Friend's recording ruined by mastering!

C

Call-Of-Ktulu

Rockaholic
My friends band just recorded their CD and were pleased with it after the mix down, but after sending it out to get mastered it came back pretty much ruined. If its turned up at all on any home sterio they have it distorts (or "goes to fuzz" as he explained to me). Obviously the other discs he has don't do this or he wouldn't be so suprised by it.

I havn't started learning mastering yet so I couldn't help him... Does anyone have any ideas what might have caused this?
 
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Sounds a bit on the overly loud side to me. Did they ask for that? If not, perhaps they just ended up chosing a mastering engineer that is caught up in the loudness wars and has no idea what he/she is doing. :confused:

OH... could be that the stereos can't handle something at 0dB and that's where it's at. Perhaps it should have been mastered a few points lower.

They need to tell the person who mastered it.
 
Call-Of-Ktulu said:
I havn't started learning mastering yet so I couldn't help him... Does anyone have any ideas what might have caused this?
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Yeah....

Was it sent to a real ME, or someone who just "learned mastering" ?
 
Did you send it to Sosob for mastering?

Come on, man, admit it, you did!

Seriously, that sucks, see what happens when just about anyone can call themselves a professional?
 
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As Autist mentioned, sounds like they limited it to death and there was probably severe clipping.

You might try to have him remaster, but if he let it go out like this the first time I wouldn't have much confidence. Hopefully you don't think that this is what mastering is all about. Stuff like this is what gives the mastering process a bad rep.

Of course if the client asked the ME to make it as loud as possible, and he warned them about the issues, then they got what they asked for.
 
maybe you have a bad copy, maybe that copy wasn't checked before it was sent out, you say it's the only bad song and the others are better? did they tell they guy? he might just have to make a simple adjustment or a new copy and solve it. ME should be open for communication and want to have a satified client....
 
how subtle is the effect? is it like...LOUD? or is it like....hmmm..whats that??? did I just hear something or not?
 
Rock band to mastering engineer prior to mastering: "We like it loud. We like lots of distortion. We like to blow speakers and make ears bleed. We want to have the loudest CD in the world."

Rock band to mastering engineer after mastering: "You suck."
 
Autist said:
Rock band to mastering engineer prior to mastering: "We like it loud. We like lots of distortion. We like to blow speakers and make ears bleed. We want to have the loudest CD in the world."

Rock band to mastering engineer after mastering: "You suck."
Click to expand...

How true! :D
 
I don't imagine it's anything a bit of R.E.V.E.R.B. to sort out the EQ'ing wouldn't solve :p

We still haven't heard whether this was a serious mastering house or just someone with a limiter plugin on their PC yet.
 
Autist said:
Rock band to mastering engineer prior to mastering: "We like it loud. We like lots of distortion. We like to blow speakers and make ears bleed. We want to have the loudest CD in the world."

Rock band to mastering engineer after mastering: "You suck."
Click to expand...


oh how the hell do you know. jeeeeeeeeeebus.
 
Call-Of-Ktulu said:
My friends band just recorded their CD and were pleased with it after the mix down, but after sending it out to get mastered it came back pretty much ruined. If its turned up at all on any home sterio they have it distorts (or "goes to fuzz" as he explained to me). Obviously the other discs he has don't do this or he wouldn't be so suprised by it.

I havn't started learning mastering yet so I couldn't help him... Does anyone have any ideas what might have caused this?
Click to expand...

No problem, you can always fix it in the mix.


Oops, other way around. You're screwed.
 
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