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Mastering Dance Music in Ableton Live Part 1: Creating a Mid/Side Matrix

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Mastering engineer Alex Zinn (Richie Hawtin, Typ3 Records) shows you how to create a Mid/Side matrix in Ableton Live in part 1 of our new tutorial series.

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Now this is what I'm talking bout,… awesome tutorial.?

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i hear nothing on the stereo bus ? ….?

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I need help! Anyone reply.
When "mastering" and "mixing" I turn the volume up on my bass so I get nice loud bass. But I can't get nice loud bass notes and kicks without the other sounds getting kinda like a muffled sound?

I get what a compressor should do, but I'm not sure I fully understand how to use a compressor. I've been looking around forever but haven't found the right kind of answer.

To get a better idea of what I mean is If you listen to the song ol'english by the game. The base is nice and big, but the other sounds are also very apparent. I want that kind of sound??

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Nicee, kinda fast to follow but I got it :)?

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@1:59 you insert a Utility plugin. Then you make it mono and then invert the phase. Doing that is just the same as making it mono and not touching the invert phase buttons does it not? It sure sounds the same to me. However, when you solo your mono phase inverted track I hear a version that sounds more like it has its stereo width set to 200% but I can see clearly in your tutorial that it is set to 0%. How the heck did you achieve that lol. Unless I set the width to 200% I cannot achieve stereo only content. If I hit both phase invert buttons, what I had panned to the right in my mix starts to sound like it is on the left. What I did was set up the matrix the same way but set one track to 200% width (stereo only) and the other to 0% width (mono only) therefore achieving stereo only and a mono only tracks which then get bused as you outlined ready for processing the sides and middle seperatley. Also, shouldn't we turn off the track activator for the original track so that it doesn't play over the top of our Stereo and Mono bused versions??

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Are you sure about the stereo chain? Is mono inverted or width set to 200%. Mono inverted makes stereo bus mute.?

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Hi there – I am curious if the 5 channel routing holds merit over just having 2 channels, one with 0% utility width and one at 200% utility width??

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Thanks for great upload!! Episode 2??

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Im so sick of this headroom bullshit and the way its explained to people sending in a mix. It doesnt matter if the song is touching 0 or at -12db. The ONLY thing that matters is the amount of attenuation from previous compression and the amount DYNAMIC RANGE between the lowest and highest points in the song. These are the real factors for mastering compression and making a song truly louder. A mastered song is around -10db depending on what you are working on. This is the average throughout the whole song. If I send a mix that when raised right before it clips and its already compressed to the point where there is very little dynamic range then there isnt much the mastering engineer can do in terms of limiting or compression before that. If i send a song that is around -15 when raised before red then there is something to work with. I If I All you have to do is lower the gain. I can send you a brick that is compressed to shit but is low in volume. it doesnt mean anything. Just looking at the waveforms correlation to peak doesnt mean much at all. You should be looking to see if there are any transients to work with or if there are different levels of volume throughout the song that you can bring closer together. In digital recording levels barely matter unless you are clipping or recording super low. When it comes to analog it matter a lot how hard you are hitting the top. The lower you record on analog gear the more noise you are introducing in relation to the actual mix. But nonetheless it doesnt matter how you send it in as long as its not clipping and not compressed to hell already.?

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Awesome tutorial. When does the next episode come out??

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Simple and effective, looking forward to part 2…?

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To take +rist98's idea a step further: effect rack on the one track, 2 chains, one with a Utility with width set to 0%, the other with a Utility w/ width set to 200%.  Do any separate M/S processing you want on those chains, continue any stereo processing outside the chain. If you're feeling really snazzy map the chain volumes to a macro for quick width control (mid range 3 to -3; side range -3 to 3).?