why can't I master my own stuff?

  • Thread starter Thread starter fenix
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Then what the crap are all of these asshole companies doing labeling their products as "mastering" tools? Why is this the "mastering" forum? Is it only for dudes with $10,000 worth of "real mastering gear" and the golden magical ears required?
 
The Seifer said:
Yeah... why the hell did I pay $400 for mastering tools?
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The same reason Behringer stamps the word PRO on all the gear.... it says it, so it must be so, eh? :rolleyes:

Considering a 2-ch. Weiss EQ (common in mastering facilities worldwide) runs about $5000, it just makes sense that your $400 "mastering tools" are in line with that.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

You can't possibly be as dense as your posts make you appear.... OTOH.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
I remember a popular member around here long ago arguing with me about how his mini disk recorders A/D's were delivering the same high quality audio that anything else did.

He now owns a 24 bit machine and can't stand to listen to his old stuff.

Some of you guys get too "married" to what you have been working on, and how it sounds sometimes. If anything, THAT is a good reason to have somebody else master it for you. :D

Ed
 
EddieRay said:
Here's a question for you, probably more fun to argue about too:
Today's consumer-level products permit non-pro musicians to create quality audio that was only available to the professionals around the year 19__.

I.e., with my home recording studio I can create better recordings than the pro's could back in, say, 1960. Do you agree or disagree? 1970? 1980?
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Disagree.

The DIY guy's room still sucks, as does his micing technique and mixing. And his little-to-no experience compared to the pro.

And like Ed says, don't kid yourself about quality:
1960: nope
1970: nope
1980: nope
2003: nope

Sorry, but you said consumer-level.
 
The Seifer said:
and it still proves my original point that DIY mastering is good enough
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Good enough for what?

Good enough to make a commercial CD? No.
Good enough to print a demo CD? Sure.

But then egain, why would you pay ANYTHING to master a demo CD? Why would you even want to make it loud? Don't you think the dudes that listen to your demos see right through that, just as they'll see through your crappy mastering. They'll say "OK, it sound like shit, but heck, that's why we pay money for a studio, producer and mastering house!"
 
Home studio technology

EddieRay said:

Here's a question for you, probably more fun to argue about too:
Today's consumer-level products permit non-pro musicians to create quality audio that was only available to the professionals around the year 19__.

I.e., with my home recording studio I can create better recordings than the pro's could back in, say, 1960. Do you agree or disagree? 1970? 1980?
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Better recordings?? Better than what? If you mean better "sounding" recordings than a DIY guy from that period......Absolutely! Technology has advanced exponentially over the last 4 decades. There is no doubt more “technology” available for use in today’s home recording market (notice I didn’t say consumer market) then was available to George Martin when he did Sergeant Pepper.

However, the piece of gear that has not changed over that time (even longer actually) is the human ear (not discounting the advancements in hearing aides). Now if we all only had George Martin’s genius, as well as some of the material he had to work with, well then we’d really have something
 
mallcore pop said:
Disagree.

The DIY guy's room still sucks, as does his micing technique and mixing. And his little-to-no experience compared to the pro.
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DIY guy's room still scuks??? Not sure that broad of a statement is vaild. I think there needs to be a "Some" in the begining of that sentence. I've been in forums where there a a lot of DIYers building very well designed rooms.

"as does his micing technique and mixing" Maybe....maybe not. That depends on numorious variables, including discounting the information from all the "pros" on this site.

"And his little-to-no experience compared to the pro." That's true but, (IMO) that doesn't mean that a DIY can't produce well engineered material either.
 
Mastering is the bridge between your studio monitors and everyone else's hifi-systems.

The goal is to adjust your 2-channel master in order to make it translate to all other systems, and maybe give it some extra punch at the same time.

You can't do that efficiently on the very same monitors on which you did the mixdown. The whole idea is to let someone with a fresh pair of ears judge your material, and use his skill and most often superior equipment to make the final touch.

You can't make the final touch with the same gear, and the same ears, since you wouldn't know what's lacking.

If you just wanna compress and EQ, you could strap a couple of units cross your main buss and do that at mixdown, and you would save yourself some time.
 
The Seifer said:
Yeah... why the hell did I pay $400 for mastering tools?
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Just out of curiosity, what is it that you've got?

I was finally able to listen to a song of yours last night, and I'm just curious what you used for it. The guitar sounded good, what are you running through, and how did you record it? I can't comment on the mastering, because I just don't know.
 
Strange Leaf said:
Mastering is the bridge between your studio monitors and everyone else's hifi-systems.

The goal is to adjust your 2-channel master in order to make it translate to all other systems, and maybe give it some extra punch at the same time.

You can't do that efficiently on the very same monitors on which you did the mixdown. The whole idea is to let someone with a fresh pair of ears judge your material, and use his skill and most often superior equipment to make the final touch.

You can't make the final touch with the same gear, and the same ears, since you wouldn't know what's lacking.

If you just wanna compress and EQ, you could strap a couple of units cross your main buss and do that at mixdown, and you would save yourself some time.
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This has been mentioned by myself and others several times ont his thread already -- he just doesn't get it.....
 
Wouldn't it be best to just sort of end this discussion with the following observations?

1 - Professional mastering will almost always yield the best master.

2 - A guy can "master" his material at home, but will probably not achieve the same results a professional will, to the materials detriment in most cases.

3 - "Mastering" at home can be a good learning tool.

4 - Having a "pro" master your material would be an excellent learning tool.

5 - Software "mastering tools" indeed are a far cry from the REAL mastering tools used in REAL mastering studios.

6 - Indeed, these software "mastering tools" are a far cry better than what was available to a guy even 5 years ago.

I suppose I could make some other points, but this seems to be the jest of it all.

