Wavelab vs. using a service

[Walrusgumboot]

When comparing my mixes to professional releases, I always notice the diffence. My mix doesn't sound as bright, the bass doesn't have as much punch and somewhere in the midrange, I always detect a slightly muddy sound. If I'm not making that comparison, I get used to it and the recording sounds fine. That's called attenuation. I've seen some internet ads from companies doing mastering for as little as 20 dollars per song. I've debated getting Wave Lab. Can anyone recomend any of these mastering companies or would I be better served buying Wavelab?

[djhead]

Rest assured, those $20 boyos are doing what you COULD be. Mastering stuff using Wavelabs.

I guess it boils down to whether you have the interest/desire to do your own mastering. Its a very difficult, but rewarding practice.

FWIW it never hurts to have a fresh set of ears master your tune.
FWIW i blow dick at mastering.

[fraserhutch]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone charging $20 an hour must be some loser with a laptop and a pirated version of Waves, in which case, you are probably better off doing the job yourself.

[Massive Master]

No matter what, WaveLab isn't going to make anything sound better than whatever program you're using already -

The person using it is going to do that.

If you've mixed to the best of your abilities, then it's normally time to send it off to the M.E. and have an unbiased set of ears on it.

And I know I may seem a little biased, but that's what I do with my mixes too.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Walrusgumboot

I've seen some internet ads from companies doing mastering for as little as 20 dollars per song. I've debated getting Wave Lab. Can anyone recomend any of these mastering companies or would I be better served buying Wavelab?

As John rightly said, mastering is not done by the gear, it's done by the engineer. There is a large difference between someone like John with the training and experience of a real pro, and some schmuck with a computer and a website with a rudimentary knowledge of how to use some cracked software.

And to top it off, real mastering engineers *do* use tens of thousands of dollars of top shelf gear in professionally designed mastering suites. They have the expertise to make such investments worthwhile.

Those internet "companies" (most of them are not companies so much as they are DBAs) that charge $20/song for mastering by net are just people exactly like you with a computer exactly like yours in a room exactly like yours using Wavelab (or Waves or PT or whatever cracked software they got off of BitTorent) exactly like you would.

These folks take advantage of the fact that 90% of home recorders couldn't tell the difference between a good mastering job and a can of Alpo. They boost the bass and highs like an old fashoned EQ in a V formation by crunching them with a MBC plug, then strap a finalizer plug across the mix to raise the volume to insane levels, and call that "mastering". It's a 30-second hack job that they're charging $20 for.

Is it worth it to you to pay $20/song to do an amateur job like that which you can do yourself? Only you can answer that.

G.

[Farview]

Originally Posted by Walrusgumboot

When comparing my mixes to professional releases, I always notice the diffence. My mix doesn't sound as bright, the bass doesn't have as much punch and somewhere in the midrange, I always detect a slightly muddy sound. If I'm not making that comparison, I get used to it and the recording sounds fine. That's called attenuation. I've seen some internet ads from companies doing mastering for as little as 20 dollars per song. I've debated getting Wave Lab. Can anyone recomend any of these mastering companies or would I be better served buying Wavelab?

I'm assuming you are using a DAW to record your stuff. Wavelab doesn't really do anything that you can't do in your DAW, it's just set up for easier digital editing and CD burning.
It sounds like you have the impression that wavelab does something magical, it doesn't. You would still be applying the same plugins.

[flatfinger]

One thing a Real ME is going to have ( in addition to the serious equipment) is a big enough room to actually let the bass unfold. Nine out of ten people who try to master themselves W/ nearfield monitors in a 10' x 10' room are going to screw up on the bass.
Get wavelab essential. For $100 bucks , it's got two thirds the tools and you'll learn allot if you spend the time w/ it.

[Walrusgumboot]

Thanks. I would prefer to do it myself more than likely. With my studio setup, I don't have an ideal monitoring environment. I never get it right by what I hear thru my monitors. The best I can do is get it close. I'll listen to the mix in my car or in my den and then make various tweaks to the track balances. Just a small change can make a big difference once you start getting the mix close to what you want. With mastering, I was able to get Wavelab fairly cheap and so I'm in the process of checking it out. I don't expect anything magical from it. My goal is to make my recordings louder and to add some punch to the bass. And for the recording to have presence at lower volumes. In my mind, that's the difference between mastered and not mastered regardless of all the other things that may be done when mastering like ditthering and normalization. Very slight changes in balance and EQ can work wonders with a mix and just a few db's difference can increase the perceived volume. That's not magic and it's do-able. Just right out of the box, I've gotten some postive results with wavelab, but I haven't finised evaluating everything in the program. I've had three of my recordings-unmastered recordings- played on a major FM radio station and I liked what I heard. That was several years ago but I've always wanted to be able to apply that to my recordings to some degree. Anyone have any personal tips about their experience with wavelab?

[Robert D]

Wavelab is essentially a wave editor, plugin host, and redbook CD authoring tool. It has grown some other appendages lately to justify charging for upgrades, but that is essentially what it is. It's a good program, and has some nice analysis tools, but as stated, it doesn't master for you. I encourage you to do LOTS of reading about what mastering is and isn't before starting down this road. I like to play around with mastering, but I have no illusions about what I do being anywhere near the real thing.