Is Mastering necessary?

Waffleness

Waffleness

New member
Hello folks,

Do you think, in the majority of cases, for recording amateurs and hobbyists that mastering by a qualified person is necessary?

It will make it better, no doubt, but to what extent. Is it analogous to using $400 overheads to using $2000 overheads when recording in a bad room?
 
My answer is: it depends.

It depends on:

1 Whether the recorded product is intended to seriously impress people

2 Whether the originally recorded material is tracked and mixed well enough that it would impress people

If these conditions are both true, then professional mastering is a worthwhile investment.

If one or other (or both) of the conditions are not met, then mastering is probably not going to add the extra that you would hope for.
 
+1 to Gecko. I usually only have stuff mastered if it is going to be released. Also, not all mastering is the same.
 
Waffleness said:
Do you think, in the majority of cases, for recording amateurs and hobbyists that mastering by a qualified person is necessary?
Click to expand...
The answer is pretty simple, I think; the answer is identical to the answer to the question, "Was the recording necessary?"

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
The answer is pretty simple, I think; the answer is identical to the answer to the question, "Was the recording necessary?"

G.
Click to expand...

Although poetic :-)p) I am unsure as to whether you are correct. There are plenty of circumstances where I have listened to demos that are well made, mixed and generally presided over for many hours. These pass through large numbers of people on myspace and other social networking media. Yet they have not been mastered - and yes the recording is necessary to get their sound out into the world.

I am just finding it hard to find a circumstance outside of being signed to a record label, and producing hundreds of CD's where you would say "What this needs, is a mastering engineer". I am interested as to the situations that people here have been involved with where mastering is absolutely imperitive for the project to become viable.
 
I think it all depends on the context. For example, if you are recording an album, professionally or not, at some point it's going to have to be prepared to go onto CD. And that's not just a case of setting the track order and burning. there's the issue of consistancy, both tonally and form a standpoint of volume. I'm not talking about loudening, I'm talking about making sure that track 2 isn't 10 times louder than track 1 etc etc. You don't want track 5 to have way more high end than track 8 if the musical style is the same. And then there's other stuff like fades, segues etc etc.

On a single song basis, I think it could be a different story.

Really, it all depends on what form you want the end product to be in, what you want to do with it, and what you hope to acheive with it.

I tend to put inverted commas around the word 'mastering' when I'm referring to what I do with my mixes. I recorded an album, and polished and prepped it for CD as described above. I didn't actually don't do much to the sound per se, beyond balancing the volume from track to track, and trying to acheive a consistant sound. Is that mastering? I dunno. Probably not. I know I do more than just fixing a shitty mix in mastering (well, I don't do that at all in mastering, I do it in mixing), but still, out of respect for the real mastering engineers here, I use the inverted commas.

I'm waffling. I'll stop now.
 
Waffleness said:
and yes the recording is necessary to get their sound out into the world.
Click to expand...
We have different definitions of necessary. Getting one's sound out into the world via meSpace is a desire that more often than not is far from necessity.

Necessity is an ethical or contractual obligation, or an absolute personal need where without it one will cause undue suffering to themselves. If one is going to cause suffering to themself by not getting their garage band up on MeSpace, they probably should be spending their money on a therapist instead of a mastering engineer.

If however it is a serious and real production for real make-or-break demo purposes or for commercial publication and distribution, it would IMHO be unwise not to invest in proper mastering (even more important would be proper tracking and mixing).

EDIT: On the other side of the coin, I find it amazing and incomprensible how many amateur artists have no problem spending thousands of dollars of their money on gear - whether it be for playing music or recording music - and hundreds of hours of their own time trying to figure out how to save a couple of bucks because they blanch at the idea of spending a couple of hundred bucks on professional service.

If getting something "out to the world" on meSpace is legitimately that important to someone, they shouldn't IMHO be so hip on saving a teeny percentage of the budget they have invested in themselves already to skip having the mastering done right. Penny wise, pound foolish.

G.
 
Last edited:
SouthSIDE Glen said:
If one is going to cause suffering to themself by not getting their garage band up on MeSpace, they probably should be spending their money on a therapist instead of a mastering engineer.
Click to expand...

But for a lot of mySpace emos, the self inflicted suffering is the whole centre point of their art. Therapy would destroy everything!
 
