Some real mastering info.

Chewie

Chewie

New member
Are there any good sources out there about mastering? I’ve been looking and what I’ve mostly been finding is just mixing. I would just like something that specifically speaks of mastering, especially using a computer. Mostly for those steps where bands carry in their recorded and mixed tracks to ‘mastered’. I want to know what’s really going on at that stage and why does there seem to be such a high concenus that homestudios are incapable of this sort of thing, at least doing it well.
 
Chewie said:
...why does there seem to be such a high concenus that homestudios are incapable of this sort of thing, at least doing it well...
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For a number of reasons:

1) homestudios often barely have a usable acoustic space for recording, let alone meeting the extremely critical acoustic characteristics needed to analyse audio quality.

2) calibre of gear - professional mastering requires a level of gear that allows a pristine signal path without any unwanted coloration, as well as being able to adjust/tailor sound without adding artifacts or electronic processing anomalies.

3) cost of gear - the gear necessary to handle the task is hugely expensive. Monitors at $30000/pr - $10K eq units - etc... Not to mention the construction of the sonic space in which to work in.

4) experienced and objective ears of the mastering engineer - an ME has heard many many mixes and has the ability for a high degree of critical analysis in evaluating the sonic merit of a mix. As well, the fact that they've not heard a project from start to end gives them a very objective viewpoint in which to analyze a mix... That fact alone disqualifies the home recordist from being able to objectively analyze their own project. (ie, How can you possibly think you can analyze the sound of your song when it was tracked and mixed by your ears in your space? If there was something you'd do differently, why didn't you mix it that way in the first place? )

This is why even for modest projects, they will benefit greatly from an outside Mastering House, assuming the mix is well-balanced in the first place! (If it isn't, mastering simply amounts to turd polishing!)
 
Hey Blue Bear. I hear what you are saying and I agree but I don't like the idea of it been 'impossible' for a home studio to do a good master. I’ll go with ‘real hard to get it well done’ but this stigma of ‘impossible,’ seems annoying. I’m sure that’s exactly the same attitude that was held in relation to home studios at first.
Is it simply that software is not able to compete with the hardware using in ‘official’ mastering houses? If it’s that I’m sure that will change.
I would really like to see why it’s so hard to do in the home studio other than experience.
 
Chewie said:
Hey Blue Bear. I hear what you are saying and I agree but I don't like the idea of it been 'impossible' for a home studio to do a good master. I’ll go with ‘real hard to get it well done’ but this stigma of ‘impossible,’ seems annoying. I’m sure that’s exactly the same attitude that was held in relation to home studios at first.
Is it simply that software is not able to compete with the hardware using in ‘official’ mastering houses? If it’s that I’m sure that will change.
I would really like to see why it’s so hard to do in the home studio other than experience.
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Without the right monitors, you can't master.... without the right listening environment, you can't master... without the pristine signal chain that only colors a signal when you WANT to color it, you can't master....

So it's not "impossible" -- if someone invests in the creation of the proper sonic space, with the proper monitors, and the proper signal chain, it can be done in a home.... the reason I say it's unlikely is the cost of doing it... easily an $100-200K investment at a minimum. And then there's the whole other question of skill/experience.

It sounds like you think a piece of s/w can replace all the other requirements of mastering and sorry - that simply isn't the case........
 
man, i read bob katz's MASTERING AUDIO book. i love audio, and consider myself a geek, but WOW! katz is a real deal super audio geek. his information looks interesting but after awhile, my eyes just cross. this guy REALLY knows his stuff! my hats off to a real, dedicated, and educated audio engineer. mastering -don't try this at home- (well, do but don't expect pro results.
 
Chewie said:
Hey Blue Bear. I hear what you are saying and I agree but I don't like the idea of it been 'impossible' for a home studio to do a good master. I’ll go with ‘real hard to get it well done’ but this stigma of ‘impossible,’ seems annoying. I’m sure that’s exactly the same attitude that was held in relation to home studios at first.
Is it simply that software is not able to compete with the hardware using in ‘official’ mastering houses? If it’s that I’m sure that will change.
I would really like to see why it’s so hard to do in the home studio other than experience.
Click to expand...

A while ago, i sent a friends home recorded song to fairly popular and reputable online mastering service, that offered a free mastering trial. Other than evaluating their service for potential use, the other reason i submitted the song was to compare their master to my own home master. The results? Their's sounded better than mine. As expected, it is true - objective ears, the proper equipment etc. will yeild better results. But that aint the end of the story. While their's was better, mine did not suck, and was very comparible in a few aspects. It was actually quite acceptable, especially considering the respective costs of our mastering set-ups (i.e. expensive vs shoe-string budget), and learning the mastering end of things with my modest tools taught me alot about what i needed to change or get better at when tracking.

The manuals of software you buy to do it can be pretty helpful (eg. waves stuff), as is the book mentioned above. Other than that, it's practise practise practise. To date, i would not hesitate at all to master my own stuff. I simply accept the limitations of my experience, equipment, objectivity, and at the end of the day I can STILL get things to sound better. And that, really, is the point, isn't it? Having said that, for major projects that I want to acheive a mastered sound that i know i cant get, I would pay a pro to do it withouth hesitation.
 
teainthesahara said:
A while ago, i sent a friends home recorded song to fairly popular and reputable online mastering service, that offered a free mastering trial. Other than evaluating their service for potential use, the other reason i submitted the song was to compare their master to my own home master. The results? Their's sounded better than mine. As expected, it is true - objective ears, the proper equipment etc. will yeild better results. But that aint the end of the story. While their's was better, mine did not suck, and was very comparible in a few aspects. It was actually quite acceptable, especially considering the respective costs of our mastering set-ups (i.e. expensive vs shoe-string budget), and learning the mastering end of things with my modest tools taught me alot about what i needed to change or get better at when tracking.
Click to expand...

Flip side of that is someone I know did takes at a reputable studio in the area, and had a "professional" mastering engineer do a pass on it. I could hear things in my crappy car speakers that they missed. Don't get me wrong; the CD still sounded good (the band seriously rocks), but I won't bore you with the laundry list of EQ problems I heard. I wanted to smack their mastering engineer upside the head with a clue bat.

Yeah, it's probably impractical to get a monitoring setup in your house that would allow you to do mastering of the same caliber as a really good engineer in a studio whose gear costs more than my house. That said, if you aren't in Nashville, New York, or LA, have at least a decent monitoring environment, and your choice is between an area studio's mastering engineer and doing it on your own, it's very possible that paying somebody else to screw it up isn't an improvement. :D

To paraphrase Blue Bear, you can have all the most expensive gear, complete with a pair of $30k speakers, and still suck. What matters most are the ears between them, and, in turn, what's between those. As always, your mileage may vary.
 
Well I’ll take home studios can get pro results. It’s the same for everything else anyway. But that said what kinda stuff, equipment wise not environment wise, is used when mastering?
 
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