Is mastering overrated if

  • Thread starter Thread starter therage!
  • Start date Start date
therage!

therage!

Wicked Machine
One can achieve an excellent mix?

Of course there will be "mastering" to duplicate CD's if that is what your doing. If you want your material to be LOUD then send it off to be destroyed. But this site is about Home recording, not major label etc. If you do want to bump up the volume some get a limiter like the L2 or any of the other dozens out there. "Mastering" was far more important in the days of vinyl. Not that a good ME can't give you a little extra "polish" but before you spend a bunch of money ask yourself how important for your home recordings is it.

If you can get to the point of doing excellent mixes then the quality of the recording is going to be good enough to get the song across. And your grandmother and friends could care less if you spent $800 getting it mastered.
 
In fact, the better the tracking and the better the mixing, the better the mastering can be. What is UNDER-rated about mastering is that where it really shines the most is on high-quality mixdowns. A Blue Coral hand wax looks a lot better on a brand-new showroom car than it does a rusty ol' '72 Pinto.

Mastering is only overrated if one uses the bogus and corrupt wikinet definition of "mastering" as an attempt wait to to fix the tracking and perform the mixing of their song after one has already summed it down to stereo.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
.

Mastering is only overrated if one uses the bogus and corrupt wikinet definition of "mastering" as an attempt wait to to fix the tracking and perform the mixing of their song after one has already summed it down to stereo.

G.
Click to expand...

Good point.

There again, the main focus for people doing home recording is to "master" mixing.
 
therage! said:
One can achieve an excellent mix?

Of course there will be "mastering" to duplicate CD's if that is what your doing. If you want your material to be LOUD then send it off to be destroyed. But this site is about Home recording, not major label etc. If you do want to bump up the volume some get a limiter like the L2 or any of the other dozens out there. "Mastering" was far more important in the days of vinyl. Not that a good ME can't give you a little extra "polish" but before you spend a bunch of money ask yourself how important for your home recordings is it.

If you can get to the point of doing excellent mixes then the quality of the recording is going to be good enough to get the song across. And your grandmother and friends could care less if you spent $800 getting it mastered.
Click to expand...


well you gotta consider that mastering is not totally involved with the realm of processing your mix sonically.

There's some basic documentation processes that become essential when you're dealing with material that's going to be sold in the market. Serial numbers, PQ coding, etc. Plus you're paying to hear your mix on an optimal system (ideally), coupled with a far more discriminant ear (again....ideally).

In the same, there have been mixes out there that completely bypassed the mastering stage and went straight to market.

Personally, I've always favored the mix engineer to mastering engineer relationship just because I feel it gives me good piece of mind.

Think about it, if you're creating mixes for the world's toughest critics (the fans) to tear apart, you want the last hands touching them to be experienced and surgical.
 
therage! said:
There again, the main focus for people doing home recording is to "master" mixing.
Click to expand...
It's important where you put your quotes there. Yes, they should learn how to "master" mixing. Unfortunately, based upon the standard traffic on the board over the last three+ years that I have been here, way too many of them believe it is all about "master mixing".

Skip ahead to 2012: "My DVD-As sound like crap (not like the commercial releases do, but even more so). How can I use my shrink wrap machine on the package to make everything sound OK again?"

G.
 
It's not overrated if the cost can be spread out over the distribution of a large amount of copies, and if it constitutes a relatively minor portion of the total cost of production.

It's only excessive if it's cost cuts in to your profit margin in a meaningful way, and isn't quickly recouped.

Just like with anything else, really. It's always going to be tough to justify if it's coming straight out of your pocket. :D
 
therage! said:
your grandmother and friends could care less if you spent $800 getting it mastered.
Click to expand...

In fact, your grandmother and friends couldn't care less if you do a decent mixing job either. Everything I've done. friends and family (ie the uninitiated) will say "wow that sounds really professional". Even with the reall early stuff I used to do in Acid using drum loops and a guitar. I know it doesn't sound professional, but they don't know any better. People just want to hear a good song.
 
legionserial said:
In fact, your grandmother and friends couldn't care less if you do a decent mixing job either. Everything I've done. friends and family (ie the uninitiated) will say "wow that sounds really professional". Even with the reall early stuff I used to do in Acid using drum loops and a guitar. I know it doesn't sound professional, but they don't know any better. People just want to hear a good song.
Click to expand...
Not only that, but your grandmother and friends would sooner string themselves up by their nipples with piano wire over a pit of feces than tell you the actual truth about how ambivalent they really are about the music they hear. You'll get more honest opinions from a magic mirror.

G.
 
Thanks for the visual.

Can't imagine I could have gotten the gist of your point without the colorful description.

:D
 
There's making a point, and there's making an impression. :D

Many points made are soon forgotten. Most impressions made are long remembered. ;)

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Not only that, but your grandmother and friends would sooner string themselves up by their nipples with piano wire over a pit of feces than tell you the actual truth about how ambivalent they really are about the music they hear. You'll get more honest opinions from a magic mirror.

G.
Click to expand...

My mother willingly admitted that she doesn't like my music a few years ago. I'm pretty proud of that. My music is so awesome, that Mom stopped humoring me! :D
 
Is mastering overrated if one can achieve an excellent mix?
Click to expand...
Glenn's fantastic car polish analogy -- Love it. And as mentioned, although the "rookie" mixes are the ones that tend to come out with a more significant sonic change (more correction, more tweaking, more etc.), it's the truly excellent mixes that get the "raised eyebrows" (in a positive sense) most of the time.
 
Grandmothers and analogies aside, let's not forget that mastering is about making an album sound it's best, not just a track.

One can have the "perfect" mix that requires little to no processing, as you add more tracks to an album and each need to have a certain consistency of sound in relation to the others, the odds in not needing mastering go down.

I often use the analogy that when recording it's difficult to determine what the overall level and quality a track should be until it's in the mix. Likewise it's difficult to determine what the level and overall quality of a stereo mix should be until you've heard it against others in the album.

Each phase of audio production has it's purpose and shouldn't be ignored.
 
masteringhouse said:
Grandmothers and analogies aside, let's not forget that mastering is about making an album sound it's best, not just a track.

One can have the "perfect" mix that requires little to no processing, as you add more tracks to an album and each need to have a certain consistency of sound in relation to the others, the odds in not needing mastering go down.

I often use the analogy that when recording it's difficult to determine what the overall level and quality a track should be until it's in the mix. Likewise it's difficult to determine what the level and overall quality of a stereo mix should be until you've heard it against others in the album.

Each phase of audio production has it's purpose and shouldn't be ignored.
Click to expand...

Very good points.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top