Mastering - is it worth it?

[Crayon Boy]

So the big question is; is mastering worth it? If all it does is polish things up a bit and make the mixes louder (at the sake of dynamics I might add) is it really worth it?? What are the advantages and disadvantages of having something mastered? Why do commercial releases HAVE to be mastered? What's the deal?

[Blue Bear Sound]

The mastering process (professional, not home-grown), adds the final polish to really bring out the mix and make it sound the best it possibly can......

So the question is really not whether mastering is worth it, it's whether or not your music deserves to sound the absolute best it possibly can.

[regebro]

Is it worth it?

If you are doing a demo? No.
If you are doing a commercial record which will hit the shops? Yes.

[Seanmorse79]

In this day & age, I think it's almost always worth it (depending on what you have to spend, of course). Record companies expect a lot more from demos than they used to (I'm told).

I'd like to think that the stuff I'm working on now is worth the mastering touch. I'll be emailing BlueBear before too long for pricing (when I'm all done recording and mixing). Although I'd love to learn all I can about the craft, I'm not going to kid myself into thinking I can do it all in my basement at this point in time.

[TexRoadkill]

Originally posted by Crayon Boy
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having something mastered? Why do commercial releases HAVE to be mastered? What's the deal?

Everything has to be mastered because in it's simplest form that is just preparing the song for putting it on a CD by adjusting fades, order and relative volume of songs.

It would be much more beneficial to give all the songs for a project to a mastering engineer than to give them just one song since they wont have any reference to the rest of the CD.

As far as EQ, limiting and actually improving the sound that will vary drastically depending on the engineer and quality of his gear. Choose wisely because a crappy mastering job will be a waste of money and sometimes they will just have different taste then you.

For the most part it is a good idea to have another engineer go over the entire project with fresh ears to make sure you didn't miss anything.

[Son of Mixerman]

Lets seee. How can I word this to come of as a smarty pants!

Oh...

If you spent months assembling a custom car, you have so much heart and soul into it. You've twisted every bolt, reworked the blemishes. Lets see..you even primered it..

Mnnnn, should you go ahead and paint it?


SoMm

[Sennheiser]

If you know how to paint cars, have the equipment and work with polymer paints like PPG I would say, paint it!

If on the other hand you do not have a golden set of ears that come with years of experience and a ton of high dollar equipment, send it to a mastering house if you plan on a release.

Painting cars well is not as hard as mastering well.

I've tried both. The cars come out better every time.

[Wiz C]

if you know what mastering is all about then you should do it ya self.......
you know it deals with bringing out more in your music
you know its about gettin all songs at the same level
and putting your songs in a nice playable order...
and wavelab ,soundforge ,deck or what ever wave editor with dx or vst plugin support can get the 2 track job done...after you mix down to stereo file...from cakewalk ,cubase ,nuendo, logic whatever you use for puting together
your songs in audio format..
people get stuck in the music industry format like you gotta pay a pro mastering house
but you can get the same stuff they use and do it ya self if you got the know how and about what you want your music to sound like.......

[SLuiCe]

I eagerly await the responses to that last post.

[Sennheiser]

Same here.

[jcmm]

Until my music is mastered, it is home spun demo at best!

Though I am pleased at the progress I am making, To think I will ever get past the "demo"stage without the help of a pro is absurd! Even if you give me their gear, I'd be lost.

I want very badly to have something mastered! My problem is reaching the point where I can present something of quality to work with! I am happy with the "music" I am writing, but it will take some work until I can give something to a guy like Blue Bear and ask him to make it better. Its the old "Polish a turd" theory.

Knowing this I am careful where to spend my limited resources when it comes to equipment. I have the basic mixing software I need to do the job, but I am working on things that make the virgin signal as close to perfect as possible. This will make it possible for a pro to take my stuff and actually place it at another level. When I can reach that point, I can justify the expense.

A Pro reaches that stage through the endless process of paying his/her dues and honing their skills, as well as investing in a ton of gear. That equipment is useless in the hands of someone who can't use it properly. If they stink at what they do, they starve! I have no incentive like that when I record other than my desire to achieve.

There really is no comparison...............

