Fantastic_Mad
New member
Yo everyone, I must be a real newb, I know what it means to mix (somewhat), but what is mastering? I know it's one of that last steps in finishing a recording, but thats about all i know.
What the hell is mastering?
- Thread starter Fantastic_Mad
- Start date
Blue Bear Sound
New member
heh-heh-heh.....
...you funny, LD!
...you funny, LD!
Just a few of my own thoughts on mastering...
As an experienced listener and performer, I feel that my own critique helped me to master (and mix) my first album. And, despite that almost everyone says you can't master your own album, that might not be the case, but you really need to know what you are doing and the worst problem that gets in the way are your own ears-you MUST MUST MUST be able to listen to your music from a neutral point of view when you start both your mixing and mastering.
For me, mastering was as hard if not harder than the mixing. The real key is that if you are going to master yourself, you have to be aware of all that is involved.
Summed up, mixing is dealing with the sounds for each track separately, making sure that the individual song itself is mixed and sounds correctly.
Mastering is taking all these individual songs and putting them together in a way that they 'flow' properly. This is more the layout of how each song will combine to make an album. You must consider fade in and fade outs, time between tracks, Red Book standards, and the correct bit levels if you are putting your music onto digital media.
For me, I did save the money I did not have and spent about as much time mixing and mastering the music as I did creating it. BUT, I had more control over my product, and I saved the money for other things like promotion. And hey, I am getting air time in NY, so I feel I have accomplished what I set out to do.
It CAN be done, but if it's done badly, you're screwed!
Micro
As an experienced listener and performer, I feel that my own critique helped me to master (and mix) my first album. And, despite that almost everyone says you can't master your own album, that might not be the case, but you really need to know what you are doing and the worst problem that gets in the way are your own ears-you MUST MUST MUST be able to listen to your music from a neutral point of view when you start both your mixing and mastering.
For me, mastering was as hard if not harder than the mixing. The real key is that if you are going to master yourself, you have to be aware of all that is involved.
Summed up, mixing is dealing with the sounds for each track separately, making sure that the individual song itself is mixed and sounds correctly.
Mastering is taking all these individual songs and putting them together in a way that they 'flow' properly. This is more the layout of how each song will combine to make an album. You must consider fade in and fade outs, time between tracks, Red Book standards, and the correct bit levels if you are putting your music onto digital media.
For me, I did save the money I did not have and spent about as much time mixing and mastering the music as I did creating it. BUT, I had more control over my product, and I saved the money for other things like promotion. And hey, I am getting air time in NY, so I feel I have accomplished what I set out to do.
It CAN be done, but if it's done badly, you're screwed!
Micro
Fantastic_Mad
New member
Maybe I didn't ask the question the way my mind really intended. I know mastering is the silicone in Britney Spears, the icing on the cake and all that jazz. I know mastering is finishing the product. What are the steps involved? Do you EQ or add effects to the final mix of everything? Is mastering just putting the tracks in an order that flows well from another person's point-of-view? Any additional information would be helpful, thanks.
For me personally, the concept of mastering does not involve changing the mix of your songs...that was done in the mixing part.
Mastering involves making sure the album as a whole is properly done. You are essentially making sure that everything sounds correct going from one song to the next. You don't want to hear one song and then the next song be too loud or too soft. You need to make sure there is the proper silence between tracks, in other words, its the overall 'feel' of the album as a whole. You don't want the album to sound like it was put together at random. You want the album to sound like a whole entity. I have heard poor mastering where one song sounded like it was recorded in a tunnel and the next track sounded recorded in a studio. You are checking each song in relation to the others on the disc.
As far as EQ or effects, the only thing you would use these for is to ensure that volume levels, and the range of sound is consistant throughout the album...you don't want one song to sound very high pitched and the next one lower pitched.
Mastering involves making sure the album as a whole is properly done. You are essentially making sure that everything sounds correct going from one song to the next. You don't want to hear one song and then the next song be too loud or too soft. You need to make sure there is the proper silence between tracks, in other words, its the overall 'feel' of the album as a whole. You don't want the album to sound like it was put together at random. You want the album to sound like a whole entity. I have heard poor mastering where one song sounded like it was recorded in a tunnel and the next track sounded recorded in a studio. You are checking each song in relation to the others on the disc.
As far as EQ or effects, the only thing you would use these for is to ensure that volume levels, and the range of sound is consistant throughout the album...you don't want one song to sound very high pitched and the next one lower pitched.
What m'chip describes is one component of the mastering process, but only one of many.
In a mastering studio the music is evaluated in an incredibly tuned acoustic space played over speakers and power amp combinations that alone cost more than most people's project studios. The other irreplaceable component in the equation is the mastering engineer's trained ears.
As those trained ears hear the music in that perfected space through incredibly accurate speakers and amps, the engineer quickly makes adjustments to the overall sound using various types of compressors and eq's (and ocaasionally reverb) so that the mix will translate exceeding ly well to a huge variety of potential listening environments. The skill involved in making these judgements is largely what you are paying for.
The other aspects of mastering, like sequencing songs, balancing levels from song to song, inserting appropriate spacing (or creating crossfades), cleaning up beginnings and endings, noise reduction, and other general "housekeeping" chores are certainly possible for the mixing engineer to do as well, although usually the mastering engineer has software that makes it much faster and easier, like Sonic Solutions systems for example.
