***Everyone asking about mastering***read this***

Thunder33

Thunder33

New member
http://www.taxi.com/faq/recording/mastering.html



here is a short article with the basics on the subject. It was written by a pro and it is short and to the point.






P.S. Ed, I have you on ignore so don't bother trying to get me fired up with you antics. I just thought this would be helpful to answer some basic questions for the 15 people a day who sign up here wanting to know how to master in their bedroom. Of course, 14 of them will never use the search button so it will be lost in a matter of days. So maybe there will be some great debate on here to keep it bumped to the top! Fire away!
 
I suppose it sets a few things straight but its the same as all the articles i have read about mastering.

They imply that your pissing in the wind unless you have 100k plus setup and 30 years experience and 1000 albums to your name.

It has the elitist feel to it as matering does.

Its like unless you have this and this then dont you be naughty and try this yourself cause we need our income = bullshit.

What does it matter anyhow when it gets handed over to these guys with 100k set ups and then they smash the living shit out of it with insane loudness cause the client says so.
It might as well av had some nob with izotope on it.





Then again. People that actually care about there music will do the right thing anyway, and go with respected houses like Brads and Massives and the other talented gents that frequent here.




















Please dont hate me i have a small penis.
 
A great read. But I can't help feeling the same way as pingu to be honest.

And here lies the biggest problem with me

Let me admit that I am completely biased when it comes to the importance of having your project professionally mastered
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Don't get me wrong, if I ever get into BigMoney then I would like nothing more than to spread it around a little but until then I'll be doing my best to be composer/musician/tracker/mixer/masterer


i have a small penis
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can't be as small as mine
 
So pretty much, this is just a published version of the cookie cutter reply to any post inquiring about mastering. People go out of their way to express their opinion that the average DIY'r can't master worth a shit, rather than offer advice, tips, pointers, or even explain the actual process of mastering instead of telling them why they can't do it. (I.E. You need 23423423423 dollars worth of gear or 234233 years experience.)


P.S. Not bashing Thunder, just spewing random generalized BS ;)
 
Mastering requires a different set of skills than producing, playing, or engineering. The equipment is also very different. Short story:

A few years ago, after the AES show in L.A., a few of us wound up going out to Jay Frigoletto's mastering studio in L.A. to listen to some stuff and just hang out. There was Jay, myself, my son Alex (a very good engineer/producer in his own right), and a couple of other top notch producer/engineers (whose work you have in your CD collection, or you've heard on TV a million times).

Jay had a beautiful room with five big Meyers speakers set up for 5.1 work, and the room had been carefully built for very flat response. He put on a selection of some music he was currently working on - a symphony orchestra, with full choir and the sound filled the room - very lush.

After it finished, everybody oohed and ahhed over the sound, except me. I said to Jay, "What's with the distortion on the choir?" Everyone looked shocked, except Jay, who replied, "I know, it's driving me crazy; I haven't been able to get it out of there." Nobody else in the room heard it, except me and Jay.

OK, two of the other people were basically into rock, but the other guy did symphonic and choir work all the time, yet none of the three heard any problems. Played on a poorer system, the choir distortion might not have been noticable, but the point is the same: it takes a different set of skills and equipment to master an album properly.

Yes, you might get 60 or 70% of the way there at home, but a lot of it will be luck. There are good reasons mastering engineers get big bucks, and they earn every penny.
 
A revealing tale, Mr Gerst

I find that the more I record, the better my ears get...

...and that there is ALWAYS someone with better ones!

For those who think mastering is elitist: don't get your recordings mastered.

But, don't pretend that what you're doing to them is "mastering."
 
The two most common problems when folks pose questions and answers on boards like this one, IMHO, are that 1) they often don't specify the particular style or genre of music they are working with and assume that everybody is talking about the same style, and 2) they often also make similar assumptions about what they intend on doing with the results of their efforts once they leave the studio.

When people talk about squashing dynamics or whether a pro mastering house is worth it, they really need to specify the above unspecified assumptions, because it makes a difference. As much as many people here would like to believe otherwise, not everybody is making a heavy metal record for play on their college radio station.

If that is what one is up to, then they probably don't have a pressing (pun intended) need to send their stuff to a pro mastering suite. If they are just making a demo for jobs on the local small club circuit or MP3s to stick on their MySpace website, pro mastering is probably a luxury (or an unnecessary evil, depending on your feelings about it.)

If, however, one is making a recording to wind up as an indie label release for resale and/orfor distribution to major market stations and/or syndicated radio or 'net productions, and especially if the sonic needs of the genre of music are more demanding than your average angst metal mix, then (IMHO, anyway) one should seriously consider handing the mastering phase off to a second set of ears other than the mixing engineer, preferably in another room than where the mixing was done as well. The new perspective can make or break the quality of the final coat of polish.

Ther's a lot of stories on this board about bad experiences with MEs or mastering houses in general. Of COURSE there will be such stories. On the musicians boards the musicians who do not do their own recording bitch about mixing engineers the same way. How many of us had to go through two, three or four auto mechanics before we finally found one we like, trust and stick with? How many of us were less than perfectly happy with the doctor that our neighbor recommended to us and switched doctors after the second visit? Or plumbers? Or dentists? Hell, when was the last time you picked the first guitarist you heard to be in your band?

