therage!
Wicked Machine
I just came across this. Some of you guys will remember the author.... 
Mastering has been given far too much "mystery". Mastering is as simple as doing whatever you feel you need to do to compile a collection of songs to create a "master' recording that can be used to duplicate.
If I have one song that I want to make a "master" for, well, things are significantly easier! I can optimize that one song to whatever I want using "enhancements" to audio, then clean up the start and ends. Vola! Burn a Red Book Standard CDR and the song has been mastered!
What get's people going is when they think mastering is some magical art. They "enhance" their song, and find it not sounding up to snuff to "commercial" product! Somehow, people think that all mixes are created equal, and that their mix SHOULD and CAN sound as good as a commecial product if they just knew the 'secrets to mastering'. There are NO secrets to mastering. Indeed, experienced ME's have "tricks" that work for them in the "enhancing stage" of the mastering process. These tricks are usually developed over time and are usually based upon the exact gear they use. I can go much farther into this, but the gist of it is there. No two ME's agree even 50% on approach to any given audio as far as enhancement is concerned. The varity of ME's available reflects the need for different approaches. I have heard Bernie Grundman do some not so great "enhancements" to some audio! He just might not have been the right person for that job.
Anyway...Another point. The better the mix, the easier it is to get "levels" and overall "tonal balance" that is more "comparable" to "commercial" product. The simple fact that most guys are not producing songs, and making mixes that sound anything as close to good as "commercial" product, usually means that no matter who does the audio "enhancements", their product is going to fall far short of being "comparable" to commercial products. All audio is not create equal!
I once posted an mp3 at another website that I "mastered" for a band. The mix was so hot that I was only able to add about 1dB of overall volume via a L2 plugin. The mix itself was already louder than many commercial products I have heard in it's genre! It just plainly didn't need any more. The "secret" I have to share about that mastering job is that the mix held it's own in the volume wars and didn't need much more help.
That is contrary to some other songs I have "mastered" where the mix wasn't so loud overall, and no matter what I did for "enhancements" to the audio, it was not going to compete with "commercial" product in the volume game without some serious distortion artifacts. Trying to do so would actually take all semblence of "punch" out of the mix. Siimply, the mixes sound best not being as loud because of the way they were mixed. I have had the opportunity to hear what I could do against what other ME's did with these same mixes. They elected to allow those distortion artifacts to make the "master", much to the clients dismay!
So, where I am getting at is that if you want a "mastering made simple" type of thing posted, I posted it! Anything else we talk about concerning the mastering process is simply decisions made, and are VERY subjective. Mastering is no different than any other part of the recording process. You will be limited in what you can do based upon what the source is. There WILL be times when you cannot achieve results that you would like. You WILL make compromises. What those compromises will be are subject to the will of the person making the decision of the final result. An experienced ME can quickly ascertain the potential of the audio. They got quick at doing that simply from years of trial and error.
Yes Gidge, I was poking a little funny at BruceBear with some of the other comments. I regret that. But I DO still want to make the point that there is no "secret" to mastering, and that anybody can do it with the most basic of tools. How WELL they do it is open to opinion, and how to improve one's work is varied.
I can add this too. I work on a LOT of projects where it will benefit little from a "pro" mastering it. The expense of sending these products to a $100 per hour + mastering studio would have been better spent spending a little more time at mix and "mastering" it with "lesser" tools. Some would state that it is impossible to "master" a CD in a project studio. I say you are quite wrong. I have mastered two CD's for artists signed on "labels". One of them was mastered in a bedroom that had NO sound treatments at all, and I used the same monitors that I mixed the project with. They were internationally distributed. The label had no real problems with the mastering job I did with Wavelab and plugin's. The label didn't even know what the hell I used, nor questioned it beforehand. The client was quite happy with the job! So, is my professional mastering job invalid because I didn't do it with $20,000 a pair speakers, via $8000 A/D/A's, with $4000 eq's and comps? Hell no! That CD was effectively mastered using the same tools that most guys around here use. Would I have liked to have used $20k speakers, $8K A/D/A's, and $4K eq's/comp's? You bet!!! I do feel I could have achieved slightly better results using them. I also feel that having Bob Ludwig master it might have provided a better master too! But the client didn't have that kind of money. They NEEDED to have their music "mastered", and the tools I had were adequate to get the job done at the price they needed it done at. I was not deterred by the fact that my tools were not what you would commonly find in state of the art mastering facilities. I knew that I could do an adequate job with what I had, and fulfill the clients requirement to have it mastered at the price they paid.
