Finalizers/Mastering processors

CJWalker

Member
Any reccomendations on mastering units??? Im planning to spend quite a chunk of change on mastering(to an extent) so I can do some short run CD productions. So far I Im looking into--- TC Elec. Finalizer or 96k
DBX 386 Tube pre for warmth

Any sugestions, or should I just use the money to have mastering done professionally?
 
I contacted a company awhile back which Dragon recommended. I too was contemplating buying a mastering piece of equipment but was talked out of it due to the price and the lack of expertise. Everything I've heard and read deems mastering an art all of its own and I'm not about to challenge that fact. Besides, I found the cost to have it done was reasonable. If I ever get to a point where I'm satisfied with the song/recording, I'll definitely have it mastered. Just my take a on the subject.
 
If you want to spend lots of time with your finished mixes, then mastering them yourself is not all bad. It's actually part of the home recording fun for me. You know your music better than anyone, and you know what you want the finished product to sound like. I have seen mastering done in a couple of recording studios, and except for the nicer monitors they had and the special room setup, I could have done better at home with software. I'm sure a real mastering facility dedicated to doing only that could really make a difference, but those places can get expensive. Mastering may be an artform, but so is playing an instrument, singing, and engineering a recording. You've learned all those things, why not one more thing to work on? Whatever anyone wants to say about professional mastering, the ultimate goal is to get the sound you want from your recordings, and make them sound the best they possibly can. I'd rather spend weeks at home working on the final mixing and mastering with my cheap monitors and software, because it's my hobby and I like doing it. Plus, everything from start to finish is done in my dining room. Now, I know I don't put out pro level recordings, but it's all my music and all my work put into it. Producing something from nothing more than an idea, that's why I got into this in the first place.

Before you give up on mastering your own stuff, at least give it a shot if you are so inclined. I would probably go a less expensive route to begin with and see if you are really into it or not, and if you like the results you are getting. I know Wave Labs makes some cool mastering plugins, and I have used T-racks software before. T-Racks isn't as good, but is useable and easier on the wallet. I haven't used any hardware for mastering.
 
Lambo and Jon X don't quite see eye to eye on this, but I think both of them have something important to say. One more consideration - in terms of appearance, it would probably look way closer to professional to have another studio's name on the CD as having done the mastering. But if that's not so important (I mean, who's going to be looking at the detailed credits on the CD - I never paid any attention to who were the recording or mastering engineers on a CD until I started spending time on this page) I'd go Jon X's route with the fun, learning and satisfaction of doing it myself.
 
Robert,
This guy uses the TC finalizer 96k, but only on certain things. I brought in a disc with music that varied stylistically, some stuff done with real instruments, some all synth. I think he used the TC on the synth stuff only, to warm it up a bit. Of course, he let me hear it with and without it and let me make the decisions. The real instrument songs didn't get the TC. And yeah, he had a lot of other stuff that I had never seen as well. This was my first "real" mastering session, so I haven't seen what others have to offer.

Brad
 
Hey CJ,
I just had some stuff mastered by an outside mastering facility last week. Some of the gear he had (and it did a nice job, IMHO)
T.C. Electronics (not sure of the model, but I think it is a standard piece of gear in mastering, so I am sure it is the one you mentioned)and a Joe Meek stereo compressor. He had other stuff that I didn't recognize, but those 2 pieces of gear really made a difference. Really added that extra dimension to the sound.

Hope that helped.
Brad
 
Brad-
do people really use the TC Finalizer, etc, to do mastering (i.e., have you had more experiences than just that time - just curious) i've only read hostile reviews towards it as a "mastering processor" (but that's just what i've read). most of the mastering houses i've looked at either have stuff you've never heard of in your life or have analog gear they made themselves (but that's just my experience).
summer summer summertime -
 
This is a guy who I have used a few times for mastering. I would consider his setup to be an average professional mastering setup.
www.freqmastering.com

I suppose one could get by with less, but not much less. A lot of those devices on his equipment list are just outright stunning in the way they work. He used to work for another mastering house and had a TC Finalizer, but hardly used it. In fact, we tried it on all the project he mastered for me, but it just didn't seem to provide very transparent processing. I suppose for demo work the TC would be okay. But if you aim is to really get your stuff sounding as best as it can, you just need better tools. What the hell, those Apogee converts cost like twice what the TC unit does itself. So where did the TC unit skimp on their product to make it that cheap?

Ed
 
Ed, you in any position to hazard a guess about the cost of mastering a CD with a guy in this league? How many hours, how much an hour?
 
I had TC Finalizer once. I used it mainly for an AD/DA converter. Other than that, it did not do too much for my mixes. I traded it for an Otari DAT recorder. I figure that I would get more out of the DAT recorder than the Finalizer. I think that I am going to stay with the software route to do most of my mastering for now.

[This message has been edited by Fishmed (edited 05-09-2000).]
 
dobro,

He charges like $95 an hour. How long it takes is really dependent upon how much needs to be done. What you CAN count of is that if you are going to use analog processing, or the real time only digital processing (both recommended with the stuff he has) you are looking at the total real time of your songs, plus the time it takes to fiddle eq and comp settings for each, as they go into the computer for storage. Next, start and end edits need to be done, not a very long process. After that, just adjust the individual levels of the songs. He is using the Sadie mastering software now, so I am not sure about the authoring aspect since I haven't seen the product work before first hand. In the past, it usually took about 40 mins per song to do the full mastering job. So on a 10 song CD, that would be about 7 hours. So, almost $700. Mind you, it COULD take an hour or two longer if the best results possible are desired, and the mixes need a lot of help.

