Should you master a song if you only plan to release it as a single?

The current nonsense misuse of the word mastering is to sell more expensive services or to sound more important when you say you did it.

Who are you talking about...exactly?

You do realize that there are mastering engineers who were doing it 30-40 years ago, maybe more...and some are still doing it.
They evolved over the years...the process evolved...the term evolved with them.

They way you say it...it's as though you think everyone that masters these days, just started doing it a couple of months ago, and they're just making everything up.
If you're talking about people who offer mastering for $5...and who work out of Facebook, and the like...those are not mastering engineers.
You need to look at what the pros are doing currently, the ones who have big name clients, who do mastering in the modern sense...and they know more about mastering than whatever it is you're selling from 60 years ago.

You just keep selling some conspiracy theory kind of perspective...without ever actually saying anything specific. Like I said, you dodge specific questions and/or fail to provide specific answers to them....yet you try to come off like only you are in the know, about "something", which is pure vagueness, at best.
 
Whats a kilometre?

I accept change that makes sense. The current nonsense misuse of the word mastering is to sell more expensive services or to sound more important when you say you did it.

THat's a plain lie. I use the word mastering because it is what I do. I take the final mix, where the sound has been balanced and set out across a sound stage, and match it to reference tracks and get the LUFS to the appropriate level for the medium the songs are to be published on, and in the case of an album, I balance the levels of all the tracks so that the listener can set his/her volume level and not have to keep altering it to get the right volume for each track.

The second process is known in 2019 as Mastering, and no matter how long you chew your balls to say it isn't, no matter how insulting, condescending and arrogant you are, no matter how tight your 1960s denims and how outrageous your 1970s haircut is, that will be the case. I master the songs before I release them.

Semantics aside, the use of language changes over time. People no longer catch Omnibuses, though, in fact, the bus they sit on IS an Omnibus.

You are wrong, and unpleasant with it.

NONE of that is done to get money out of anyone other than the listener buying my music. I am NOT selling "more expen
 
Back then there were NO singles.
Totally lost me right there. You've really been at this for 60 years...? NO singles? The 70's? The 80's? The 90's? Damn near everything was available as a single. Even during the "album era" there were scads of "cassingles" and 45's and CD-singles. Not to mention the 60's and earlier when singles were far more popular than albums...

Again - The medium has changed.

When I was a kid and I wanted tea, I'd take a small pot, fill it with water and put it on the stove for several minutes over a flame. Now, I take a mug full of water and put it in proximity to an active magnetron for about a minute. In this case, the method has changed but the result is the same. Two totally different methods that physically have little to do with each other. But it's still called "making a mug of hot water."
 
Mastering focuses on idiosyncrasies in each track with an eye and an ear toward their progression. It takes in all the tracks as a whole. You want the levels of the songs to be similar throughout and a general sense of cohesiveness to your recording. You want to flow from start to finish.

True...but it can also focus on the idiosyncrasies of a single song to adjust/balance from start to finish. It's done every day, and has been for years.


Totally lost me right there. You've really been at this for 60 years...? NO singles? The 70's? The 80's? The 90's? Damn near everything was available as a single. Even during the "album era" there were scads of "cassingles" and 45's and CD-singles. Not to mention the 60's and earlier when singles were far more popular than albums...

Yeah...I too was wondering WTF he was talking about. I still have hundreds of old 45 *SINGLES* in box somewhere from the '60s, '70s that came out of jukeboxes from my family's businesses back then. If anything...the single was the bigger thing back then for many years, before the album format became more prevalent...and now it's kinda gone back to more singles.
 
It's funny...and obvious...how throughout the thread you dodge specific questions and/or fail to provide specific answers.
Everything with you is vague and diversionary, or just a repetition of some generic viewpoint no matter what the discussion.

Yup.....the responses to questions asked of him are anything but specific or clear. On the other hand......his opinions are not opinions......they're facts......apparently.....which seem to bear repeating over and over. Of course......that's only my....opinion.
 
Misuse of the term evolved so many people have no idea what mastering really is or what some 'mastering' person would do for them.

Mixing, Pre mastering, Media mastering. No confusion or misleading people.

Now you're just adding more noise to the signal.

"Pre-mastering" is pretty much what a lot of people do when they finish mixing and/or towards the end of their mixing, because they want to tweak thing to hear what it might sound like AFTER proper mastering....and/or to maybe prep their mix somewhat for the formal mastering.

Mastering...is well...mastering.
It's NOT just "media mastering"...it's song/music mastering. The media/format consideration is just part of that.

Again...let go of whatever was 60 years ago, and accept what everyone else has, though for most, it was a natural evolution...for you it might be more of a revolution if you're still clinging to stuff from 60 years ago.

I remember how things were 20-30-40 years back, and there were various changes that caused the evolution of music production, and specifically, mastering.
If you chose to reject every one of those changes when they occurred...that's your problem...it has nothing to do with people now making up things.
In fact, you're the one that's making things up the most here, IMO, because you refuse to accept that things have evolved, and you cling to what was. :)
 
Believe that if you wish. There is no song mastering. Mixing does that quite well.

Pre mastering is for a group of songs to make them the best possible as a group.


OK...so you're just going to keep repeating the same thing endlessly.
Great "discussion/debate". :p

So then in essence, your view is that the pro mastering engineers doing this for a living, often serving more serious clients, where there's a lot on the line...
...they're all wrong...they're just "making it up"...they don't understand what mastering is really about...
...but you do, and you're right, because...because...ahh...because you keep repeating that you are, based on something that was 60 years ago...?


Yeah, OK...whatever. :rolleyes:
 
Anybody can call themselves anything. And some fools will believe them.

:facepalm:

Yeah...all those professional mastering engineers are fooling everyone in the high-end music industry...except you.