Simply, I mastered a CD in the manner I described above. I added in a little jab at BruceBear in the process. My bad, and I truely regret even adding that in.
Sue me! Or get out a cucumber and teach me a lesson in playing nicely!
I will share what the "average client" wants in regards to mastering.
Of course, they start out wanting to make their mixes sound like what they hear on their favorite bands "big time production" CD. Carefully, I explain that the "sonics" of the "demo" we just recorded will prevent that from EVER happening. I have no dillusions about what I can produce for a band on a $500 recording budget!
Once it is understood that their "demo" is never going to "go there", I explain that I can usually doing some subtle corrective eq, and make the sound "a little louder". Opening one of their mixes in Wavelab and doing a "quickie" is usually enough to give them an idea of the potential.
I also explain that it is possible to achieve an even better "master" at mastering studios that have the more suitable gear for this. But then the price becomes an issue. The cheapest "usable" mastering facility in Portland Oregon goes for $60 an hour. There is another place currently going for $100 an hour, and the best place I know of goes for $120 an hour. I have on hand before and after examples of all of these places if they are interested. I can also tell them with a certain amount of accuracy about how much a "simple" mastering job is going to cost at these places based upon my experience of using them. The cost is usually a minimum of $250. I have done jobs at these places that ran as high as $700.
I explain that our rates, we can get about 80% as good for 1/4 the price. THAT appeals to the average musician who just spent $1000 on a 6 songs demo, who probably makes about $12 an hour at their "day job" or even less!
It is about expectations. Shailat pointed out some good points concerning the job matching the commercial potential of the product. Most of my clients are just going to dupe 100-1000 copies of their "demo", and they are going to be lucky to break even from selling them! It certainly doesn't make sense for them to spend $600-1000 for MASTERING does it?
There are times when it does make sense, and I have no problems whatsoever in reffering the client to a good ME.
I will again make my point. It is mastered once you burned a Red Book Master on CDR! What you did up to that point were decisions made. It is not lost on most that having better tools to make those decisions with will often mean a better final master. But I can tell you too that I have mastered CD's of the same material that other ME's have done too, who had MUCH better gear/room, and my master sounded much better!
I have learned a lot about mixing by learning about mastering too. I will often do a "enhancement" on a mix I am currently working on to get an idea of if the mix is working well or not. Doing this myself means a much better outcome, because once I fix the mix problems that become much more obvious even after a "cheap mastering" job, the "cheap mastering" job I do to the improved audio is much better, or, the ME that does work with the material will be able to do a much better job.
Much like the concept that you can learn a lot about tracking by mixing, you can learn a lot about mixing from learning something about mastering.
I used to take a much more staunch view concerning the whole mastering process, like some others do. For products where that makes sense, there is value in having a competent and well outfitted ME do the work, and I am more apt to not want to even touch the idea of mastering it myself. But I like to eat too. When you work in the "biz", you HAVE to provide something usable to the client. If the client can't afford the $100 an hour mastering studios, and I can provide them with an alternative that offers accepetable results, I gain, and so does the client!
I will touch on another subject that get's brought up a lot. In EVERY mastering sesssion I have ever done with a ME, they have always liked the "suggestions" I had concerning what they do to the audio. They of course offer good suggestions to. The point I am making though is that the "fresh ears" concept is a shakey arguement to use in pushing for having "fresh ears" doing the job. Mostly, the ME is hearing EXACTLY what is wrong with the mixes as I am. From doing a lot of my own mastering, I am skilled/experienced enough in this process to make decent decisions concerning how far to take any enhancements. Usually, I am going to the mastering facility to take advantage of the gear they offer, and less so to take advantage of the ears of the ME. I am in no way discounting the value of their ears. I am just saying that doing the process yourself teaches you a lot about it. It is a worthy endeavor for the average home recording joe to pursue mastering. Hopefully, they will know what they don't know! Hopefully, they will know enough to know that they can at best get "close" to a more "pro" mastering job, and will accept that.
Again, I am not discounting the roll of the ME. I am not suggesting that a guy in his bedroom with Yorkville monitors and VST plugin's can usually do as good of a job as a competent ME with a great gear list. But, I have done mastering just like that (well, I don't use yorkville's, and none of the vst's i have used work as well as the dx plug's i usually use) on CD's for signed artists and the product is out their selling. So, it is possible to do it well yourself.
I AM suggesting that anybody try it out and work at it. It is a valuable learning process, and depending upon your "needs" for mastering, it will provide an accepted product.