If I could afford it, I wouldn't even record at home.(like many of us)
But I am happy to have the ability to do so!
My goal is to be successful enough that I can leave it all to the "Pros", and spend my time writing!

[littledog]

Originally posted by Wiz C
if you know what mastering is all about then you should do it ya self.......

...but you can get the same stuff they use and do it ya self if you got the know how and about what you want your music to sound like.......

No argument here. If I knew what mastering was all about and i had access to the same equipment a mastering studio has, with as fine a listening room as they would have, then i wouldn't have any problem doing it myself too.

After all, if i can afford the quarter million or so chump change to "get the same stuff" and have the same quality room, i can probably afford a second engineer to supply the most critical element: trained ears.

Then it would be on to my next goal - you see, I know a place where I can get some nice surgical gowns and masks cheap. And my uncle can get me a good deal on a scalpel and some forceps. All I'll need is to order that book from Amazon.com - "Do It Yourself Brain Surgery for Dummies".

[Son of Mixerman]

One of the things that most folks forget about in Mastering is the subjective analysis of the music by someone who has not spent 3 months tracking and mixing it. If the best Mastering Engineers on the planet still send thier own music out because they know they need that second opinion, why would you assume you know better. Another thing people forget is that there are standards. ME's know what those standards are and how to help you compete with other people using the same said standards.

I can build a race car in my garage, I just go buy the parts right? Wrong. I have to have qualified parts, installed by a licensed "NASCAR" mechanic and have the installation verified by a inspector trained in what makes it NASCAR ready. When I raced dragsters in my 20's I had to have my engine and cage inspected by NHRA, and they had to approve everything before I could compete.

As long as the "industry" controls the rules of major label music, and indies for the most part you have to abide by their standards if you expect to compete. If it home recorded for making limited copies for friends and family you can do what ever you want. I think most people would be better off if they just mixed it right and left it alone without Izotope or T-racks, because most of the presets folks fall into remove the dynamic range and add artifacts that get revealed on good speaker systems. Do you want to count how many professional mixers are shocked when they hear their mixes on a good system? Well I m out of fingers so I'll say it pretty common. I can't tell you how many times Ive mixed it my best only to put a reference CD in my home system and say to myself "where the hell did that come from?". Don't get me wrong, I do my own mastering at home because its usually only going to a few people who have played in live bands most their live and don't know the difference(deaf). But I know that Id rather send a mix to another ME and pay than try to do it myself and be disappointed later.

The key problem Wiz C is "IF you know what Mastering is all about...If you do that great, you can be of service to the homerecs.


SoMm

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by Son of Mixerman
...I think most people would be better off if they just mixed it right and left it alone........

This should be a sticky note at the top of the Mixing/Mastering forum....

Says it all, right there!

[The Byre]

I used not to do my own mastering because that's the way the customers wanted it. They were frightened that without the product going to a mastering lab, it would not sound right.

All too often the results were crap - but you can't say that.

On moving back to the Highlands of Scotland, I discovered that there is no mastering suite up here and I would either have to fly down to London or learn to do it myself. I decided to learn to do it myself.

But there is a trick and the answer is (apart from having suitable toys for multiband compression, de-essing, first class eq, etc etc) not being the person that recorded or mixed the music.

In other words, you must have a fresh pair of ears. Do your best, but get other ears to tell you what to do.

[Janic]

A cleanly recorded and well mixed production is perfect. If they're interested it will be remixed and mastered anyway.

Try to make sure the song doesn't suck though.

;-)

[Wiz C]

its cool to get other ears to make sure things are ok.....

[ecs113]

Originally posted by Son of Mixerman

As long as the "industry" controls the rules of major label music, and indies for the most part you have to abide by their standards if you expect to compete

Competition
Industry
Rules

Art?

[fprod south]

I'm not going to argue any of the points about having your work mastered professionally. They're all valid.

But music is my hobby. Mastering is just another step in getting things done. Writing, tracking, mixing...why is it so bad to master too? To me it's all part of the fun. I won't pretend I can do any of this stuff as good as the pros. Learning how is where the fun is.

Well, that's the hobbyist point of view. And I agree with Blue Bear, if I come up with something that deserves it, I'll get it mastered professionally. That won't stop me from trying it on my own too.

