Analog Style Mastering with Logic Pro X Vintage EQ 

PART ONE AND TWO

Welcome, I’m going to show you how you can add analog style saturation to your mastering chains using one of miL’s mastering templates. 

So, this template is what I call an A/B Analog Style template because you can quickly switch between the original mix and the mastered mix by A/Bing between tracks.  

Watch Part One

Watch Part Two

You can also level match the two tracks via the Gain plugin on the mastering chain and also add that all important saturation via the Vintage EQs.  

As you can see the chain has quite a few plugins but that doesn’t mean I’ll use them all it just means when the template is loaded, they will all be there ready to go and provides an easy way to quickly hear the differences between the plugins and therefore I can quickly decide on the best sounding plugin for the track I’m mastering. It’s why mastering engineers have extremely expensive consoles so they can switch quickly between hardware. So why don’t we do the same! 

SATURATION 

So first of all, let’s look at the Vintage EQs and what we can do to add a bit of warmth to the music. 

Ok so I’m going to start with the Console and Tube EQs to add some warmth, I’ll bypass the EQ and focus just on the drive function. Turn it all the way up and then simply click through the Output Models until I hear the sound I want sonically.  

Basically, what the drive and output models do is add harmonic distortion, this is often perceived as making a track warmer and fuller and will help make my master sound slightly bigger too without the need to over compress the mix.  

When you’re mixing or mastering don’t worry too much about which model you should go for use your ears to guide your decision making. Often the best way to clearly hear the different models is to fully turn up the drive. This allows you to hear the unique characteristic of each model. Some are subtler than others smearing the saturation and others add a bit more punch and presence, no prizes for guessing which one adds punch! 

I’m going to start by going through the models with the drive set to full on the Console EQ and then I’m going straight to the Tube EQ and I’ll do exactly the same thing. I want to combine two saturating plugins to add more depth and more compression style saturation.  

Mastering engineers will often follow this approach adding small amounts of processing from different hardware units which ultimately make up the final sound. I’m doing a similar thing. 

Already you can hear a difference to the music and you should be able to perceive that it feels a little fully and the music has more warmth. The drive settings are quite high but it’s not negatively affecting the music and to my ear it’s sounding positive, the music is fuller, bigger and I’ve not EQ’d or even compressed the mix yet! 

VINTAGE EQs 

The next question I address is what frequencies do I want to remove or lower and what frequencies do I want to enhance and which Vintage EQ offers the best colour for this particular track? 

Ultimately that’s what I’m doing here, adding saturation adds colour, using hardware emulations that are renowned for adding a particular colour gives me more choice to take the music in a slightly different tonal direction than say if I used just Logic’s linear phase EQ, which is designed to have the least impact on colouring a mix. 

I’ll start by boosting the upper-mids and I want to compare the Console and Tube EQs by boosting at 1k with a lift of about 7dB. That’s a lot but it means I can clearly hear the colour of each of the Vintage EQs 

Take a listen to how different the two EQs sound. 

For me the Vintage Tube EQ sounds much closer to adding that analog warmth I’m looking for. It could be to do with the ability to adjust the bandwidth, which of course is much better for mastering but I think overall this EQ still sounds slightly fatter than the console EQ, certainly on this track. 

Now I’ve decided which EQ I like I’ll sweep through the bands to find the sweet spot and then adjust the gain amount to suit the music. 

You can either click on the numbers to keep it feeling like the original hardware unit or you can sweep between the High Frequency increments. This is great for fine tuning your EQ settings. 

2220Hz seems to bring out the upper-mids nicely. 

Let’s compare this to the original mix and I’ll bring down the gain plugin to level match. Key things to listen out for are the track sounding fuller and punchier from the saturation and brighter in the top end from the EQ lift. 

To me that’s sounding pretty good so let’s now address the question of what do I want to remove? The area that has quite a few frequencies building up is around the 200 to 300Hz mark but I have to be careful here remove too much and the track will start to lose its punch and energy. 

I’m going to stick with the Vintage EQ and reduce the frequency by 1.5 dBs. How did I know how to do that? First of all, I over cut the mix using the Dip dial and then simply looked for the frequency area that seemed to remove most of the unwanted low-mid energy that was negatively affecting the mix?  

In your music when doing this listen for the mix cleaning up slightly and sounding brighter in the highs and fuller in the bass. Once you have found the approximate frequency range removing just a touch will go a long way in the making of a bigger and punchier master. 

Constantly check and compare by bypassing the EQ, A/Bing and seeing if it is adding a positive to the mix.  Use the A/B templates ability to compare the mastered version with the original level matched to see if the cut is improving the mix or making it worse. 

CRUSH THE MIX 

Notice how the music is tighter and more focused but I want to give it a bit more edge by adding my favourite Logic Plugin the Bitcrusher. This makes any track instantly sound bigger and it’s super easy to use! Quick tip outside of mastering, stick it on a drum bus and it’ll instantly make your drums bigger! 

Coming back to mastering add subtle saturation by setting the Drive anywhere from 1 to 3dB, resolution to 24bit of less for a LoFi sound for mastering and I’d recommend leaving Downsampling to 1 and the mix dial is perfect for dialling in parallel bitcrushing. 

