question about mastering mixdown

[apot]

hi, my name's alex and i've been lurking for a while, finally decided to join...
i've been spinning hard house/trance/nrg/goa for almost 5 years and moving into production now...
my question, however, is about mastering for a dj mix i recorded not long ago... my setup was the following...
2 technics 1200's feeding into a vestax pmc-15mk2 dj mixer...
each of the two balanced xlr outputs from the dj mixer is fed into one channel of my studio mixer, a yamaha mg 12/4, that takes 1/4" trs inputs... one channel is panned hard right and the other hard left... then each of the two balanced xlr outputs from the main bus is fed into a separate input channel in my audio interface, the m-audio delta 44...
so my recording was two channels, using soundforge 7.0, and i could clearly see that both were different in peaks and magnitude...
i had someone master the mix for me, but now when i look two channels and they are identical in peaks and magnitude, so i'm concerned that some audio quality/content was lost...
they used steinberg nuendo, claim that they imported the audio file as 2-channel, and that what i'm seeing is normal as far as the final master goes... they also claim to have done multi-band compression, parametric eq'ing, but for reasons that i don't understand, it's supposedly to correct for turntable cartridges that are sometimes uneven (they claim they don't normally do this for live production work on computer)...
does this all make sense and testify to a quality job? i would still expect to see both channels slightly different, even in the final master, for full stereo sound... does anyone understand what they must have done and can explain it to me? thank you for your time and help, much appreciated...

 

[mixsit]

From what you described of the original tracks -the differing content of the two sides indicating a stereo pair- if you compared the mastered version aligned in time to the original, if the horizontal variations -waveform patterns, gaps and peaks, ect- were the same, but the hights were different (now more uniform, even flat across the top) that would indicate just the reduction in dynamic range and/or hard limiting on the tops.
?
Wayne

Oh, and welcom out of lurkdom.

 

[apot]

hi wayne, thanx for the welcome...
well, what i mean is that both channels in the mastered version are identical to one another (peaks, gaps, heights)... but they are not the same as those from the original mix... in the original mix, both channels are different from one another...
now, in the mastered version, i'm getting exactly the same sound out of both speakers (peaks, gaps, levels)... is that still stereo?
what i suspect is that he took both channels from the original mix, merged them through a mixdown, then eq'ed, compressed, etc... does that make sense, and does that still maintain stereo quality?

 

[mixsit]

Yikes. It does sound like you're describing a combined-to-mono version. I'm assuming you were satisfied with the stereo combination you had on your mix so something sure seems out of whack here. Have you asked him about this?
Wayne

 

[mixandmaster]

now, in the mastered version, i'm getting exactly the same sound out of both speakers (peaks, gaps, levels)... is that still stereo?

No, that's not stereo. Are you SURE that it's the same. An easy way to check is to change the phase on one side. Then play it. If it's silent, then it's mono.

If it is, you should ask him about it, or have someone else master for you in the future. (hint, hint)

 

[apot]

yes, both channels are indeed the same and after asking him about it and having him take another look he concluded that he must have summed to mono by mistake... i'm not sure if it was a glitch in his software or just a little carelessness on his part but he's going to take another stab at it now... thank you both for your help, very much appreciated...
and mixandmaster, do you do mastering work for dj mixes too? i've looked at your site and rates but i believe they apply to personal production work...

 

[mixandmaster]

do you do mastering work for dj mixes too? i've looked at your site and rates but i believe they apply to personal production work...

Yep. I've done a lot of dance stuff. I'd have to hear the material before I could give you a rate...You should check the audio section's "Crazy" and "Move This" for examples of my work for club people.