Is Mastering necessary?

MasteringMills said:
I don't know many mixing engineers who can balance both mindsets.
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That's an interesting observation that often works both ways. I have had a few different mastering engineers tell me that they just didn't have the patience for mixing, or that they found mastering to be much more challenging or fun. As a mixing engineer myself, I feel just the opposite; for me mixing is where all the action is.

But it's an important point; I'd rather have a MaE who was dedicated to his craft doing the mastering for me than a MiE who was perhaps competent enough but just looked at mastering as more of a necessary task than an ideal vocation. And vice versa.

G.
 
MasteringMills said:
I don't know many mixing engineers who can balance both mindsets.
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I'd agree that different mindsets are involved, and that balancing both is difficult.

However, it is possible to switch from one to the other . . . and there are probably many in this forum who do just that. Their success will vary (as mine does).

In support of MasteringMills, I can offer the following anecdote.

If someone sends me an article to proof, my mind shifts into editor mode, and grammatical, syntactical and typographic mistakes stare at me like stunned possums in the headlights. I don't find any particular difficulty in doing this painstaking, detailed work. However, if I write an article myself, it is likely to be full of the errors I find easy to see in other people's work. More importantly, even when I focus myself on the task of editing, I will miss the mistakes I have made, because my brain reads what's in my mind,and not what's on the paper. It takes a very determined and deliberate effort on my part to be able to read properly for this task.

I think the same applies to mastering. You have to remove as much as possible yourself from the emotional attachment and memory of the mix, and learn to listen to what's actually there, not what your brain says is there. Time helps.
 
You obviously not run across his dozens and dozens of one-line nonsensical posts on year-old threads...

He's a "passive spammer" -- Trying to get a lot of posts with reverse links.

Although I see the Mods are on to him (his sig file is missing).
 
Glad to see that's over.

For awhile there I thought we had a flurry of new/interesting posts...then I saw they were a few years old.
 
Don't forget to master your instrument, and master your material, before you send your files off to an engineer.
 
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