another mastering question

[Giganova]

hiya all!

I have a question whether I should master myself or give my stuff to a pro mastering facility. The thing is that I am into electronica. I've been told many times that when you submit your stuff to electronic music labels, they actually expect that the songs are already mastered. Dunno if that's true.

In any case, if I'd send something out to a label it'll definitely sound SO much bettahh if its masterd.

I've just downloaded the demo version of Ozone II, bounced one of my tracks (24bit/96kHz) to a stereo track in Logic, imported the stereo track again into Logic and launched Ozone. The mastered track sounded truly amazing!! It seems that I _could_ do the mastering myself with this kind of plugin software, even though it costs a heck of lot of money ($199.- for the downloadable full version of Ozone).

My question now is: is it necessary for electronic music (DnB/jungle/downtempo) to get the songs professionally mastered?

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

If the project is important to you and is intended for more than casual passing of demos to friends, then I strongly suggest you get it mastered professionally....

If you're just "messing around" with stuff for your own learning/amusement, read up on mastering techniques and DIY... (hint: there is A LOT more to the mastering process than simply "making it louder"!)

 

[Giganova]

thanks for your reply, Blue.

I don't just want to "mess around" with mastering or make the songs louder as you said. It seems to me, though, that with some experience and reading, everyone could do a pretty decent mastering job with the powerful software that is available, right?
Wouldn't it be more economic to invest in some decent software and time learning to master rather than spending quite a significant amount of money to get each song professionally mastered?

My question also was: do electronic lables expect professionally mastered songs? After all, people who are creating electronic music are called "DnB/jungle/whatever PRODUCERS", which implies that they come up with a more or less final product that can be cut.

 

[pipelineaudio]

we're living in the age of "the million dollar demo"! professional mastering CANT hurt, no matter who you are sending it to

 

[crosstudio]

Giganova would you rather deal with an artist that can get everything done on his/her own or an artist who you have to spend money on?

if you and another artist both have songs that the [record label, tv show, ad agency, stage show] like but the other artist has a more polished track, then the other artist is going to get the job.

 

[Giganova]

> professional mastering CANT hurt

it sure hurts my wallet ;-)

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

...It seems to me, though, that with some experience and reading, everyone could do a pretty decent mastering job with the powerful software that is available, right?

No... I don't think so.... first of all - mastering studio's signal chains run into the 6-digit mark in cost, just to ensure there is no degradation of the signal.

But in any case, you're making the presumption that it's the tools that make the mastering process, when in fact, it's the engineer's skill.

The experienced engineer knows when to touch a mix (and by how much), and when not to... if YOU mixed it, there's is no way for you do this analysis yourself, you're too close to your own project to be that objective.

But most importantly, the experienced mastering engineer has heard many, many good/bad mixes and therefore knows what constitutes "good sound" -- this skill allows them to very objectively identify/correct any problem areas in your mix.

This last point can't be stressed enough and it's what trips most DIY'rs up (since it's not about the gear) -- a 3rd set of ears hearing/analyzing your project is extremely important for critical projects.

As someone else here pointed out, a brain surgeon would never perform brain surgery on themselves....!