importance of mastering

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Peck

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I have a question regarding mastering. Does anyone ever release an album independently without having it mastered? You know, like someone on a limited budget? like myself...

Has anyone on this board done that and been satisfied? It just seems to me that in order to get a good mastering job, you are going to have to shell out some decent cash to get it done right. I may be wrong. :confused:

Also, for someone who is sending something out for their first time to get mastered, it is somewhat intimidating. Especially if I send it to a company that is well established/reputable and used to getting professional recordings. They're going to get my bedroom recordings and be like "what the fuck does he want me to do with this." That's what my fear is at least... :)
 
"Technically" if it's on a CD, it's been mastered.

Whether it's been mastered well, whether the processing was appropriate, whether the proper care was taken, etc., is another story.

But like anything else, the better the recording in the first place, the better it's going to be in the final phase.
 
Yeah, mastering in it's simplest form is simply getting the recording in the CD redbook standard for replication.... So every CD is at least mastered in that sense!

But as for actually going in and messing with the sound, hey if you like the mix right off of the board there's no law that says that can't be the final CD. :)
 
Peck said:
Also, for someone who is sending something out for their first time to get mastered, it is somewhat intimidating. Especially if I send it to a company that is well established/reputable and used to getting professional recordings. They're going to get my bedroom recordings and be like "what the fuck does he want me to do with this." That's what my fear is at least... :)
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If you are intimidating by what an ME is going to say about your CD, what about the people that you plan on selling it to?

I think that you'll find most MEs like John and I very easy to work with. We're here to help not attack your audio engineering skills.

However if it's not good enough for public consumption, why spend good money after bad having it mastered or duplicated? If you're serious about your music it should be presented in the best light possible. If not, it doesn't matter.
 
Thanks for all of your input guys... I appreciate it. masteringhouse, it's not a question of me being serious about my music, and I plan to present it in the best light possible.... all that being said, it will be my first cd I have ever recorded (entirely on my own) i'm not expecting major label production qualities out of my bedroom.

"good enough for public consumption" - I don't know what that means... some of my favorite CDs sound like shit in terms of recording skills, but I love the songs :D

I do appreciate everything you said though...
 
Good enough for public consumption?

Surely these days this means autotuned, sterilized, and smashed to death. :p

Hey that would work for an album title....

Most of them in fact...

:D
 
Peck said:
"good enough for public consumption" - I don't know what that means...
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I don't want to speak for Tom, but in this context I'd interpret that as meaning "if I make it, will they buy it?".

And while I aree with legionserial that most of the commercial stuff out there these days absolutely sucks sonic quality-wise, the only reason the public is consuming it is because idiots like Simon Cowell (before he became a TV narcissist) spend millions of dollars telling most of us we like it and for the rest of us forcing it down our throats via coerced airplay and soft porn music videos.

You as an independant artist don't have those armies working for you. So the question is, are your material and your personal marketing skills good enough to sell enough copies of your disc to pay your bills, including the extra costs of a quality mastering job? If so, fine. If not, or if you're not sure, then the question is, how much money are you willing to gamble long odds on making back and very short odds on losing?

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I don't want to speak for Tom, but in this context I'd interpret that as meaning "if I make it, will they buy it?".
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G's right, that's essentially the meaning of what I was trying to get across. Also is it something that you will be proud of and not have to give excuses for? When an artist hands me a non-demo CD and starts telling me "well the recording kind of sucks, but ..." it tells me something about how seriously they approach their art. Bootlegs are another story, they aren't put out by the artist so you get what you pay for and crappy audio is probably expected.

Once it's out there in the public, it's a permanent representation of your musical abilities for anyone who has it or can play it for someone else. Kind of like a tattoo, but can't be removed unless you steal it back from them :)
 
I just want to finish a cd that I'm happy with and sounds the way I want it to... if I'm happy with it nothing else matters to me.

I understand that a lot of it is just a matter of constant work and patience.... rehearsing, available funds..... you know learning all of this crazy recording shit. I love to think back on how I thought if I bought pro tools le and an mbox I would have the best album ever.... i was confused. :)

I'll probably have it mastered by someone in the end anyway, because I will want to hear the difference between my "mastered" mix and a pro's.
I've heard it can do wonders...
 
masteringhouse,

i agree that once it's out there it's out there..... so I just want to get it right.... and sometimes it takes longer than you would like to get it right I guess.
 
