A few thoughts about mastering

R

Rafael Morgan

New member
Hey folks,

I hope you're all having a fine day.

Well, first, I'd like to ask you to don't get me wrong, ok? I'm not trying to be ironic or sarcastic here at all. There are just a few things about contemporary mastering that I don't quite understand.

I understand that mastering used to be an incredibly difficult and specialized task back in the vinyl/analog media days. I have no doubt about it.

However, I don't quite understand why people still look at mastering almost as a mystical thing nowadays. Isn't mastering a different thing now? I mean, I believe it requires considerably less specific and delicate skills nowadays, but people still look at it from an almost magical perspective, as it was some kind of wizardry.

Sure, as far as I understand it, it used to be something close to witchcraft in the past, but is it nowadays?

I know that it still requires well-trained ears, and well-trained ears require time to be acquired, but isn't mastering incredibly and considerably easier nowadays, at least from the technical point of view?

To sum up, I think that the general image that most people cultivate about mastering nowadays may be incoherent if compared to what it really is.

Anyway, I'm just a noob and I might be completely wrong, though.

What do you think? Could you enlighten me about this subject?

Regards,

Raf.
 
I think your observation is pretty spot on. I don't think there is any thing magical or mystical about mastering a project. The magic comes from well trained ears and knowledge. I will note the mastering engineer needs to make a substantial investment in his room and monitors. That can be difficult for the average person.
 
Chili said:
I think your observation is pretty spot on. I don't think there is any thing magical or mystical about mastering a project. The magic comes from well trained ears and knowledge. I will note the mastering engineer needs to make a substantial investment in his room and monitors. That can be difficult for the average person.
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Yeah...Whenever you search for info about mastering on the internet, you always read comments about how it can take decades to learn or how special and irreplaceable a mastering engineer really is...Basically, people try to make it look like an almost impossible task, like a mastering engineer was an astronaut, which certainly was somewhat true in the past, but not nowadays anymore, in my opinion.

Honestly, even the nomenclature "mastering" doesn't make much more sense anymore..."Post-production" makes much more sense.

Again, don't get me wrong. I know it requires a lot of experience and specially very well trained ears. I just think some concepts need to change.
 
I like Bob's book, but it's really not about mastering...

Anyway -- Blah, blah, long story short -- It hasn't really changed much at all. Less vinyl... Less tape... The tools "back in the day" were arguably much more simplistic. I used to start a project and basically start-to-finish make as little sonic impact as possible. Now, it's a complete 180 -- Much (if not most) of the time, the client expects relatively drastic changes.

I understand that mastering used to be an incredibly difficult and specialized task back in the vinyl/analog media days. I have no doubt about it.
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I find it was much easier 20 years ago.
However, I don't quite understand why people still look at mastering almost as a mystical thing nowadays. Isn't mastering a different thing now? I mean, I believe it requires considerably less specific and delicate skills nowadays, but people still look at it from an almost magical perspective, as it was some kind of wizardry.
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I think the people who think that was just don't understand the process. THAT SAID -- There are a LOT of people out there that don't understand the process...
Sure, as far as I understand it, it used to be something close to witchcraft in the past, but is it nowadays?

I know that it still requires well-trained ears, and well-trained ears require time to be acquired, but isn't mastering incredibly and considerably easier nowadays, at least from the technical point of view?
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It was much LESS "witchcraft" a couple decades ago. You got mixes, you tweaked them to make sure they translated well, you created a production master (Even the 'little things' like the creation of a compliant disc is still a topic of interesting discussion in some circles - There are the technical points, then there's the 'right way' to do it while keeping inside those technical points).

Either way, sonically speaking, it's much more difficult these days IME. The quality of the source has gone down considerably overall -- Keep in mind that I'm not trying to come down on any particular groups of people here -- but "back in the day" everyone went to a studio - usually a pretty nice studio - with decent acoustics, a decent gear selection, an experienced engineer, etc., etc., etc. Home studios (when they were just sprouting) were meant for pre-production (writing, arrangement, source sounds, working everything out in advance before paying $50-100 an hour at the studio). Except for the reasonable rare occasions that you were working on a band that had no business being in a studio, everything was of a certain quality somewhat consistently.

These days, I work on projects recorded in some of the best studios in the world -- And in some of the most humble home and portable studios in the world. And the expectations can easily be reversed from what you'd think --

Metal stuff recorded in some guy's basement on what most people would consider "crap" gear -- Sounds fantastic. The guy knew what he was doing (and sure, he has great monitoring and tons of OC703 in that basement). He didn't record the guitars until he got the guitarists to actually have a decent tone that worked with everything else. He had the drummer properly tune the kit. Etc., etc., yada, yada. A little tweaking here and there and it was outta here in probably 6 or 7 hours. Didn't sound much different. Don't get me wrong, it was worthwhile and such, but those mixes sounded great when they got here.