Mastering has been given far too much "mystery". Mastering is as simple as doing whatever you feel you need to do to compile a collection of songs to create a "master' recording that can be used to duplicate.
If I have one song that I want to make a "master" for, well, things are significantly easier! I can optimize that one song to whatever I want using "enhancements" to audio, then clean up the start and ends. Vola! Burn a Red Book Standard CDR and the song has been mastered!
What get's people going is when they think mastering is some magical art. They "enhance" their song, and find it not sounding up to snuff to "commercial" product! Somehow, people think that all mixes are created equal, and that their mix SHOULD and CAN sound as good as a commecial product if they just knew the 'secrets to mastering'. There are NO secrets to mastering. Indeed, experienced ME's have "tricks" that work for them in the "enhancing stage" of the mastering process. These tricks are usually developed over time and are usually based upon the exact gear they use. I can go much farther into this, but the gist of it is there. No two ME's agree even 50% on approach to any given audio as far as enhancement is concerned. The varity of ME's available reflects the need for different approaches. I have heard Bernie Grundman do some not so great "enhancements" to some audio! He just might not have been the right person for that job.
Anyway...Another point. The better the mix, the easier it is to get "levels" and overall "tonal balance" that is more "comparable" to "commercial" product. The simple fact that most guys are not producing songs, and making mixes that sound anything as close to good as "commercial" product, usually means that no matter who does the audio "enhancements", their product is going to fall far short of being "comparable" to commercial products. All audio is not create equal!
I once posted an mp3 at another website that I "mastered" for a band. The mix was so hot that I was only able to add about 1dB of overall volume via a L2 plugin. The mix itself was already louder than many commercial products I have heard in it's genre! It just plainly didn't need any more. The "secret" I have to share about that mastering job is that the mix held it's own in the volume wars and didn't need much more help.
That is contrary to some other songs I have "mastered" where the mix wasn't so loud overall, and no matter what I did for "enhancements" to the audio, it was not going to compete with "commercial" product in the volume game without some serious distortion artifacts. Trying to do so would actually take all semblence of "punch" out of the mix. Siimply, the mixes sound best not being as loud because of the way they were mixed. I have had the opportunity to hear what I could do against what other ME's did with these same mixes. They elected to allow those distortion artifacts to make the "master", much to the clients dismay!
So, where I am getting at is that if you want a "mastering made simple" type of thing posted, I posted it! Anything else we talk about concerning the mastering process is simply decisions made, and are VERY subjective. Mastering is no different than any other part of the recording process. You will be limited in what you can do based upon what the source is. There WILL be times when you cannot achieve results that you would like. You WILL make compromises. What those compromises will be are subject to the will of the person making the decision of the final result. An experienced ME can quickly ascertain the potential of the audio. They got quick at doing that simply from years of trial and error.
Yes Gidge, I was poking a little funny at BruceBear with some of the other comments. I regret that. But I DO still want to make the point that there is no "secret" to mastering, and that anybody can do it with the most basic of tools. How WELL they do it is open to opinion, and how to improve one's work is varied.
I can add this too. I work on a LOT of projects where it will benefit little from a "pro" mastering it. The expense of sending these products to a $100 per hour + mastering studio would have been better spent spending a little more time at mix and "mastering" it with "lesser" tools. Some would state that it is impossible to "master" a CD in a project studio. I say you are quite wrong. I have mastered two CD's for artists signed on "labels". One of them was mastered in a bedroom that had NO sound treatments at all, and I used the same monitors that I mixed the project with. They were internationally distributed. The label had no real problems with the mastering job I did with Wavelab and plugin's. The label didn't even know what the hell I used, nor questioned it beforehand. The client was quite happy with the job! So, is my professional mastering job invalid because I didn't do it with $20,000 a pair speakers, via $8000 A/D/A's, with $4000 eq's and comps? Hell no! That CD was effectively mastered using the same tools that most guys around here use. Would I have liked to have used $20k speakers, $8K A/D/A's, and $4K eq's/comp's? You bet!!! I do feel I could have achieved slightly better results using them. I also feel that having Bob Ludwig master it might have provided a better master too! But the client didn't have that kind of money. They NEEDED to have their music "mastered", and the tools I had were adequate to get the job done at the price they needed it done at. I was not deterred by the fact that my tools were not what you would commonly find in state of the art mastering facilities. I knew that I could do an adequate job with what I had, and fulfill the clients requirement to have it mastered at the price they paid.