Peck said:
I have a question regarding mastering. Does anyone ever release an album independently without having it mastered?
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Sure. A couple projects I've done come to mind. One was for a church group I recorded, kind of a bluegrass/folk gospel thing. they wanted a total of 200 discs, mostly for the church members and their budget was limited. So I (careful to use quotation marks here :) ) "mastered" it in-house and duped them 200 copies on my duplicator. For the scope and budget of the project, it sounded fine. Same thing for a live recording I did at a club for a local band a few years back.

Last year, I recorded a serious project for a great band here. Not only was it sent out to master, it was sent out to a bang-up mix engineer to be mixed. this one went off for a manufacturing run of, I think 1500 pieces or so, full blown inserts, artwork, shrink wrapped etc. that's when the mastering engineer was worth his weight in gold.

If I was in the middle of a dupe run of 200 and figured out I had a bad master disc, that would have been one thing. For the big project to have gotten 1500 beautifully packaged coasters back from the manufacturing facility would have been something else entirely.

I highly recommend a pro mastering job any time the scope, scale and budget of the project warrants it. Sometimes, it just isn't in the cards for every project.
 
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Peck said:
I just want to finish a cd that I'm happy with and sounds the way I want it to... if I'm happy with it nothing else matters to me.
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That's great!

That's exactly what my goal would be if I were a musician (assuming I could still pay the bills). In the end that's all that really matters. Everything else in music can pretty much be attributed to vanity, the business side of music, and getting laid.
 
masteringhouse said:
...and getting laid.
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I must be getting old, I completly forgot about that; all the good musicians I know are married with children...they only have sex alone.

For those under 29 (or 45 yr olds that still play in Zepplin tribute bands), let me change my interpretation to say "If I make it, will it get me laid?" If the answer is yes, a quality mastering job is cheaper than a quality escort service and can pay for more than just one night!

(Some stuff they don't quite teach in Business 101 unless you read between the lines.)

:D

G.
 
Two different angles here;

First, you've been very intimate w/ that mix , and maybe your missing something. A little forest through the trees action. Your ignoring the fact that she snores and has bad breath ( it's love).
You might want an independant opinion , and some overbearing old school advice on how you should have mixed it instead! OK, keep mixing YOUR WAY and tell all your freinds how
YOU caught a major gaff at the last possible moment and saved this Masterpiece :p



Second, MR. ME should have a better room and much better monitors than you do, so , he can use those racks to sweeten things (no aspartame please) , then , he'll secretly use HAR-BAL to adjust the EQ.
After this , you'll get a big contract ( and the success will lead to contracting VD!) Your tunes will be reduced to shitty mp3's and shared on peer to peer networks, resulting in your owing the record CO. $500,000.

.................. WHAT A COUNTRY :p
 
Something that popped into mind, in response to the first question. I have heard that Iron Maiden are releasing their new album unmastered. However, I find it hard in this day and age to beleive that someone won't have rammed it through a limiter somewhere...I mean its hardly an independant release. Someone at the label somewhere is bound to have called out "louder! louder! richer!"
 
masteringhouse said:
Once it's out there in the public, it's a permanent representation of your musical abilities for anyone who has it or can play it for someone else. Kind of like a tattoo, but can't be removed unless you steal it back from them :)
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Have it burned on crap quality CD-Rs, it will be gone in a few years :D

I would ask how many units you think you can move? That will answer your question for you. But then I am a heartless accountant ;)
 
^this guy's got the idea, with the whole "how many units"...

basically, nobody's gonna care if you had your shit mastered by a true pro or not - all they wanna know is if it's gonna sound good when they toss it in their cd player, or ipod, or whatever

if this is some project that you're working on alone at home, and might kick a few copies of to your friends and maybe their friends as well, don't bother

however, if you're at a point where you're booking gigs/tours, selling merch, and establishing a decent fan base, then it'll probably be worth it in the end to shell out the bucks to have a true ME sprinkle some of their fairy dust on it
 
I engineered and album for a local artist here in Philly called Tidewater Grain that was later signed to Warner Bros. and produced by Kevin Shirley. The band actually liked our original version more!

The Shirley version (also mastered at a place in NYC) was compressed to crap and had pumping all over it. A band member told me that Shirley was there during the session. Now I have to admit that I did not hear the unmastered version so I can't say what they were dealing with, but if the results were similar I would go with the unmastered version as well.

There's a big difference between having your album mastered well and having it "masturd".
 
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