how to master a demo?

[pangelid]

Ok, where does one begin to learn the basics on how to master a demo/song? Is there a tutorial around the net I should be reading?

I've gotten to the point where I feel some of the demo's I record need to get mastered, but I don't really know where to begin. Any help would be appreciated!

[heretic909]

It'll take more than just reading a tutorial. Even for the basics, it's gonna take a lot of ear training. Find a friend who has experience with mastering and either have him show you some basics or just have him master it for you.

[pangelid]

Thats the thing. I want to begin to learn the process of mastering but I have no one to teach me about it. Basically I am looking for a place to start looking and I am sure the rest will come together.

[heretic909]

EQ Magazine is a good resource for audio engineering info. You also might wanna look into purchasing an ear training cd set to help you learn about eq, phase, compression, etc.

The easiest way to probably do it would be just to pick out a track that has the same type of sound quality that you're after, play it over the speakers you'll be mastering your own track on, and then use SoundForge or T-RackS to tweak your mix and try to match the quality to the track you're using as a reference. Switch back and forth listening between the two tracks until you feel your track closely resembles the audio quality of your reference track.