:laughings:

I think there's only one fool in this thread.
 
This whole thread is an argument over semantics. Frikkin lame. The real guts of the topic is what do you do if you have only one tune to put out.

What DO you do?

I bump the volume up with a limiter, might run it through an EQ to apply some global tweaks. Render to MP3 and call it good.

Back to the semantics argument: I call the process "Finalizing" instead of mastering. Feel free to use the term. :rolleyes:
 
This whole thread is an argument over semantics.

Yes...partly it was about wording...but there's also the debate about how mastering do these days, isn't true mastering (or something like that)...compared to the "real" mastering they did 60 years ago.
Also, the other part of the debate is that you can't/don't master single songs...you just mix them...(or something like that).

:D
 
Just because you use the word to describe what you do does not mean that you are actually doing real mastering.
If you are preparing for vinyl then you are medium mastering.
If you are preparing a group of songs to work best together then you are pre mastering.
If you are doing a single then you are mixing and calling that mastering may make you feel important but you are not mastering.

No sir. The LIE was accusing me of being motivated to use the term for profit and ego
The current nonsense misuse of the word mastering is to sell more expensive services or to sound more important when you say you did it.

I do it for myself. I do it as a favour to friends. I don't charge.

And just to be very clear: I AM mastering, both singles and albums and I am NOT misusing the term. I'm doing the same as most Mastering Engineers do these days.

Oh, and the second part of the lie: Unlike you, I don't have a need to say I'm doing something (or create a false argument) to "sound more important". I am - in the greater scheme of things - unimportant. In my humble opinion, that's way better than being utterly and completely irrelevant. That's what you are doing to mastering engineers.

So I depart the thread here.
No-one on here is going to get it through to you. I think your brain must be fossilised.
I just hope the next time you use a train, or catch a bus, or fly on a plane, you don't accuse the guy up front of not being a driver or a pilot. They are those things, but they don't do it the same was as their predecessors did 60 years ago. Just as Mastering Engineers ARE Mastering Engineers, just doing it differently than their predecessors.

SHEESH!

Go Well.
 
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you are entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong it is.

It's not an "opinion"...it's a fact....there really are pro mastering engineers who do it for a living in the high-end music industry, who regularly master singles for top clients, for top $$, every day.

I don't know anymore what it is you are actually debating here, other than to just keep stirring the pot....?

Sure...there are going to be no-name guys who claim to do mastering, etc...but the internet is full of people who claim stuff. This is nothing new.
Heck...you've made a lot of claims with ZERO proof, other than your words...so why are you any different?

That doesn't change the fact that mastering of singles is done by true mastering engineers every day...or the fact that the term mastering has evolved with the business of music production.
The guys doing it in their bedroom studios for fun or even for some small profit are simply following what the pros are doing.
Whether they are successful at it or not...is irrelevant to the OP and the thread discussion.
 
you are entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong it is.

---------- Update ----------



And those fools get taken by people who know how to mislead them by misusing words.

I've always wondered what it must be like to be right all the time.
 
Not getting into a politics debate here.......sticking to the subject at hand........but your assumption is that if an opinion is held by a majority........you know.........most people........then it is likely wrong? And to interpret another way........it has to be wrong because the majority of people are inferior to you? Well then.........what a terrible.....bitter.....dark......lonely struggle your life must be. Too bad.

I have a question for you. Why did you join this forum? Was it to learn...........or to spread your wisdom?

(I've got $1 on "spread his wisdom")
 
There may be some.

There are a lot of wannabees fleecing others too.

Would you call generic 'mastering' using a formula and automated software truly mastering when only PC changes anything.

One person fleecing another has nothing to do with the OP and discussion here....which was about mastering singles.
Also...when you say "there may be some", I guess that's your "out" rather than just admitting that singles mastering is done every day in countless pro mastering facilities around the world on pro projects. Then you imply that the majority is made up of wannabees just fleecing people.
:facepalm:

Sorry dude...but that is such a dumb sounding, almost bitter, comment and view that you have...and I'm sure it's not because you actually believe all those pros are wannabes fleecing everyone...rather you intentionally keep pushing the discussion in that direction simply to avoid agreeing with what we all know to be the true reality.

AFA generic, algorithmically derived mastering processes...what's that got to do with the OP and discussion...?
Yeah, that stuff exists...but that stuff is for guys think you only need to mix, and you can just add a little more processing at the end, and that true mastering is not needed...kinda like what you're saying.
 
There is ample reason to be bitter I suppose if you have been ripped off by someone claiming to be a 'mastering engineer' that did basically nothing other than turn shit up and add some eq. There are a shit ton of people out there doing that.

But if you actually look for someone that does it for a living, has the money to build the correct environment and gear, has an ear to do a product the justice it deserves, and has product to show that his work is worthy, then you would have just completed the first step in losing your attitude about what is common to you.

I am seriously questioning why you are here on this forum telling people to get off your lawn. Are you older and more grumpy than I? :) I doubt it.

But I do not go around telling people what the 'right way' is. I only interject my experience so others can learn from it.

You should do the same whome.

There is so much more out there to be learned. Every day I get better myself. It is called life man.

Cheers!
 
I have to disagree.
The fleecers tell people that they need to master singles, which is nonsense as you master albums not singles, and they should buy that service from the person out to fleece them.

I say again....there are countless pro mastering engineers, with high-end clients in the pro music industry who are *MASTERING SINGLES* every day.

You're basically saying they are all "fleecing" the clients...that there is no need for them to have those singles mastered...?

So your expertise and knowledge exceeds that of all those industry pros...you know better, right. :rolleyes:
 
So your expertise and knowledge exceeds that of all those industry pros...you know better, right. :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]

I got $1 on the answer being: "Of course I do!!!"
 
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