gonna take my demo fo mastering

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theront

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but i have a few questions

i made this six song hip hop demo, mixed it at home ( i have emu 0404 and using mostly reason : synths-samplers, and studio recorded vocals) and and want to master it. my goal is to send it to radio stations and sell a few copies on the street
the mastering would cost me about 150$(about 1/4 my countries average pay check) for 6 songs and 4 skits.

so far i have spent about 100$ on recording vocals, and a lot of free time on mixing, so my question is.
how much would mastering improve my recordings ie. is it worth the extra $$$ in comparison to what i could do at home with various plugins.
now if im going to pay over 50% of demo money on mastering this would have to be a big change in quality of the songs and the whole cd.

the basic question is is it worthwile to get a demo professionaly mastered?
or is it possible to get a wayy much better song.

+ could i lets say master just one song to hear the level of improvement

enlight this newbie, please
 
It depends on the recording and the engineer - It could be anything from a subtle tweak to a grand change in the sound.

Many (including MM) will do a "sample" for you to evaluate.

And I'm sure others may ring in. I'd suggest PM-ing and e-mail also.
 
It depends how good a mixer you are. When you compare your tracks to your favorite CD's are you satisfied? If so then your probably good and don't really need it to be mastered.
 
I don't shit about mastering, I just want to say, if it would cost less if you dropped the skits, drop 'em. Skits are over rated, sorry if I made you mad.
 
Hi

I would say that you have to make it mastered at least once to know the difference. I'm an amateur and I'm doing this for fun so I sent two songs for mastering and I'm very pleased with the result. At first, I didn't understand why the high were cuts and why the bass was boosted so I asked the mastering engineer and he told me.

The price seems to be very low (150$ for 6 songs) so I would ask for samples to make sure this guy knows what he is doing. You might have to pay a little bit more to get significant results.

/Jack Real.
 
The better the mix, the less (hopefully) you will hear from mastering.

Mastering should not be used as a band-aid for a bad mix, it is hopefully only used as quality control to perform a "balancing act" between songs on a CD so that they sound like they belong together and to bring them up to a level that is competitve with other commercial CDs, along with editing and creation of the final DDP tape or CD-R used for the plant.
 
Yes, our band's CD was taken as is and unofficially remastered and released without our permission (long story). It came out sounding virtually the same, though the mastering engineer ended up removing things at the end of some songs. I guess that meant the original mix/master was pretty good.

What I am concerned is, that if we record this short EP-length album that I want is to do, will I be able to mix it well enough? We don't have the best mics or any money to afford studio time, so I'm hoping the results will come out at least as good as our last album (which was recorded in a cheap-ish studio).

Also, what are some of the best places for mastering? I wouldn't begin to know who to ask or where to send it to.
 
Alexbt said:
Also, what are some of the best places for mastering? I wouldn't begin to know who to ask or where to send it to.

Either John's studio or mine :)

Seriously it will depend on how involved you want to be in the process, how good you want your CD to sound in relation to available budget, how comfortable you are with the experience and taste of the engineer, and other factors.

One man's meat is another man's vegetable.
 
theront,

Why don't you post your MP3's in the mixing clinic and see if your "ready" to get it mastered? Lot of good ears around here....
 
well tnx for the replys
i think that the mastering question came in my mind first because i love what i have done but i know that this is among my first projects that i mixed bymself and am aware that i dont know much, in fact im hoping that the mastering engineer knows what is left to be done

yes, my intention is to have it mastered for several reasons, first is because there are some mixes that i like and put effort in them and there are some that i would like to be fixed in the mastering session (coz my mind has limitations on stress and have no will to spend as much time as i did on the good mixes)

the second is that im aware of my lack of experience and am kind of hoping that some kind of deus ex machina will hapen in the mastering studio and since i spent a lot of time with these songs and gave my best shot, i would be doing the same by mastering my songs professionaly

and yes i will try to find some space on the web next week so i can post my songs and
hopefuly get some advices

tnx
 
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