I have mastered a few CD's for bands signed on smaller labels. I have mastered many other CD's for local bands that are doing a release. I have paid for good mastering to be done. I have even paid for bad mastering to be done! :eek: I even had a shot at trying to emulate what a VERY BIG TIME mastering house did on a project I worked on. I feel like I have covered all the mastering bases.

When I did the compiling for the two Homerecording Dot Comp CD's, I got to hear a whole bunch of "home mastering". There was at least one song per CD that I did a mastering job for because I felt that the supplied material would benefit from that. In those cases, the submitter totally approved of my master. Yeah, pat me on the back!

The point I am getting at is that I have made the comparison from the lowest end to the highest end, and have done much in between the two. From this experience, I have found that fresh ears do the best mastering. Next, the facility with the best gear usually get's the best results (now, I have heard very bad mastering done on killer gear because the guy didn't understand the genre of music and misapplied his tools....:()

I don't think we need to keep fanning the flames. One guy on here who seems to be more than willing to keep doing so mixes on a fucking MACKIE!!! and is talking crap to a guy who thinks his T-Racks is just as good as GML/Manley/Weiss, etc....I would call that a wash in the whole of things. :D

Chill out guys and get back to talking about doing good production. Let's face it, we ALL need to work on our tracking and mixing skills. We improve on those, mastering becomes just a "tad" of polish to an already outstanding mix!

Ed
 
sonusman said:
Wouldn't it be best to just sort of end this discussion with the following observations?

1 - Professional mastering will almost always yield the best master.

2 - A guy can "master" his material at home, but will probably not achieve the same results a professional will, to the materials detriment in most cases.

3 - "Mastering" at home can be a good learning tool.

4 - Having a "pro" master your material would be an excellent learning tool.

5 - Software "mastering tools" indeed are a far cry from the REAL mastering tools used in REAL mastering studios.

6 - Indeed, these software "mastering tools" are a far cry better than what was available to a guy even 5 years ago.

I suppose I could make some other points, but this seems to be the jest of it all.

I have mastered a few CD's for bands signed on smaller labels. I have mastered many other CD's for local bands that are doing a release. I have paid for good mastering to be done. I have even paid for bad mastering to be done! :eek: I even had a shot at trying to emulate what a VERY BIG TIME mastering house did on a project I worked on. I feel like I have covered all the mastering bases.

When I did the compiling for the two Homerecording Dot Comp CD's, I got to hear a whole bunch of "home mastering". There was at least one song per CD that I did a mastering job for because I felt that the supplied material would benefit from that. In those cases, the submitter totally approved of my master. Yeah, pat me on the back!

The point I am getting at is that I have made the comparison from the lowest end to the highest end, and have done much in between the two. From this experience, I have found that fresh ears do the best mastering. Next, the facility with the best gear usually get's the best results (now, I have heard very bad mastering done on killer gear because the guy didn't understand the genre of music and misapplied his tools....:()

I don't think we need to keep fanning the flames. One guy on here who seems to be more than willing to keep doing so mixes on a fucking MACKIE!!! and is talking crap to a guy who thinks his T-Racks is just as good as GML/Manley/Weiss, etc....I would call that a wash in the whole of things. :D

Chill out guys and get back to talking about doing good production. Let's face it, we ALL need to work on our tracking and mixing skills. We improve on those, mastering becomes just a "tad" of polish to an already outstanding mix!

Ed
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as long as you put home "mastering" in quotes as to not confuse it with Mastering!
 
I have done my "mastering" at home with good results. I do prefer having it done elsewhere, with the nice analog gear and different monitors. But in some cases, it economically doesn't make sense for me to send the client to a place that is going to cost them $300-700 for something they will sell 50 copies of! Also, the better my mixes are, the better I can "master" at home.

I have never had a disk rejected from a duplication house. The two small label releases I mastered weren't sent back from the label because it was shit sounding. They were actually quite pleased with the results.

Saying that me doing it at home isn't Mastering is a crock of BS friend. I get all the songs into the computer. I do my sonic "sweetening", I get the fade in's and fade out's the way I want them, I get the song order, and I author a Red Book spec disk. THAT is exactly what mastering IS!

Ed
 
I see you are from Wisconsin. Interesting. I won a mastering job from a client about 3 years ago from there who already had his CD mastered from a guy that did "big label" mastering. This client sent me this "mastering" job this guy did. It was freakin' horrible!!! WAY too much low end, and so overly compressed and lmited that you could HEAR all sorts of bad artifacts from it. This is just what I noticed before hearing the source tracks. This "mastering engineer" with his "big label" experience had all the cool "toys", yet did a freakin' horror job on it. Charged my client about $700! I "mastered" his CD at half the price using "budget" gear and a low end DAW with plugin's, and the client was very satisfied with the results.

So, I guess I didn't do Mastering, like you say, but my "mastering" job sure beat the hell out of this other guys.

Ed
 
sonusman said:
When I did the compiling for the two Homerecording Dot Comp CD's, I got to hear a whole bunch of "home mastering". There was at least one song per CD that I did a mastering job for because I felt that the supplied material would benefit from that.
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And my song obviously sounded so crappy it wasn't even worth trying. :p
 
No.

The two song I did mastering for were friends who had great songs that I wanted to hear sound better. In addition, they were very easy fixes to make as their mixes were outstanding in the first place.

It would have been interesting, and maybe even fun to actually do the "sweetening" of all the songs on the home recording dot comp CD's instead of just compile and do some clean up editing, and author the disks. But that would have been a huge undertaking that rightfully I would have needed to get paid for. It also would have really taken away from the nature of the project. In hindsight, I really shouldn't have did sweetening on the two songs I did! I just couldn't help myself though.

Ed
 
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