Simply, I mastered a CD in the manner I described above. I added in a little jab at BruceBear in the process. My bad, and I truely regret even adding that in.
Sue me! Or get out a cucumber and teach me a lesson in playing nicely!
I will share what the "average client" wants in regards to mastering.
Of course, they start out wanting to make their mixes sound like what they hear on their favorite bands "big time production" CD. Carefully, I explain that the "sonics" of the "demo" we just recorded will prevent that from EVER happening. I have no dillusions about what I can produce for a band on a $500 recording budget!
Once it is understood that their "demo" is never going to "go there", I explain that I can usually doing some subtle corrective eq, and make the sound "a little louder". Opening one of their mixes in Wavelab and doing a "quickie" is usually enough to give them an idea of the potential.
I also explain that it is possible to achieve an even better "master" at mastering studios that have the more suitable gear for this. But then the price becomes an issue. The cheapest "usable" mastering facility in Portland Oregon goes for $60 an hour. There is another place currently going for $100 an hour, and the best place I know of goes for $120 an hour. I have on hand before and after examples of all of these places if they are interested. I can also tell them with a certain amount of accuracy about how much a "simple" mastering job is going to cost at these places based upon my experience of using them. The cost is usually a minimum of $250. I have done jobs at these places that ran as high as $700.
I explain that our rates, we can get about 80% as good for 1/4 the price. THAT appeals to the average musician who just spent $1000 on a 6 songs demo, who probably makes about $12 an hour at their "day job" or even less!
It is about expectations. Shailat pointed out some good points concerning the job matching the commercial potential of the product. Most of my clients are just going to dupe 100-1000 copies of their "demo", and they are going to be lucky to break even from selling them! It certainly doesn't make sense for them to spend $600-1000 for MASTERING does it?
There are times when it does make sense, and I have no problems whatsoever in reffering the client to a good ME.
I will again make my point. It is mastered once you burned a Red Book Master on CDR! What you did up to that point were decisions made. It is not lost on most that having better tools to make those decisions with will often mean a better final master. But I can tell you too that I have mastered CD's of the same material that other ME's have done too, who had MUCH better gear/room, and my master sounded much better!
I have learned a lot about mixing by learning about mastering too. I will often do a "enhancement" on a mix I am currently working on to get an idea of if the mix is working well or not. Doing this myself means a much better outcome, because once I fix the mix problems that become much more obvious even after a "cheap mastering" job, the "cheap mastering" job I do to the improved audio is much better, or, the ME that does work with the material will be able to do a much better job.
Much like the concept that you can learn a lot about tracking by mixing, you can learn a lot about mixing from learning something about mastering.
I used to take a much more staunch view concerning the whole mastering process, like some others do. For products where that makes sense, there is value in having a competent and well outfitted ME do the work, and I am more apt to not want to even touch the idea of mastering it myself. But I like to eat too. When you work in the "biz", you HAVE to provide something usable to the client. If the client can't afford the $100 an hour mastering studios, and I can provide them with an alternative that offers accepetable results, I gain, and so does the client!
I will touch on another subject that get's brought up a lot. In EVERY mastering sesssion I have ever done with a ME, they have always liked the "suggestions" I had concerning what they do to the audio. They of course offer good suggestions to. The point I am making though is that the "fresh ears" concept is a shakey arguement to use in pushing for having "fresh ears" doing the job. Mostly, the ME is hearing EXACTLY what is wrong with the mixes as I am. From doing a lot of my own mastering, I am skilled/experienced enough in this process to make decent decisions concerning how far to take any enhancements. Usually, I am going to the mastering facility to take advantage of the gear they offer, and less so to take advantage of the ears of the ME. I am in no way discounting the value of their ears. I am just saying that doing the process yourself teaches you a lot about it. It is a worthy endeavor for the average home recording joe to pursue mastering. Hopefully, they will know what they don't know! Hopefully, they will know enough to know that they can at best get "close" to a more "pro" mastering job, and will accept that.
Again, I am not discounting the roll of the ME. I am not suggesting that a guy in his bedroom with Yorkville monitors and VST plugin's can usually do as good of a job as a competent ME with a great gear list. But, I have done mastering just like that (well, I don't use yorkville's, and none of the vst's i have used work as well as the dx plug's i usually use) on CD's for signed artists and the product is out their selling. So, it is possible to do it well yourself.
I AM suggesting that anybody try it out and work at it. It is a valuable learning process, and depending upon your "needs" for mastering, it will provide an accepted product.
