This is a thing i've been thinking about a lot lately. As there are other aspects of music making I'd rather focus on.

Another reason is that I don't think my hearing is good enough anymore for mixing/mastering. My frequency range goes up to around 17/18 kHz. But I know for sure that my right ear is damaged noticeable more than my left ear (I'd guess around 20% worse). I also suffer lightly from tinnitus and I hear daily hair cells popping out in my ear.

Third reason is, I'm not sure if it's even possible to give my room an acoustic treatment as it's a room into a bigger attic room/space (see pictures).


So tell me guys, with this knowing, is it still worth it to learn mixing/mastering myself or let others do it for me?

 

I'm no acoustics expert, but I don't see anything about the room that would make it exceptional difficult to treat.

First you need treatment and monitors. And then, yes, mixing is absolutely worth learning IMHO. Mastering is another animal which I didn't take the time to tackle because I'm trying to learn other things which are more crucial to my creative process. But for me, mixing and processing/effecting my instruments aren't entirely separate processes, so it's tough for me to outsource that job, even if someone else might be better at it.

 

Seems like your current situation is little rough on you, so it would be nice if you had some trusty guy that can take your rough mixes/ideas/visions and wrap it up not breaking your bank, so you can focus on content/music/creative part exclusively.

Guess some of the guys here can offer something nice and meet you on the middle, building something fruitful on long run, who knows, market is over saturated and working for cheap/even free is sometimes only way to even work, so having some affordable deal is the way to go

I'm not that guy, but if you are interested, I think they will contact you

 

There are different kinds of music-makers today. There's the musicians who play real instruments and singers who are properly trained. Then the ones who are self-taught who come up through the pubs and clubs. And I think it's fair to say that today's internet musicians/music-makers, those who don't play any instruments except maybe a keyboard or some other electronic 'device' yet are able to play any instrument electronically and are taking personal responsibility for the entire creative process including the final production and the marketing. If you are an internet music-maker and you're predominantly using software to create your work, you know your software records, and so you will soon realise that you can create at least a decent demo if not a finished piece of work. It would also be right to say that for the internet music-maker the mixing and mastering would part of the creative process not something that is apart but very much integral to the artistic decisions - this is why you need to learn this side of things as an internet music-maker. How many writers are getting other people to format their writing in MS Word? None. You just learn it. But better help is available I'm sure if you could state what kind of mixing you mean, and what kind of music-maker are you? Sorry, but I ignorned your comments about being a bit deaf - not relevant to your situation - get on with your work!

 

That's pretty relevant to his situation, if not the most, guy isn't sure does he hear things properly, plus his untreated room adding extra to that equation

 

I've read your question 4 times over, and the more I read it, the more it suggests to me, that You do not want to master your own tracks, but you feel the need for justification for it.

Also, you haven't mentioned whether you wish to make tracks for your own benefit (for something like uploading to You Tube) or you wish to make a serious go of it within the music industry. This to me would be the MAJOR factor in your decision.

 

I find this remarkable ^^

It's not like I'm making an excuse to work less for my music. In the last years I've tried working with other people. Be them singers/writers/instrumentalists, they all shared the same love for music. They liked the idea of being famous and rich but weren't committed to sacrifice (time, social life, money) in order to succeed. And I got frustrated kicking them around.

The segments I now work on and develop are:

Syntheses
Music theory/composing/arranging
Mixing/mastering
Singing/songwriting

Basically everything to make a song

Like Xsze says, I'm mixing and mastering on the fly when I'm producing and I'm happy with it. But I figured out that on pro level my imperfect hearing would become a problem when, for instance, I'd have a more higher frequency sounding mix on the left than right. That's the only thing I won't be able to fix as there's no cure for hearing loss.

 

Last edited: Sep 1, 2015

Purely "off-the-wall" - just an idea that you may take, or leave as you please. You might ask those of us here who happen to have access to excellent listening facilities to let you know if there's some aspect of your final mix that requires a bit of tweaking. What they say to you might help you to decide whether or not there's a need to ramp up your investment in hardware, or farm out mastering jobs to someone else.

I tend to agree with the previous posters who recommend learning the ins and outs of mastering, merely because knowing the technical boundaries drives your ambition to create art that pushes the sonic envelope to its absolute limits.

Naturally, should you choose to give copies of your work to a 3rd party, endeavour to come to an agreement beforehand with such external agent(s) as regards credits, or payment, or ownership of the piece.

 

Yeh tinnitus is a bitch, i've had chronic tinnitus for 13 years now, i have loud noise in the middle of my head 24 hours a day.
Only good thing about mine is that the noise is a result of a side effect of some painkillers and my ears are not damaged.

Still as to mixing/mastering with one ear hearing less than the other, have you tried swapping to mono and/or just swapping the outputs R/L to L/R and back so that you can compare how your mix sounds?

 

As part what frequencies goes. There are world class mastering engineers, who are well over 40. I doubt very much most of them hear over the 18khz, no matter how much they care for their hearing, so your 17/18 should not be concern. Unbalanced sound image and tinnitus you get is a bit tricky to overcome, but not infeasible with practice. The fact is, you will probably have to put in more work, because of your hearing problem and unless this is something you really want to do and money is not big concern, is maybe better to use online service.

 

I have been thinking about this problem quite a bit. You might benefit from a hearing doctor.

He or she could tell you exactly what frequencies you are deficient in and perhaps suggest a setting you could place on your computer so everything you create has been compensated for?