Funny you should ask because I am going to be getting a few songs professionally mastered in a couple of weeks and I went through a lot of what is being talked about here

First up I have no illusions or intentions that my stuff is going to be commercially released so that isn't even a consideration

My deal is my songs are kind of a snapshot of my family/life right now and I want to put five or six together in a cohesive group for posterity like picking the best of the family photos and making a snapfish book (which are really cool and way better than a photo album although they cost $40ish instead of $5 for a phot album from Target) even though they're not Pro photos.
I ended up deciding to get them mastered mainly because as Glen pointed out I put a major effort into writing, rehearsing, re writing, rehearsing again, recording mixing, re recording what I didn't like, mixing again and coming up with a finished mix.
On top of that is the gear investment
So really when I thought about it why wouldn't I want a professional to cast an ear over my efforts in a great room with great equipment and put a couple of touches of polish on them so when I look back on them they sound as good as they can sound. Even if it's taking my c- mixes and making them a C it's worth it

My one caveat to this is that I am fortunate that I can afford to do this but really when I think about it the cost is about the same as the cost of an AI or even scarier less than what I spend on 7up in a year so if I decide to do this everfy couple of years I think it's worthwhile

my $0.02
 
Last edited:
Bristol Posse said:
My deal is my songs are kind of a snapshot of my family/life right now and I want to put five or six together in a cohesive group for posterity like picking the best of the family photos and making a snapfish book
Click to expand...

The photo analogy is a neat one.

In a way, mastering is a bit like picture framing. It's a way of presenting material that sets off the great qualities already present in the material.

Would you send your cell phone snaps to a picture framer? Probably not.

If you have taken some awesome photos that you want to exhibit, then you probably would.
 
Waffleness said:
Hello folks,

Do you think, in the majority of cases, for recording amateurs and hobbyists that mastering by a qualified person is necessary?
Click to expand...
I'd say no.
The answer is kinda in the question. You're focusing on the event taking place around amateurs and hobbyists. Why take it out of the non-professional realm at the mastering stage? I think a professionally produced recording should start at the tracking stage.

Your analogy suggests that too, suggesting that sinking more money into mics when you have a crap room is not worth it.
 
Waffleness said:
Hello folks,

Do you think, in the majority of cases, for recording amateurs and hobbyists that mastering by a qualified person is necessary?

It will make it better, no doubt, but to what extent. Is it analogous to using $400 overheads to using $2000 overheads when recording in a bad room?
Click to expand...

I think your question needs to go one step further and add quantity. Does one song need to be mastered?? How about a collection of songs or an album??

'No' to the first and 'Yes' to the second.

Then you have to ask if there are any special preparations needed to transfer you song(s) to any specific medium.

Mastering is about preparing the songs for a certain media type, then making sure they sound homogenous; Spectrum usage, loudness, spacing or pauses, fades, edits, etc. So that all your songs sound like they belong together.

I had my collection of tunes mastered at Mastering House (a regular here). I could have done it myself, I even tried. I sent them out because I could not find a way to get them to gel together. I also did not have a great listening environment and knew that I had bass issues. I needed a 2nd, more seasoned, pair of ears to fix my mistakes and get the songs to play nice with each other.

If you have one song to put up on the internet, no you don't need mastering. If you have several songs and/or you want to put them on a different medium, you need to master.
 
Yeah, listening to my what I have of my album so far, I think all I can use is a little bit of master EQ and applying a tape sim (not because I'm trying to emulate tape but because I like the effect) and calling it good. And of course balancing levels and such between songs, making sure the EQ is unified. On my songs without guitar, I have found mids tend to lack, so I may boost the mids on those songs, etc.
 
Chili said:
If you have one song to put up on the internet, no you don't need mastering. If you have several songs and/or you want to put them on a different medium, you need to master.
Click to expand...
Excellent point and well put.

If one has a single song that needs "mastering", more likely what it really needs is re-mixing.

G.
 
Waffleness said:
Hello folks,

Do you think, in the majority of cases, for recording amateurs and hobbyists that mastering by a qualified person is necessary?

It will make it better, no doubt, but to what extent. Is it analogous to using $400 overheads to using $2000 overheads when recording in a bad room?
Click to expand...

No. For home recording mastering is a waste of money. Any recording mixed well will do any job you want. If you are going for demos for a record contract, they will only listen to see if they want to waste their time seeing your band live.
 
"Is Mastering necessary?"

It used to be, but the Civil War pretty much put an end to that...
 
It depends on what the intended purpose for the recording is...

Now a day's there are quite a lot of very good and bad sounding recording's coming out of home studio's. The problem is that home studio's for the most part have less than ideal mixing environments and conditions, ie: acoustic treatment, monitor's, trained ears etc.

For any one who questions if they want to get there songs mastered, take one song and try it. See if you like the results. There are many reputable mastering facilities that will do test masters at no cost and at the most you will end up spending $50 to $70 on a song if you like it. If the place you are using is reputable you would hear a vast improvement in the sonic's of the song. So if your putting it up on myspace or just playing it for friends, you will have a better representation of your work.
 
mastering a single is still relevant in this competetive biz. every one wants a share of the green...... u dont want ya release to sound wimpy or odd next to other commercial releases!!! so in this case i normally assume the other musicians' music to be part of the 'album' and master based on that!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top