Contrast that with an orchestral recording done by an engineer that's done several hundreds of recordings in one of the most acoustically spectacular spaces I've ever been in at around $500/hour just to stand there and clap, along with a gear list that any other facility on the planet would be proud to have -- I spent 6 or 7 hours on one track. Not that it was a bad recording - Certainly not a bad source - but it wasn't "the recording" the client was looking for. And there were some technical shortcomings that needed an awful lot of "massaging" to get everything to sit properly.

And of course, I had to completely recalibrate the entire chain to a different reference voltage from the metal project to the classical project. Something I never even dreamed of having to do 20 years ago. And the tools are -- well, just as complex and far more plentiful (that's one of those blessings/curses) than back in the day when everything was much more straightforward and simplistic.
To sum up, I think that the general image that most people cultivate about mastering nowadays may be incoherent if compared to what it really is.
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As far as the "mythical/mystical" stuff, that's just hype usually from the inexperienced. There's certainly "secret weapons" -- which usually aren't so secret. But it's a specialty like any other. Not every artist uses the same brush or the same paints. Some mix their own from their own formulas. Some make their own brushes. Not every photographer uses the same camera or technique -- And an expert photographer can usually take a pretty stunning shot with a smart phone.

Meh, I'm probably not making much sense here... It's early and I still need more coffee. Just trying to throw in from another perspective.
 
It's not necissarily(sp?) easier, and it was never really a dark art. If people want all analogue mastering (which clients still ask for) then it's a bit different to an ITB master. But at the end of the day it's exactly like mixing or recording - practice.

I think it's just that mastering is more of a solitary part of making a record, so people tend not to see what's involved as much.
 
Hey folks,

Thanks so much for your comments.

I have a quick question for you, though.

What, in your opinion, are the most important things I should tune my ears to while attempting to master a track?

I know that, like mixing, a big part of it is about critical listening skills, right?

Most part of the thing ends up being about creating tonal balance and clarity, but there're so many variables involved here that I get lost sometimes while trying to listen to a track from a technical stand point.

Thanks again,

Raf.
 
The tonal balance and clarity should be in the mix to begin with. Mastering should be about making all the songs sound like they belong together and transition well between the songs. It shouldn't be about changing the mix at all.
 
Another part of the equation is the listening environment and a NEW set of ears.

If you are trying to master something that you mixed with your ears, the same speakers, in the same room, you are probably not going to hear anything different. You will have the same perspective as when you mixed it, so you wont be the best person to make decisions about what needs to change.
 
Rafael Morgan said:
To sum up, I think that the general image that most people cultivate about mastering nowadays may be incoherent if compared to what it really is.

What do you think? Could you enlighten me about this subject?
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Mastering is easy,.. at least that's what the people selling the "all in one" plugs want you to believe,
.. but I don't think you understand how much easier it's gotten until you do it on a professional level.. everyday .. support your fam.. compete with your peers, .. be responsible for hundreds of thousands of cd's that are getting replicated at the plant,.. and if there's a screw up, .. your name will be first on the list to call. Playing baseball at the park with friends is easy.. Slight rant ; )

Mastering has mostly always been about interpreting and respecting the intentions of the artist/client while maintaining or enhancing the sonic integrity of the songs... preparing them for distribution, airplay and replication. That hasn't changed much. Cutting vinyl vs printing cd masters has changed technically... but there are still quite a bit of vinyl houses left and ME's who prep for vinyl.

I never thought of mastering as mythical .. but when I got my first album that I mixed for a major back from the ME .. I said "how the hell did he do that"? That's exactly how I wanted it to sound...
 
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Some thoughts come to mind:

1. Those of us who do home recording have to realize (or have learned over time) that our mixes are not always as good as they might be..............and thus..........a weak link in the product..........which makes mastering properly more difficult if not impossible. In other words.........some look to mastering to solve a problem in the mix. That would surely be magic.

2. The web has made so many things easier for us and has taught us how to do many things. As such.......we've come to think that if we just keep on reading about something on the web........it'll substitute for years of learning it the "hard" way. Wrong. We can learn how to play guitar now from the web...........but it still takes years of practice and experience to get to the top..........or even close......or even within viewing distance.