MEs are no different than any other profession from plumbing to auto repair to general practitioner. There are good ones and bad ones, and there are ones that you'll get along with and ones that you won't. But when you find one who speaks the same language as you and who you know you can trust to know both what he's doing and what you want, there is no substitute for a pro mastering engineer and studio for getting that "professional sound" that everybody who comes here strives for.

G.
 
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Harvey Gerst said:
After it finished, everybody oohed and ahhed over the sound, except me. I said to Jay, "What's with the distortion on the choir?" Everyone looked shocked, except Jay, who replied, "I know, it's driving me crazy; I haven't been able to get it out of there." Nobody else in the room heard it, except me and Jay.
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I love jay, He lives here in New England now and I will only go to him becuae of that godlike ear

{edit} he is also the most down to earth non-elitist nice guy I have ever met in the industry, fun to drink w/ too... if u read this jay were bringing more patron this weekend ;)
 
Cyanide-Depende said:
I love jay, He lives here in New England now and I will only go to him becuae of that godlike ear

{edit} he is also the most down to earth non-elitist nice guy I have ever met in the industry, fun to drink w/ too... if u read this jay were bringing more patron this weekend ;)
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And Jay's a killer pianist.
 
Wow, just another horseshit "you gotta get your cheap home demo mastered by uber-bucks guy"! :rolleyes:

I love the laziness of people just relying on the same ol' reply like that.

I didn't know how to master CD's when I started to do it. I just did it and learned. Now, people pay me money sometimes to do it. I don't pretend that what I do is the top of the game either! BUT, for around the $100-140 range for many clients who have a demo, I am providing a KILLER job for them.

Offering stupid articles like this is SO against the spirit of this site. I can't believe retards post rubbish like this at all! It is infuriating!!!

Listen guys, no, you will not get huge big time results mastering at home. But, you didn't track and/or mix with big time results either doing a home demo. There is absolutely NO good reason that you should pay for mastering a demo like that!

Get a good basic two track editor and some decent plugins and check your expectations at the door!

Those of you who choose to post rubbish like this article, why don't you go add up all the money you have wasted mastering crap that didn't even sell 200 disks! ;)

Mastering made simple:

1 - EQ to taste and/or as needed.
2 - Compress to taste.
3 - Limit to taste.
4 - Sample rate convert if needed.
5 - Dither to 16 bits and save.
6 - Burn a disk.

Vola! You have done just about what 95% of all "mastering" engineers will do. Most likely, like them, you will NOT get your stuff to sound even 80% close to commercial released music. But again, even high dollar ME's cannot polish your turd much. Trust me, I have re-mastered whole CD's that some "big time" pro's did, and butchered severely because they tried to make the mixes something they weren't. It was pathetic to listen to, and I was amazed that these guys had little respect for the financial sacrifice the client made expecting some amazing thing out of it because of all the fucking hype these over-priced jackasses charge!
 
I love that Ford went ahead and posted even though I told him I had him on ignore. I can only imagine the level of fired upness that he achieved on this one. Good times.
 
Ford Van said:
Wow, just another horseshit "you gotta get your cheap home demo mastered by uber-bucks guy"! :rolleyes:

Listen guys, no, you will not get huge big time results mastering at home. But, you didn't track and/or mix with big time results either doing a home demo. There is absolutely NO good reason that you should pay for mastering a demo like that!

Get a good basic two track editor and some decent plugins and check your expectations at the door!

Most likely, like them, you will NOT get your stuff to sound even 80% close to commercial released music.
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Ed, you're right on!! People here expect to do commercial release quality mastering at home, with a couple of cheap speakers, and some bootleg software and plug-ins. But the source (the music), and their listening environment may not be all that great, so, why spend the bucks for mastering, especially if you're just gonna be giving the albums away?

Unless a group is pretty sure they can sell a thousand CDs, I'll advise them against outside mastering. I think we're both on the same page here.

Yes, you can do your own mastering and it can help, but good mastering is worth it, if the music and sales quantities justifies it.
 
Harvey Gerst said:
Ed, you're right on!! People here expect to do commercial release quality mastering at home, with a couple of cheap speakers, and some bootleg software and plug-ins. But the source (the music), and their listening environment may not be all that great, so, why spend the bucks for mastering, especially if you're just gonna be giving the albums away?

Unless a group is pretty sure they can sell a thousand CDs, I'll advise them against outside mastering. I think we're both on the same page here.

Yes, you can do your own mastering and it can help, but good mastering is worth it, if the music and sales quantities justifies it.
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Yup, I agree with all that Harvey.

Trying to master your own music will also give you a LOT of insight into the flaws of your mixing! :) Mixing your own music will give you a LOT of insight into your flaws in tracking! Etc....;)
 
Just like eating your own chilli and then smelling the resulting gaseous emitions ... will reveal a lot of flaws in your cooking (freshness of ingredients, quality of spices, flavor of meat, etc.).

.
 
well i for one am happy to finally have the doors blown off of that "mastering" thing once and for all!
:D
 
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