So what it comes down to is, while it's not impossible to engage in do-it-yourself mastering, it is usually worth the money (in most cases a relatively small percentage of the total project cost) to let an expert with expert equipment do the final finishing touches. If for no other reason than it gives your project an edge over the non-professionally mastered competition!
In a mastering studio the music is evaluated in an incredibly tuned acoustic space played over speakers and power amp combinations that alone cost more than most people's project studios. The other irreplaceable component in the equation is the mastering engineer's trained ears.
As those trained ears hear the music in that perfected space through incredibly accurate speakers and amps, the engineer quickly makes adjustments to the overall sound using various types of compressors and eq's (and ocaasionally reverb) so that the mix will translate exceeding ly well to a huge variety of potential listening environments. The skill involved in making these judgements is largely what you are paying for.
The other aspects of mastering, like sequencing songs, balancing levels from song to song, inserting appropriate spacing (or creating crossfades), cleaning up beginnings and endings, noise reduction, and other general "housekeeping" chores are certainly possible for the mixing engineer to do as well, although usually the mastering engineer has software that makes it much faster and easier, like Sonic Solutions systems for example.
So what it comes down to is, while it's not impossible to engage in do-it-yourself mastering, it is usually worth the money (in most cases a relatively small percentage of the total project cost) to let an expert with expert equipment do the final finishing touches. If for no other reason than it gives your project an edge over the non-professionally mastered competition!
Teacher
New member
littledog said:
i would say its worth the money if u went to a half a million dollar studio...cuz if u bring a project to be mastered from ur studio which just consists of a an all in on box and cheap mixers mics and efx u aren't gonna a hear a GREAT difference its just gonna be louder
I'd also like to add, that to me, as a customer of a mastering engineer, mastering will also make my CD sound good in all different playback systems, from monitors in a mastering studio to the lowliest boombox or even AM radio. Note that I said "sound good" and not "sound the same".
Click on the Background Info link at www.drtmastering.com to learn more of what's involved with mastering.
Click on the Background Info link at www.drtmastering.com to learn more of what's involved with mastering.
Son of Mixerman
Mix Junior
Is that true?littledog said:
great minds think alike???
If its true then Einstein and Newton would have said the same thing!
SoMm
dobro
Well-known member
Littledog's description of mastering is just about the clearest I've seen on this board ever. (LD - you're an engineer, right? )
The spin I want to put on it is this: if what you're wanting to do is get your recording as good as it can be, then it's worth taking it to a mastering engineer who knows what's going on. However, if there's less riding on your project than world domination, it probably makes more sense to DIY. Here's why I think so: homies track their stuff at home, not in a studio. They mix their stuff at home, not in a studio. Mastering's just the next step, so why not at home as well?
Here are the comments I'm anticipating:
1 Sure, dobro, you can master your stuff at home, but since you have no mastering EXPERIENCE, you won't know what you should be listening for, so you'll probably screw it up. ha ha
2 Even if you've got the gear, even if you've got the ears and the experience, you shouldn't master your own project - you're too close to it to hear what's going on in it really.
Aw, yeah, but what about the fun?
)The spin I want to put on it is this: if what you're wanting to do is get your recording as good as it can be, then it's worth taking it to a mastering engineer who knows what's going on. However, if there's less riding on your project than world domination, it probably makes more sense to DIY. Here's why I think so: homies track their stuff at home, not in a studio. They mix their stuff at home, not in a studio. Mastering's just the next step, so why not at home as well?
Here are the comments I'm anticipating:
1 Sure, dobro, you can master your stuff at home, but since you have no mastering EXPERIENCE, you won't know what you should be listening for, so you'll probably screw it up. ha ha
2 Even if you've got the gear, even if you've got the ears and the experience, you shouldn't master your own project - you're too close to it to hear what's going on in it really.
Aw, yeah, but what about the fun?
Lopp
New member
Nah dobro. Sounds good to me. I just gotta add a few things.
The traditional (very old) concept of mastering was stated by microchip. It meant getting the levels right between songs and also getting the levels right so they wouldn't destroy the vinyl in the process of making a record.
The concept of mastering has evolved to lean more towards what littledog states.
However, the fact that a pro mastering engineer has better equipment and better ears does not mean that mastering cannot be done at home. Otherwise, recording could not be done at home because the recording pro's also have better equipment and better ears.
Yet, if you want to send out a professional home recorded project, the benefits to using a pro mastering house are HUGE. Especially because you are getting another set of ears on your project. Not only that, but you are (assumably) getting a golden set of ears using quintillion dollar equipment to fine tune your music to perfection.
"Perfection" meaning as good as it's going to get given the source material. While the pro mastering engineer is usually good enough that he can wax and polish a turd, all you'll get back is a polished turd.
The traditional (very old) concept of mastering was stated by microchip. It meant getting the levels right between songs and also getting the levels right so they wouldn't destroy the vinyl in the process of making a record.
The concept of mastering has evolved to lean more towards what littledog states.
However, the fact that a pro mastering engineer has better equipment and better ears does not mean that mastering cannot be done at home. Otherwise, recording could not be done at home because the recording pro's also have better equipment and better ears.
Yet, if you want to send out a professional home recorded project, the benefits to using a pro mastering house are HUGE. Especially because you are getting another set of ears on your project. Not only that, but you are (assumably) getting a golden set of ears using quintillion dollar equipment to fine tune your music to perfection.
"Perfection" meaning as good as it's going to get given the source material. While the pro mastering engineer is usually good enough that he can wax and polish a turd, all you'll get back is a polished turd.
