Proffessional mastering houses...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Uladine
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Uladine

Uladine

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Whats a ballpark figure or average price that these guys charge? How do I go about sending a CD off to get mastered? Just curious to see if I would have the money to do it or if I should just "spice up the final mix" myself and consider it "tightened but not quite mastered."
 
I found that the "decent" places (not run out of a basement, but not super top notch either) cost somewhere between 500-800$.

You can get it basement done for under 200$, but I'd be wary of the quality.

Then I ran across some places that are like 10 times the decent place cost.

Peace out,
Mike
 
This probably sounds totally bogus but here I go: we had all our stuff mastered at Abbey Road Studios, London (got to look around the place and even went into Studio 2).

The album mastering took 2 and a half hours and cost us £2800. Each of the singles we managed to get done in an hour, only £1000 ish. Obviously this is not in everybody's budget range - not even ours now, did I mention our band is skint? :) - but even the 'legendary' places are available if you've got the cash.

And does mastering work? Welllllllllll, Our album got to No.1 in the rock chart in France last week so I guess it does :) :) :)
 
I had Bob Katz do a 9 song CD for I think it was $100.00 a song..He did a excellent job..really nice guy!To me a $100.00/song is cheap for a craftsman of his caliber..


Don
 
Bob sounds like a cool dude.

Didnt Cradle Of Filth record at Abbey Road?
 
Or ,

You could check out Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering in Maine...... 10 Song CD runs about $6000- $10,000 USD


If ya got the $$$ and a good mix he can work with, he will make is sound like gold.....

(This isn;t spam, I don't work for him, nor have I ever been able to afford his mastering work......)

IMHO he's the best for Rock/POP

BG
 
Uladine said:
Just curious to see if I would have the money to do it or if I should just "spice up the final mix" myself and consider it "tightened but not quite mastered."
Click to expand...

Save up for the mastering... Do it your self spicing up hardly resembles real mastering..... Get a pro to do it...It doesn't have to be Ludwig, but at least someone with a good set of ears and some decent equipment....

When I was just getting into DAW, I thought I would spice my stuff up instead of going to a mastering house, and yeah I made it ok, but I just couldn't make the cd loud enough without squashing the shit out of the music.. I ended up saving anyways and going to the mastering house, which rendered my "mastering" a waste of time... (well not totally, I guess I learned a bit from it)

A good mastering place can make your cd as loud as any new release without giving it that "squashed to hell" sound.... (Although there is a fine line.... If the mix is to variant, they will have to squash it.....

BG
 
Bob Ludwig....It is amazing how many great things hes done..I can remember as a kid looking at the credits of albums and always seeing his name..Who was the other guy..George Martnio or was it Marino...

Don
 
IMO, if you have the cash to blow, spend it on a producer rather than mastering.

We dropped $1800 for an afternoon with Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk. He was an improvement over the sub $1000 work but for the extra money I think the level of improvement was marginal compared to what we probably could've got with a better known producer or more studio time.


but hey! that's my $1.60 so....
 
What part of California do you live in?

http://www.AudioMechanics.com is a Cali based House, its good to pick a place you can actually sit in and listen. Even though places like Gateway, Sterling, and Masterdisk are great places, they really are geared for Corporate. Neil Citron does a great job but I can't find a link. Here is a resource page for people to use if they live in California, depending on the size of the facility prices can vary, plus some places offer specials .


http://www.at-la.com/biz/@la-record.htm#dup

Good Luck :0)

Peace,
Dennis
 
Wouldn't it be awesome if mastering were outlawed........

We would hear lush and large dynamic mixes exactly like the engineer mixed it......

No more competing for loud radio squash mixes....

So the cd is a bit quieter... thats what volume knobs are for!!! :D


Just an Idle thought......
 
Making it LOUD isn't the only thing mastering's for, but my question is this: how much of the overall mastering job is MAKING IT LOUD? Is that the main thing mastering does?
 
BG ,seems like it would be better..How about when the station clubs it..LOL..The first time I heard a song that I did, on the radio{local station}I couldnt belive how much they crushed it..Sounded like a different song...And they got that analog before CDs..I guess if you beat the snot outta it it should sound the same.LOL..

Don
 
Dobro, From what little I know of the "black art" to me its to keep all the tracks cohesive and to create a good flow on the CD..If you got a single song..To me why "master" it aint like when you had to put it on a record..Maybe one of the pros could answer that...


Don
 
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