compression, equalization, limiting, etc. Your stereo image and your signal's peaks should both be retained as much as possible when mastering dynamic classical music.
Reverb is typically thought of as a stylistic effect, but it can be used to create a sense of realism - if you’re recording vocals in a dry room, try combining ambience and room reverb types to create a full vocal. I’ll combine studio emulation with general ambience.
When mastering with Izotope Ozone, it helps to use the full module and introduce your processing within that plugin. Typically I like to introduce processing in this order, subtractive equalization, tape emulation, harmonic excitement, upward compression with the dynamics plugin, additive dynamic eq, vintage limiting and then maximization.
When mastering, you can introduce low-level compression with various plugins, like the Waves MV2, or utilize the functionality of multi-band compressors. Upward compression or low-level compression can make your master sound full and impressive, without affecting the peaks of your signal.
When using multi-band compression on your master bus, you should know how to create 4 forms of compression with the plugin - downward and upward compression and downward and upward expansion. Furthermore, utilize the attack and release to control the timbre, and use mid and side processing when possible.
Learning how to set up your mastering chain can be challenging; however, you can follow simple steps and general rules to create a great starting point for your project. In this order, you'll need to import your stereo mix, use clip gain to adjust the headroom, and then decide on your processing.
Learning how to setup your mastering chain is challenging; however, you can follow simple steps and general rules to create a great starting point for your project. In this order you'll need to import your stereo mix, use clip gain to adjust the headroom, and then decide on your processing.
