I use only my sequencer to make my beats, no multi tracking. From the sp to my tape deck and back to PC. My question is how would one go about mastering a 1 track beat?

must be a dumb question

Well kinda, but like your teacher said "there are no dumb questions".
A quick answer would be that if you mixed the levels of the samples well inside your sp, then you really won't need to alter much after that point.
It also depends on what you would like to do to a particular piece of music, for instance a lot of people these days might use multiband compression on a final mix to make all the sounds louder and maintain some distinction in frequency bands. I'd say learning signal flow and mixing first will help your music sound better in the long run.

yeah thats pretty much what i already do as far as mixing levels, but i mean the overall sound quality i guess. it might just be my sound card cus it sounds good going from the sampler to pc. after its recorded it sounds like the levels are different. thanks

Yeah, that could definitely be the issue. What kind of computer do you have and what program are you recording with?

If ur recording into something like cool edit...one way to make ur track fuller is to apply hard limiting to kinda balnce out the levels..then amplify it enough so that it doesn't redline...(This is basically manual compression if I'm not mistaken)
But yeah also what Euclid said... Make sure ur audio levels are proper before u record to tape or ur pretty much fucked...although tape compression can actually help even if ur levels aren't right.

Id say that mastering shouldn't be too much of a concern for you if ur one who drags beats thru a tape player lol...just make it sound tight i guess... compare to songs u like

I record straight in to the computer too. either way you can tell its losing quality once it gets to my computer. i have a dell thats like 10 years old with a turtle beach sound card and record into sound forge, audacity and few others. im thinkin bout buying a gateway desktop with the amd triple core processor along with a maya 44 usb analog sound card.

you might be better off recording to the tape deck then back to the sp. then export the pad and you end up with a .wav file. when i do this i'll apply a little of the sp's eq to brighten it up a bit.

I came to the conclusion that it's the soundcard and probably the computer itself that is the problem. I've been "away" for the past 5 years so all of my shit is outdated. Not only that but i havent been able to make beats for just as long so i've lost alot of my skill. surprisingly not so much the case with the decks but i was never all that great of a DJ to begin with. Anyway, Today I spent a lil over a grand and bought a new computer, the MAYA ext sound card and 555 cus the L/R outs on my 303 dont work. Hopefully starting over will spark some quality creativity. Thanks E.Oakland and IIIII.

missed this post...damn

anyway Euclid's right

you get the levels right on the machine and the rest takes care of itself

LEVELS FIRST!!! always...
make sure that snare isnt too quiet, the background strings aren't in the foreground, the vocal sample has enough highs etc etc

eq wont do much after the song is bounced if you haven't eq-ed your samples to fit like puzzle pieces (which you should)

compression is fairly useless on the final stereo wave unless you really know what your doing with a multiband compressor....

i mean really know what your doing

yeah you really shouldn't have to use a multiband compressor in the mastering process, although it has become standard practice at a lot of the time now. i think part of the reason for this is because a lot of electronic musicians now think they are quasi-engineers and end up trying to mix a lot of their tracks themselves. usually people are clueless as to how to mix properly and end up making a mess of things.

that wouldn't be so much of a problem but in electronic music nowadays there is such an obsession with overproduction and this is not a good thing. if you don't know what you're doing in regards to mixing, then less is more. the less you tweak the better. the majority of drum n bass i listen to nowadays (only on account of my younger brother getting into it at the moment which i think is kind of cool) hurts my ear drums. a lot of dubstep is going that way too. everything overproduced and compressed to fuck. no dynamics in the tracks. it hurts my ear drums.

that's why i find the music on this forum refreshing. for the same reason i like a lot of early 90s music. it isn't overproduced, yet everything still sounds amazing and fits well in the mix.

lo-fi ftw!!

dont confuse mixing with mastering

everyone should be mixing their own stuff as they go to make room for more samples or drums. that process does not kill the dynamics, it enhances them.

compression after the levels were improperly set is what kills dynamics

mastering only refers to getting several tracks to sound relatively the same for album continuity NOT "making it bangin"

i am not confusing mixing with mastering at all.

please read my post again if you assumed as much.

although i disagree that everybody should be mixing their own tracks. most people do not have a proper listening environment and end up purchasing prosumer monitors and headphones. you should only be doing in-depth mixing on your own music if you know what you're doing.

why do you think there is a whole section of electronic music nowadays with no dynamics whatsoever? because a generation of bedroom producers thought they could mix their tunes thereby making the mastering process more difficult for the engineer.

production, mixing and mastering are all completely different things. in an ideal situation a mastering engineer shouldn't have to do much work on a mix but the reality is a good engineers are in high demand simply because people can't mix their own stuff. remember a mastering engineer does a lot more to individual songs than simply make them flow in an album setting.

all of this is irrelevant though because at the end of the day none of us here are attempting to be popstars and therefore our music does not need to abide by industry standard mixing and mastering rules. i sometimes think a lot of people on electronic music forums forget this and attempt to make things too black and white. there are different ways to mix and master an album and which is "best" is entirely subjective.

that's why i love some lo-fi stuff. it's not overproduced but it just sounds so nice to my ears.

you won't have to update your computer to get better sound quality (although if it's 10 years old maybe you should consider it ). a soundcard does the work.

in regards to mastering 1 track. if you're recording from your sp to tape to your PC then, like previously mentioned, you won't have crystal clear sound quality. but that doesn't mean you can't get your mix to sound better once it's on your PC. sometimes i find that a low quality tape deck will cut a lot of the lows and add some noise in the mids and highs. there is noise reduction software out there and you could attempt to boost and cut certain frequencies that need it.

applying a little compression can go a long way and then just put a limiter on it.

i think that should be fine for starting out. if your tracks aren't going to be played on the radio or over a system you shouldn't worry too much about these sort of things anyway.

no im not tryin to be on the radio but i want to get em sounding right for my own personal enjoyment. hopefully the sound card will help the situation. I never multi tracked beats before and i dont do midi so maybe i should dabble there too.