A (BBB) "type Of Certification For Mastering Studio's

J

jaynm26

New member
hey, shot this in GS see what you guys think

Sorry guys, could be total talking out of my ass here but was reading this post And many others like it where the professional mastering engineers are being "flushed out" (for lack of a better word) by a non professional market. I have the utmost respect for mastering engineers being an intern at a mastering studio years ago and seeing how many years, of training and honing skills and tens of thousands of dollars spent to build these amazing mastering studios. All so yo guys can service the music world and most importantly do what you love and contribute your portion to the music universes, and to have all of this interfered by a non experienced, non educated "self proclaimed" mastering engineer with a DAW, a laptop, some hacked plugins and some youtube clips is beyond horrific. I mean as I see this happen I always throw around ideas in my head of how to stop this and protect you guys. This is total hypothetical but you know how business have certain licensing and certification what if the same was applied to mastering eng's & studio's to kind of weed out the pro's from the others? I mean something along the lines of the BBB but specifically for mastering engineers & studio's. Maybe even some type of symbol/logo that given out as an audio mastering certification by the organization to give legitimacy to a specific mastering eng I dont know maybe ran & organized by the NFMC or AFM. Just some type of certification that sets the real mastering houses apart. Now this would be no cure for the obvious problem but maybe it could help *identify* the Professionals from the Non.
Thoughts? feelings? views?
 
Is this a real problem?
I always figured that the self proclaimed young online types probably weren't really taking any business away from the time honoured professionals.

I mean, the hip hop kid paying $15 a track mastering from a website was never gonna be getting a quote from M-Master or the likes, regardless of cheap alternatives.

I think true professionals are identified by several things including:
Their pricing, their setup, and their past client list.

The latter is certificate enough for me; You can't really fake that one.
 
I was a member of the 3B for a while... They still have their files on me (never a registered complaint, no credit issues, etc. thankyouverymuch), NARAS, AES, NRA, HOG, etc. Don't know if any of them do me any good, although I suppose the AES lends at least a tiny amount of verisimilitude - maybe...(?)

There's a word I don't get to use often...

I really don't know if there could be an effective governing body that would lend more credibility than a list of happy clients (although even the "credit list" aggregation people can't be counted on). I suppose the bigger "problem" is weeding out the "non-truthful" types (for example, the dozens of "people" that have hijacked and stolen my site over the years - Photos, gear list, client list occasionally, the entire site occasionally... Heck, even the name of the company more than once -- I don't own massivemastering.com, .net, .org, massive-mastering.com, .net, .org, etc., etc. just for fun).
I mean, the hip hop kid paying $15 a track mastering from a website was never gonna be getting a quote from M-Master or the likes, regardless of cheap alternatives.
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Oh yes they do. And they want free samples (that in itself is what's bringing the whole industry down at this point - but that's for another thread), or they want to "let me in on this next big thing if you're willing to do it for free" and on and on and on.
 
Massive Master said:
Oh yes they do. And they want free samples (that in itself is what's bringing the whole industry down at this point - but that's for another thread), or they want to "let me in on this next big thing if you're willing to do it for free" and on and on and on.
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Fair enough, I didn't word that well.

Sure they'll get quotes, but were they ever going to pay you top rate?

I'm guessing (hoping) you don't lose much business to these $15 guys.
 
I doubt there is any kind of sanctioned body that could 'qualify' a mastering engineer or a mix engineer or producer. But I suppose, if they convened among themselves they could create a peer-group that sets standards for qualification or certification. They would have to devise some sort of metric system. I bet record sales would be near the top of the list.
 
Just take it all the way and don't allow anyone to do anything or make any money from anything unless they're part of some ridiculous union or committee.

So what if some hack can get people to pay him to use his cracked plugs? What about people that do mixing online? Stop them too? What about people that sell drum tracks online? Stop them! Stop everyone that's not part of some "union".

Ridiculous.
 
Reputation is the best protection you can get.

And it is the only protection you need.

A laptop and a handful of cracked plugins? Who cares? How long are they going to last?

They might suck in a few gullible wannabes, but, in the end, if they don't deliver a product that is fit for purpose, they will lose customers.
 
jaynm26 said:
Yeah but they destroy the market, cost and price of mastering studio's have been driven waayyy down.
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The same thing happened when desktop publishing emerged in the late eighties.

Anyone with an Apple Mac and a printer could churn out posters, pamphlets and other junk. It rocked the printing industry a bit . . . but most of the stuff done at home was rubbish, and people soon realised that.

The market recovered, though somewhat changed.

These are short term phenomena.
 
Ok so what's "fraud"? Is some dummy with his cracked plugs a fraud? If he's giving someone what they want, then what's the big deal? The legality of pirated software aside, is he doing anything wrong by offering a service and people taking him up on it? The internet is a big place, but it's not that big of a place. News of clowns gets around. If he does a poor job or doesn't provide a good value, he will get raped in cyberspace. Do a search for "klops" or "joey dahlia" and watch what happens.
 
Chili said:
I doubt there is any kind of sanctioned body that could 'qualify' a mastering engineer or a mix engineer or producer. .
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+1 I know players with Masters degrees in music performance from top schools that I won't hire for a wedding group.

Having a piece of paper saying "Joe's a good music/recording guy" is like having a piece of paper that says "Joe's good at basketball". You either got game or you don't, a piece of paper doesn't mean squat. I've known too many people with "credentials" that can stink up the joint.
 
I was thinking more of the guys who steal my website (not that that's exclusive to me, but for some reason I don't see too many others dishing out five-figures in legal fees every other year to get them to take it all down) and replace the word "MASSIVE" with (whatever...), using fake gear lists, client lists, etc., I don't even want to start about cracked software, although I do hope there's a special level in hell for those who regularly profit from it, as anti-piracy measures have also cost me a small fortune and made my life miserable.

Had a dongle fail once on a Saturday -- Client flying in on Monday afternoon. Had to pay for a courier in NY to fly me a new dongle before the client arrived. Thanks, software pirates...

Spent the better part of TODAY trying to get plugs and programs to work again after a rather minor (if there is such a thing) read/write error on my main machine. Had to re-register everything with an iLok, CodeMeter (WIBU) and -- whatever the other one is (used to be Steinberg, now it's something else). eLicenser or something. I'll be here till at least midnight because of 7 hours of companies fending off pirates.

(I'm sorry - I thought I didn't want to start on cracked software...)
 
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