mastering - what is it?

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sathyan

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What is mastering? How essential is it?

Is the purpose simply to have another fresh set of ears on different monitors evaluate the mix?

Or is specialized equipment required? (Can I do it in CEP?)


There is no way we can currently afford a professional mastering house. (11 songs running 35:25 I assume would be expensive) The initial release will be downloadable and burned on CDRs.
 
Essentially, a mastering engineer does to the final stereo mix what the mixing engineer does to the raw tracks. The songs are leveled, so you aren't adjusting the volume every time you change songs. Reverb or other FX may be applied to an entire song, usually more subtle than that applied to specific tracks. Additional noise reduction may be applied if necessary. The appropriate spaces between the songs are created, if not already done. Then sophisticated EQ is applied to shelve unecessary frequencies, separating signals that are muddied by competition for the same acoustic space. The mix is set in Red Book format, to prepare for a real CD (not CD-R) master. The mastering engineer will try to use EQ to make the songs flow smoothly from one to the next, for continuity purposes.
Generaly, good mastering takes a really, really good room, some wicked golden ears, years of experience, and a large boatload of high end gear. The mastering engineer's EQ unit alone is likely to be in the multiple thousands of dollars. Mastering a project like yours is likely to cost $500 to about $1200, but that will depend on the condition of the tracks as received. The better the mixing, the less time mastering will take on the clock. My first CD "Reunion", about to be released, was mastered by the board's own Sjoko at NGS productions, who did a great job, was very reasonable, and treated us like a big time client, in spite of our real-world small-fry status. Yes- it's essential.-Richie
 
Oh man....

If you go to John's site you might get in too deep. Good info and something to bookmark ;)

Use the search function first.

Do not do it in Cool Edit Pro....

Its very important, but if your having a hard time getting the mixes to sound the way you like them then I would avoid the
psuedo mastering altogether. Work the mix. Mastering on nearfields can be equated to using Craftsman tools for brain surgery. Its painful. Trust me.

Then just burn the the mixes to cd with anything that does dithering and downsampling etc... or with CEP mixdown does that for you.

Ahhhh Mondays ;)

SoMm
 
Richard Monroe said:
Then sophisticated EQ is applied to shelve unecessary frequencies, separating signals that are muddied by competition for the same acoustic space.
Click to expand...

Isn't this something that needs to be done while mixing?
 
Yes, Morningstar, it is done, just like FX, to the individual tracks in mixing. The same process is applied to the stereo tracks in mastering. Almost everything that is done to the final mix in mastering has been done to the individual tracks in mixing. As I said, the better the mixing is, the less the mastering engineer will have to do. Sometimes it gets interesting, when the mixing and mastering engineers diagree, and get into an EQ war. That's when the producer has to make the call. Been there, done that.-Richie
 
My 2 cents...

Even if you're doing your own mastering, DON'T do it while mixing. Mastering is something you should "come back" to do. Clear you head of the tunes, forget everything you know about it and try to listen to it like you've never heard the recording before.

Get your mixes as wonderful as possible - Try to avoid anything but the slightest little bit of compression (1 or 2 dB MAX) across the stereo buss. If you need more, you're lacking something in the mix. Same with EQ and stereo imaging.

My job has two particular goals. I either:

1. Take a good sounding mix and bring out what's best and maximize it's potential, OR:

2. Take a poor sounding mix and make it less irritating.

You can bet that mixes that have been compressed across the buss or over-EQ'd fall into the #2 category. All I can do is try to not make it sound like... "Number Two."

Do yourself a favor - take your time, use your head (and your ears) when mastering. Once it's done, it's done.

John
 
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Massive Master said:
My 2 cents...

Even if you're doing your own mastering, DON'T do it while mixing. Mastering is something you should "come back" to do. Clear you head of the tunes, forget everything you know about it and try to listen to it like you've never heard the recording before.


John
Click to expand...

Yes, this is an essential point in self mastering. It's almost a Zen like thing. If you cannot seperate yourself from the you that did the mixing, you can't do the mastering. It's even harder when they're your own songs...........nearly impossible. The more intimate you are with the material, the harder it is to seperate yourself from it and get to the place where you can hear what's really going on, not what you expect to hear.
RD
 
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