[Seanmorse79]

Well put. I'm in the same boat (hobbiest), although it seems to be more of an obsession than a hobby

I think one of the biggest factors in having someone else do the mastering is the fresh ears and fresh perspective. Although I love mixing and challenging myself to get the mix as good as I can before mastering, I find it very hard not to get "lost in the mix" after I've worked so long with a project. After hearing it so many times, the imperfections become engraved in my head and it's harder to see the big picture.

It might be worth a try to hook up with another hobbiest and let 'em take a crack at your mixdowns. At very least, it might be fun.

[pipelineaudio]

theres lots of people on this board willing to "trade " home mastering jobs. USE that resource before you attempt to master your own stuff. Its like trying to edit your own book! INSANE

[dobro]

pipeline, who do you know here who's traded homerec projects?

Next question: when it happens, what's the procedure? The other person listens once or twice and gives their advice? The other person listens ten times and tweaks the best they know how? Last question: isn't it a great big shot in the dark? How do you have *any* idea what the other person's listening/tweaking skills are like on your own music until you hear it? And even then - okay, here's another 'last' question - if you can't trust your own ears to master the stuff you've written, tracked and mixed, can you trust your own ears to evaluate someone else's mastering job on your own stuff?

[dobro]

"theres lots of people on this board willing to "trade " home mastering jobs. USE that resource before you attempt to master your own stuff. Its like trying to edit your own book! INSANE"

Okay, I want to comment on this too. I think there are some aspects of mastering I can achieve on my own material: overall levels, song order - obvious stuff. The stuff I don't trust myself with past the mixing stage is EQ, verb and compression.

[pipelineaudio]

"pipeline, who do you know here who's traded homerec projects?"

theres a few recent threads of people sending stuff to each other in this forum. Maybe there should be a LOT more of it going around...a truly valuable learning experience for all.

"Next question: when it happens, what's the procedure? The other person listens once or twice and gives their advice?"

I wouldnt think so

" The other person listens ten times and tweaks the best they know how?"

thats what Im figuring

" Last question: isn't it a great big shot in the dark? How do you have *any* idea what the other person's listening/tweaking skills are like on your own music until you hear it?"

thats the point, and I feel your fears, but this was my hypothesis: If you dont like what they did, DONT use it. But I bet, really and surely, that even if you dont like what they did, I bet itll be a fresh perspective, and maybe youll say " ah HAH!!!!" and have a whole new way of looking at your project, maybe even to the point where you might remix something

" And even then - okay, here's another 'last' question - if you can't trust your own ears to master the stuff you've written, tracked and mixed, can you trust your own ears to evaluate someone else's mastering job on your own stuff?"

THAT is a deep one! I'd say, as long as it was technically correct ( right sample rate, bit depth, no REALLY troublesome bass or treble, I sure think you can. As long as its technically correct, which is what you can be SURE of going to a good mastering facility, the rest is whether or not you care for the flavor. And at this stage you better go listen in a bunch of places.

"I think there are some aspects of mastering I can achieve on my own material: overall levels, song order - obvious stuff. The stuff I don't trust myself with past the mixing stage is EQ, verb and compression."

I think the sequencing, and editing , possibly even fades are things you can and should do yourself, assuming you can write the correct PQ's and such, but overall level, is a deeply tied into the compression and eq, so I wouldnt mess with that yourself

I just think it would be fun, educational, and a great show of community spirit, here on HR to do as much of this as we can, maybe even by comittee....I guess we need a BIG ASS FTP

[mixmkr]

Originally posted by regebro
Is it worth it?

If you are doing a demo? No.
If you are doing a commercial record which will hit the shops? Yes.

I think that is the answer, and I've yet to hear anything around here on its way to the "shops". A lot of good stuff...but it'll never leave here.....unfortunately.

home brew mastering...why not...? that's my crappy opinion. The worst that can happen is too much reverb (sound like a train station ), or 75% of the people will not be able to tell if you've changed anything or not anyway.

Pipeline...go dig up the ole mastering competition thread. You'll get a chuckle.

Then dig up the "reduced rate" offer [thread] from a "pro" just prior to that. That one was pathetic.