mastering for $400 possible?

[AGCurry]

Well, I think it's possible to find good deals on mastering. I'd venture to say that there a lot of guys who can do a good job for not much money, but they aren't advertising. And I certainly don't mean to disparage any of the guys on this board who do a good job and charge market prices.

My band's CD, which I finished producing about 2-1/2 years ago, was in need of mastering. Our drummer had done a solo album in the 1990s, recorded, mixed, and mastered by a local guy. So I called him up, took the mix to him, and his price for the whole thing was $85.

He did master "out of the box." I was a little concerned about this, but he did a master on one of our tunes and it sounded great.

After listening through the mix once, he suggested that I go home, bring the overall levels up, and add a touch of reverb to the solo voices. I took his advice, brought him back the new mix, and we were done in an afternoon.

Somebody else might have done a better job, but it
sounded like a professional job to me. He seemed to have great ears and a lot of experience.

Here's a link to another album he was involved with (the guy's name is Evan Smalley):

http://www.garageband.com/song?|pe1|S8LTM0LdsaSnYlm3Z2w

 

[ecktronic]

And did you get a load of those paint jobs?!?
I don't want to break this to you the wrong way, but no one is going to be able to establish anything about sound quality using MySpace. I'm not saying your work is bad - I'm not saying your work is good. I'm saying that the sound quality of the samples on MySpace's hoffiric sounding player is worthless is someone is trying to assess anything about quality. If you want to post samples somewhere (which is a fine idea - especially if there is some sort of "before-and-after" approach), get a website somewhere. It's pennies per day and *you* control the sound quality.

Yeah you are right about Mspaces MP3 quality. It used to be worse. I think it sued to be 96k and it has in the past 6 months or so gone up to 128k I would say by listening to the quality of the MP3s.

Eck

 

[ecktronic]

Well, I think it's possible to find good deals on mastering. I'd venture to say that there a lot of guys who can do a good job for not much money, but they aren't advertising. And I certainly don't mean to disparage any of the guys on this board who do a good job and charge market prices.

My band's CD, which I finished producing about 2-1/2 years ago, was in need of mastering. Our drummer had done a solo album in the 1990s, recorded, mixed, and mastered by a local guy. So I called him up, took the mix to him, and his price for the whole thing was $85.

He did master "out of the box." I was a little concerned about this, but he did a master on one of our tunes and it sounded great.

After listening through the mix once, he suggested that I go home, bring the overall levels up, and add a touch of reverb to the solo voices. I took his advice, brought him back the new mix, and we were done in an afternoon.

Somebody else might have done a better job, but it
sounded like a professional job to me. He seemed to have great ears and a lot of experience.

Here's a link to another album he was involved with (the guy's name is Evan Smalley):

http://www.garageband.com/song?|pe1|S8LTM0LdsaSnYlm3Z2w

Listened the that link you sent above. The master sounds good. A little bright in my opinion, but thats personal preference I suppose.

Eck

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

He did master "out of the box." I was a little concerned about this, but he did a master on one of our tunes and it sounded great.

There are three things that seperate the signal of your experience out from the noise of today's dime-a-dozen econo-mastering clip joints.

The bellweather one is the fact that he did indeed work OTB. This may have concerned you, but to me at least I immediately know he's not just some hack with cracked Waves on his dormroom laptop. (He still may have been a hack with an analog desk in his doom room, but that would have at least been funky enough to hold my interest for a couple of extra beats .)

The second is that you were actually able to work with him personally, to go and check him out. He wasn't just some cutout Flash template website with an e-mail address and nothing else to go on.

And the third big one was that he recognized the difference between mixing and mastering and knew what mastering is all about. He told you to go and fix the mix before he'd do his job.

G.

 

[SonicAlbert]

There are three things that seperate the signal of your experience out from the noise of today's dime-a-dozen econo-mastering clip joints.

The bellweather one is the fact that he did indeed work OTB. This may have concerned you, but to me at least I immediately know he's not just some hack with cracked Waves on his dormroom laptop. (He still may have been a hack with an analog desk in his doom room, but that would have at least been funky enough to hold my interest for a couple of extra beats .)

The second is that you were actually able to work with him personally, to go and check him out. He wasn't just some cutout Flash template website with an e-mail address and nothing else to go on.

And the third big one was that he recognized the difference between mixing and mastering and knew what mastering is all about. He told you to go and fix the mix before he'd do his job.

G.

Agreed on all these points. Very important distinctions.

 

[deluci]

.

this forum is so cool. i appreciate this disscussion.
yes, quality is the most important facter in this decision, which is why ive had my album finished for over a month and still havent sent it off to be mastered. i guess im looking for that perfect balance of great quality with a price that i can realisticaly offord. (this cd is my baby and i want to give it the best life possible. )
....masteringhouse- i clicked on the "free evaluation" button on your website, but nothing prompted me to upload a sample. anyway, you now have my email so be sure to let me know how to send you my song. your mastering credits are inpressive, plus you seem like a nice person- which is important in my oppinion.
...ecktronic- the samples on myspace sound good. i know they are mp3, but i get the gist of it. id like to find out more info.... possibly about some mixing, do i have to have a my space account to email you? anyway, let me know somehow how i could possible get a sample of your work, if that's possible.
........i couldn't find any info on even smally.