I know this should probably go in the home mastering section but it's not specifically about a technical aspect of mastering but more a general question about it. I put together some decent sounding home recordings using straight in vox gear for guitars, a decent Audio-Technica condenser mic for vocals and other instruments, and a lot of VSTs for drums and such.
Anyways, I'd like to go one step further making these sound as good as possible and have at least the few songs I'll put online mastered to get the volume levels as loud and standard to pro levels as possible. I always hear terrifying stories about how you should never try to master yourself unless you know what you're doing but I'm curious about just at least dabbling with it, maybe trying some mastering software and rolling up my sleeves.
Any recommendations?
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if you want to practice mastering, then simply apply compression
if you want to practice mastering, then simply apply compression to your stereo mix of your song. Mastering is applying compression to the final product, and overall EQing if necessary. To do this on a pro level, you need and excellent listening space, very good monitors, and a clean audio path for processing, and most importantly an ear of experienced listening.
To practice mastering, you can just but a decent compressor plug-in on your two mix track and make your adjustments. If you don't know much about compressors or compressing, then search the forums on this site, they have some good info to get you started.