Mixing & Mastering

There is an enormous amount of audio generated by the Woovebox engine. Making sure the right audio stands out at the right time is the art of "mastering". Mastering is all about making sure each element of your song is audible when it needs to, while reducing any overlap / clashing / fighting-for-the-same-frequencies (aka "mud" or "muddiness") with other elements as much as possible. The mastering on your Woovebox is very, very extensive and is sufficient for producing "radio ready" songs.

And by "radio-ready" this documentation explicitly means that your can mix be played back on even the cheapest transistor radio or laptop speakers, while still communicating your song and all its elements with clarity. That is - making your song universally playable on any conceivable playback device, precisely like the music broadcasted by radio stations.

Mastering on the Woovebox is all about using your ears to identify areas for improvement, and knowing the tools you have at your disposal to make those improvements. You do not need visual tools to achieve a radio-ready mix.

The specific tools at your disposal include;

• 3-band master compressor to level-out loudness and accentuate detail in the lows, mids and highs
• per-track compressor to do transient shaping for individual tracks to accentuate note starts
• per-track effects ducking to duck the global effects in response to a track's loudness to keep the effects from competing with the main sound
• per-track track ducking options to duck its own send effects amount
  
• per-track side-chaining to control the volume of other tracks or respond to the volume of other tracks
• per-track amplitude-based noise generator to add subtle sizzle to your tracks (you can select the noise characteristic 6/Sn on song Glob page, you can audition the noise with a positive value for 5/Ki on song Glob page). Negative values (exponential response to a track's amplitude) for the amplitude-based noise usually works best.
• per-track third oscillator to add "body" to a track's patch
• per-track third oscillator to subtract the fundamental ("missing fundamental" shaping) from a track to "hollow it out"
• per-track wave-folding distortion to add harmonic content to a track's patch
• per-track 3-band parametric EQ to free up parts of the spectrum for other tracks ("cut") or claim parts of the spectrum ("boost")
• per-track 3-band parametric EQ in aural exciter mode to generate harmonic content
• secondary delay unit's "sparkle" algorithm with a modest send value for a track to create side band interest
• using one of the delay units for ADT-style doubling / slap delay to bring an instrument or percussion (commonly snare) to the foreground ("in your face")
• bass monofy feature to move low frequencies to the center of the sound stage
• stereo widening feature to enhance stereo presence of higher frequencies
• various panning features (auto pan, auto pan start position) and pitch-to-pan feature, which spaces out note pitches over the stereo field, making it easy to juxtapose different tracks to efficiently use the frequency space across the two channels

In general, it is highly recommended to listen to your final mix on as many devices, headphones and speakers as you can. Each will have its own strengths, weaknesses, attenuations and exaggerations. Aim for making your mix sound acceptable on all these sound reproducing devices. Beware of targeting "perfection" on just one device. If you have one device whose frequency response you intimately know and trust, you can use it for most of your mixing, however a "trust-but-verify" is still extremely important, as every device will still have its blind spots.