3. We try to master our own stuff that we've worked on from tracking to mixing. When we hear our own stuff.......our brain keeps tricking us into hearing what's not there...........in other words.........what we want to hear. We can deny that...........but that's the case for sure.

4. Every now and then........like a blind squirrel who finds the occasional nut........we sometimes get the mastering just right. We won't call it blind luck........but for all intents and purposes we could and we wouldn't be too far off. So we are sucked back into thinking..........oh.....I can master after all. Until the next song is done.

Just some thoughts that I know have applied to me over time.
 
Rafael Morgan said:
Hey folks,

Thanks so much for your comments.

I have a quick question for you, though.

What, in your opinion, are the most important things I should tune my ears to while attempting to master a track?

I know that, like mixing, a big part of it is about critical listening skills, right?

Most part of the thing ends up being about creating tonal balance and clarity, but there're so many variables involved here that I get lost sometimes while trying to listen to a track from a technical stand point.

Thanks again,

Raf.
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my gut feeling is, if you have to ask this question, then you do not have the experience to jump in.

you should get yourself to the point where you don't have to ask someone else what your ears should tune to.

maybe, it is more important that you upgrade your room, upgrade your monitors, and practice doing a thousand mixes, and listening to hundreds of pro-mastered releases.

then, you will probably not even need to ask the question.
 
johnny,
i don't know,
i think that the final end product (and deciding what you do and don't like personally) is really all that matters.
it just cuts to the chase.
 
For sure in the days of vinyl mastering was very much an art unto itself, and to a somewhat lesser degree for tape also (but for different reasons). To say that in the digital domain mastering is easier is right on a certain level, mainly for the home recording crowd. However do not underestimate the power of people who have high-end equipment that most of us at home cannot afford. This can make a huge difference in the sound. "What" mastering is may not be as much of a mystery today, but the equipment used to master is still a difference maker.
 
zepfan59 said:
Equipment used to master is still a difference maker.
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It can be, but playing on a great Les Paul doesn't make you a better player, it just makes playing easier.

Experience and putting in the time is the real difference maker. It's nice when the gear acquisitions and experience can run in parallel, but it can be easy to blame not putting out good enough stuff on the gear and thinking that's where the fault lies.
 
zepfan59 said:
However do not underestimate the power of people who have high-end equipment that most of us at home cannot afford. This can make a huge difference in the sound. "What" mastering is may not be as much of a mystery today, but the equipment used to master is still a difference maker.
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Agree 200%.

The quality of a mastering is no doubt 90% top-notch equipment. Any person with a minimum of music hearing baggage can make a decent master job with the proper setup and a couple of try-and-error. But the most infamous 'audio engineer' in the world will not be able to barely get close of it without.

Unless you -- home-boy or home-girl -- can put a load of cash on an expensive studio headphone and speaker monitors plus a dedicated environment acusticaly treated is better to forget about mastering. I have not any dream about play mastering my stuff because I am at this same boat.

Waltz Mastering said:
playing on a great Les Paul doesn't make you a better player, it just makes playing easier.
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Sorry couldn't resist. This phrase may be able to pop some "ohs" from the audience but it is just full of gas and completely off in this context. While a good guitar player can do an awesome job by either playing a generic chinese Les Paul equiped with decent pickups or a genuine Gibson 59 Les Paul, I would like to see a super-duper 'audio engineer' to do a decent job using a couple of computer generic loudspeakers and a gamer's headphone being seated at the home-office PC desk. Really would like to see this.

:D
 
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YanKleber said:
This phrase may be able to pop some "ohs" from the audience but it is just full of gas and completely off in this context. While a good guitar player can do an awesome job by either playing a generic chinese Les Paul equiped with decent pickups or a genuine Gibson 59 Les Paul, I would like to see a super-duper 'audio engineer' to do a decent job using a couple of computer generic loudspeakers and a gamer's headphone being seated at the home-office PC desk. Really would like to see this.
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In order: Engineer > Room/Monitors > Gear. It's that simple whether it's at home or a dedicated studio. I had no idea it was a controversy. I never said computer speakers and gamer headphones. You did, .. and obviously felt the need to take it to the extremes.

Engineering proficiency trumps gear. That's what I said. and if you feel it's the other way around .. good for you.
 
I think mastering is still a bit of a dark art in my opinion, it definitely takes YEARS of training to get really good at it, and you also have to know what to listen for, and intimately know your room and speakers, there's more published info on it than ever before though, whereas in the past that info was much harder to access, the problem with this is like any open source information it gets corrupted along the way and there are lots of opinions but no black and white answers, mastering is a complex thing that in my opinion not many people can get right.
 
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