Easy 1.0dB of Drive is all that’s required and it sounds bigger. Notice how the lows come out and the highs have a bit more edge and grit and all we’ve done so far is add saturation and a bit of EQ. 

Let’s level match and compare with the original. 

The track is much more focus, much punchier and there’s still room to do more! 

WHAT MORE EQ?! 

Now the mix is sounding tighter I want to bring a bit of the bottom end back in and tidy up a couple of things in the upper frequencies.  

First of all, I’m going to use a low shelf to boost the low end along with a lowcut filter to remove the unwanted frequencies below 30Hz. Notice the shelf adds a long curve, which is much subtler than one narrow boost. 

Next, I’m going to bring out the mids where the keyboards and synth sounds are playing, this will add more fullness to the track around 500Hz, this area can often get a bit muddy and honky so I need to be careful with the boost. 

I’m going to tame a ringing sound that’s audible around 900Hz and has a sharp tinny sound, it’s subtle and hard to hear but it there. 

Let me show you by boosting it. 

By cutting here it will actually warm the track up a touch and make the music more balanced and allow the frequencies we want to hear come through much more clearly.  

It’s a subtle change but a small move that helps the final master. In your music listen out for unwanted ringing or frequencies that shouldn’t be there and just give them a small or not so small dip depending on what’s needed!  

Finally, the upper-mid frequencies of the snare were brought out to add more snap giving more presence and the 16th note synth rhythms also get a lift because of the boost. 

Finally a tiny lift using a wide high frequency shelf subtly brings forward the hats and upper frequency percussion. 

Listen to how I’ve brought out the snare and the 16th note synth sounds adding more presence to the mix. 

COMPRESSION 

For this track we’re not going to use multi-band compression we just want to glue the mix together and get it sounding really good and maybe tame some peaks here and there. 

I’ve gone for the Opto circuit to keep that tube sound but this circuit on this track, in my opinion gives the most open sound.  

I’ve set the threshold high but the reduction is still only a few dBs as the ratio is very low at 1.4:1. Unusually I’ve set both the attack and release to very short values. This catches and releases the kick quickly but remember real world Opto circuits don’t react to input signals as fast as say FET compressors do and therefore even though there is a fast attack setting it’s still much gentler than some of the other circuits. 

Let me show you what I mean, I’ll go through the other circuits with the same settings and notice how each one produces different amounts of gain reduction even though the settings stay the same. 

As you can see the Studio FET, which emulates the 1176 produces up to 8dBs of GR compared to the Opto, which produces around two dBs.  

Why is this well as discussed in the Compression chapter Optos use light sensitive bulbs that glow brighter as the signal increases. These bulbs take longer to wake up and therefore the Opto circuit is great when you’re mastering with faster attack times because it’s much gentler than the other circuits and attack takes longer to respond, hence the Gain reduction is not as severe even when using faster attack times.   

Opto circuits tend to be considered warmer and fuller and in the case on this track I think using the Opto circuit suits the music perfectly, the punch is retained but the analog characteristic I’m going for is also there too. 

LIMITING 

When it comes to Limiting the mix I’m going for a slightly different approach, I want to limit the music quite hard but without crushing the music and also take advantage of streaming levels. So, the first thing I’m going to do is bring the compression Output down by 7dB, that’s a lot but it means I can push the limiter and get it working harder without destroying the music. 

Normally I’d use the Adaptive Limiter, the Adaptive Limiter adds an analog character to the music and since I’ve already added quite a lot of drive from the vintage EQs I want to bring the punch of the kick back so I’m going for Logic’s trusty super quick Limiter to do the final heavy lifting. This will respond fast and add more aggression and punch to the music.  

By dropping the compressor’s Output, I can increase the Gain level of the limiter without squashing the mix too much. I’ve set the Out Ceiling to –1dB and have targeted around –16LUFS and you’ll notice I’ve also loaded the Level Meter. This is purely so I can double check the True Peak value of the music.  

If the TP is going into the red then I’ll switch on the TP Detector on the Limiter, in this case though I’m well under 0dB and there’s no True Peak clipping going on. 

The gain is a lot at +9dB but notice the LUFS level is under –16 so although the limiter is set high, I’ve not destroyed the mix. 

Final comparison 

So that’s essentially it, I started out wanting to add some analog style saturation and Logic’s Vintage EQs are the perfect choice to add harmonic distortion. Combining two together can increase the saturation even further and really makes the track sound bigger without having to over compress the mix. 

Small and not so small EQ moves from both a colour EQ and more transparent EQ helped to shape the tonal quality and the compressor and limiter glued and brought up the mix to the final streaming level. 

Let’s do one last comparison to see if the music sounds fuller, more analog and generally builds on the original mix without moving away from it completely? 

Last Thought 

Mastering is all about making choices, what do you want to achieve? Make the track fuller, bassier, brighter or more saturated? Constantly ask yourself where do I want to take my music, what do I need to cut or boost, what compressor circuit would best suit this track and finally how loud do I want the music to be.  

With modern LUFS levels you have more room to create great music full of dynamics without having to compete for level. You so much power with Logic’s excellent plugin set to create amazing sounding music; it’s all at your fingertips and with saturation you don’t always need to over compress or over limit the mix. You have the tools to shape the colour and add harmonic distortion right within Logic Pro X to make full and fat sounding mixes.  

So enjoy using this great Analog Style Template!