Ed
 
Mastering for fun is a good way to learn the art. If you're doing demo's, jingles or radio commercials or other music for fun it's alright. If you're doing anything serious that you want to sell to people, it's worth the money to pay for real mastering. No matter how much I thought I knew, I was totally amazed by the sound of my material mastered.

One of the earlier posts made a suggestion to "self-master" your work, because "you know your music better than anyone, and you know what you want the finished product to sound like". I don't mean to start a fight or anything, but that's EXactly why you should let someone else master your music. By the time you've slaved for months with writing, playing and mixing your music, you've lost all credible objectivity. Sooner or later, you need someone to inject some educated reason into your program. They may save you from repeating a mistake that you didn't know you were making (because you can't see yourself clearly).

Case in point, who on this list wasn't surprised to know what their voice "really" sounded like the first time on tape??? The truth is no matter how well we see or hear, we NEver see or hear ourselves as clearly as someone else does. Especially someone trained.

One more point. Mastering is about the artistic: EQ, a certain processor to give X or Y feeling. But mastering is also about the "technical": processing with the least audible loss, making the music "fit" all the playback mediums, making the music fit on multiple speaker systems, fit for radio. All these things have certain standards that are already in place. Most recordists either don't know or don't care about these technical standards, because all we care about is it sounding good. This philosophy may make sense when mixing or recording, but mastering is the "clean room" of record production. Quality with no loss at every step.... No place for novices.

Think about it "self-master"... "master yourself"...put those thoughts together and what do you have? :D

Rev E

[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 05-09-2000).]
 
Rev E, you make some excellent points about the mastering concept.

It has been my experience, especially in the higher learning curve days, that the mastering engineer just heard things in the mix that I didn't, or couldn't at the time. Also, him having the vast background to compare from was invaluable.

It is so easy to get caught up in what you think your material should sound like, forgetting that the end listener hasn't heard it a million times. They get that benefit of a first listen to the finale product. Often, the mastering engineer is hearing it for the first time too, and can make decisions about eq and compression that has a totally fresh perspective that the tracking and mixing engineer may not have.

I agree, if you are not trying to sell a lot of product, or submit masters to a label, and are just having some fun, or making demos, certainly the process of mastering is educational, and fun to try out. But when the ultimate quality is desired, you just can't beat what the pro's can do.

There is still the idea about qualitive differences between great stand alone hardware, and dedicated top of the line software mastering solutions, and what most of us can afford. Relying upon your PC to offer the same quality as what mastering houses offer just isn't going to cut it. Processing power on the PC, as well as better written algorythms in software needs to significantly improve to catch up with the current popular batch of mastering hardware used for professional recordings. The all in one solutions like the TC Finalizer are decent "project" boxes, but just still are not really at the level of other more "standard" mastering tools that cost a hell of a lot more. Like I said in an earlier post, Apogee converters cost as much, and sometimes more then the TC box does. How good can the TC's converters really be? You still need to include the chips for the DSP and what not into the price. Then when you consider that something like Weiss digital EQ, which doesn't even have converters, cost's more then the TC box by itself, well, you get the idea. I digital EQ that costs more then a all in one unit will certainly outperform it.

CJ, if you are up for it, try the TC box and do the mastering yourself. As long as you don't expect it to provide the same ultimate results of professional mastering, you will have a lot of fun learning about it, and certainly after a couple of projects at least break even. You may not quite get the same high quality mastering job done doing it yourself, but your education will continue. Really though, if you can rent or borrow the box and try it out, you will get a better idea of whether you are okay with the results of doing it yourself.

Good luck.

Ed
 
Great points about the gear Ed. Many of us would (whoops!) wouldn't even recognize most of the gear in the mastering lab. It's just that esoteric and downright expensive or maybe privately built and not on the market. I think that noone in their right mind would doubt the need of good mastering once they had it done to their music once.

I also agree with RE. I'm having Bob Katz master my material this next go round. Previously, I got a package deal from a place that had a Sonic Solutions System. They did a fab job, but I'm going to put Bob's words to the test to see what he can do for me.

Rev E

[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 05-10-2000).]
 
Hey, old droogie, that seems to say more about the sound engineer than it does about the musician... You mean that the mastering engineer and the producer see/hear more than the sound engineer or the musician?
 
It would seem so in their own world.
The mastering person could see a mix differently than the sound engineer, and a producer may see a song differently than the musician.
The job of the mastering person and the producer are simular as they are a "qualified" second opinion.
 
this mastering house vs DIY discussion has also reared it's ugly head in rec.audio.pro and been summarily smacked down by the people who make their living mastering.

here's what i don't understand. if you were willing to record it yourself, why aren't you willing to mix & master it yourself?

with mastering the worst thing that happens is that it sound like crap, and you take your raw tracks to a mastering house unscathed. with tracking, once it goes onto whatever medium you are using, thats it. if you track a turd, and take it to a mastering house, you end up with a polished turd.

you came this far, why not take a leap of faith? i charge the same for mastering as i do for tracking. of course, i have a day job, so i don't need the money. i just use it to buy more gear, and pay the electric bill.

sean IzReal wright http://www.crosstudio.net
 
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