TBH, I'm sick and tired of hearing "just a little bit" by master guys.

1- What are they doing exactly?

2- How do they decide to tweak the knobs?

3- Is Mastering subjective? If yes, why to alter the mixes that sound good already?

4- Are there some general guidelines like music theory for the mastering process?

5- Can a Rock Masterer make judgments on Electronic music and vice versa?

Appreciate alot. You can also ask any question about mastering and answer yourself.

 

i can only lend a point here

what mastering engineers are exactly doing, is entirely based on the project itself.
generally a really good mixing process doesn't really require mastering, everyone thinks that a good master makes everything louder, which is wrongly perceived, a good mix is already loud and the master can make it sound more "real" as a finalizer, but their main job is actually to bounce down your song in a lesser format than wav and make it playable in different systems, that's actually their main objective.

they are like scientists of sound as a bad analogy.

 

...that, and create as seamlessly as possible the transition from song to song, hopefully a gel which lends familiarity between each track. This is akin to when a song is mixed and throwing a compressor on the 2 buss witn some subtle reverb to nudge the song into cohesion. Many a Mastering Engineer will also do the grunt work of setting up markers, creating space between songs and coding for replication and ID purposes. Read this if you want a more in depth response to your...complaining.
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/audio-mastering-in-your-computer

 

If they answer your questions they will run out of business brother

Just kidding. Just read some books about mastering. Youll get the point. Point is they just finalized things. Thats it. No magic there

 

They are like book editors in an editorial house: They are the last chance to catch a flaw in mixing and take it to a final, polished state.

The good ones are experienced. It's not gear. It's ear.

Good mixes don't need fixing. It's just a final check on quality and overall balance. Curiously, bad mixes don't need fixing either. They need re-mixing.

I guess a true mastering engineer works by ear. They wouldn't let theory or meters decide. They use their better judgement. You pay a mastering engineer for their taste in music and their experience finializing tracks.

A mastering engineer's job is not about a music style. It's about how music sounds currently on mass media. A mastering engineer in the 1950s worked their ass off so that the bass content of a song wouldn't bust the long-play record grooves. Today they worry that the bass content of a song gets heard on $10 earbuds.

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2018

If the mix is good ...

By ear and measurement (frequency analyser and loudness meter).

Yes.

They don't really alter the mix, just try to make it a bit better.

Depends on the mix/style. Pink noise and EBU R 128.

Make a judgement, yes, do it just as well, no. That needs some experience.

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2018

Mastering is a form of post production the purpose of which is to prepare audio material for distribution. It's about ensuring the audio is technically correct for the media of distribution and will sound correct on as many points of distribution as possible.

 

Yes, yes I do!

The key to mastering ISN'T what some people believe. (That is, to smash the brains out of the track so that when it plays, your ear drums bleed!) No, it is merely to make all the tracks on a group, such as album or CD sound consistent!

 

They are doing exactly everything you didn't think it can be done.

By the power of sheer will. Kinda like the legendary master engineer Uri Geller. In two steps:
Step 1:


Step 2 - (To boldly go where no man has before):

Not for the master engineer. For everybody else you know what they say about opinions:

Yes, given though your contempt for theory, you 'd be better off reading something like "Selfish: More Me! with New Selfies 2015-2016" by the great master engineer Kim Kardashian, i 'm sure it will give you some insight.

Yes, unless their name is Foster i guess. But then again Foster plays jazz lately so i digress... never say never...

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2018

If you do not consider the mix bus as mastering, and you do a top-down mixing, mastering is nothing... just a limiter for the desired volume.

 

This is my problem:


When there's no reference point and you don't know how your work is going to satisfy the audiences' expectations, Mastering process is entering the uncertainty and doubtfulness world.

 

There are a lot of people who are much esoteric musically than you: Brian Eno, Daniel Avery, fuck even classiacal composers like Arnold Schoenberg were atonal didn't give a shit about harmonic theory and basically said I do what I do .... and a shit load of other people....

You don't need a reference you never did - nobody does except the me too crowd (which is most people on this planet, nothing wrong that) but since you've positioned yourself in the fuck them all crowd....

you pick what you want your dynamics to be make a call but hey some people are going to hate regardless of what you do expect some

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you want to join to turd sausage clan, you want to be in the high peaks clubs or somewhere in between its on you it always has been, tonal balance same shit... then you decided if you want your stuff to translate to other systems other than yours and perhaps not be a drill bit in the side of head for other people (unless the whole point of your music is to skull fuck people) then talk it out without a mastering engineer or don't. If you do talk to an ME and you are not paying them 3bits and a nudie pic of you older sister coming out of the shower they might talk back and ask you what compromises you are willing to make and what can or can not be achieved in post production and you can go from there.

OR

you can just be like - fuk it sounds good to me and I like it :: there is no right and wrong and not even any guide lines unless you want to be in the me too crowd and produce commercially targeted tracks the world is what you want to make it.

 

And everyone else's who accidentally pressed play...

Sure, there is no reference point for a 2 note electronic bass doubled by a pad sound. It is so ground breaking i can feel the earth move under me brah.

Try changing the "you" with "i" and the "your" with "my". Then read again your truth. I should know, I read the coffee cups of my clients and draw their sign map, then mastering is a piece of cake.

Yeah just like here:

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2018

Not really. It's leaving your uncertainty to be solved by a professional in their field. As simple as that.

 

No one really knows Foster, its a guessing game, a result of pure luck and coincidence.

 

I quoted funny not because i don't like what you said. It's just you and my friend mercurysoto who agreed, both refer to something other than mastering. Mastering is about getting the best possible clarity, precision and detail, cross compatibility for all media types, just to name a few.
But hey, good luck with your limiter mate.
The best possible results always come from a person who has an unbiased opinion on your music (and this is never you, unless you are a really experienced mastering engineer) and an experience in mastering musical material, preferably similar to yours. And thinking "there is nothing similar to mine" (just about what everyone says lol) is the wrong assumption.
I don't think i am irrational. Post a hit you made following the "mastering process" you describe and prove me wrong

 

Last edited: Mar 22, 2018

I agreed because that's another view of it, valid if you trust your mixing instinct or chops and you know how far you can push it. Also, for the mixer who can't or won't hire mastering services, it is basically leveling up the mix along with spectral analysis, metering and what not. However, your point is definitely true. That's why the big name mixers whose mixes end up on the record almost the same way as their submitted their tracks trust a mastering engineer: to offer them an unbiased and informed opinion on their mixes, the last frontier before the Grammy. There are different ways to skin a cat they say.

 

Last edited: Mar 23, 2018

Yes I do.

Since I know that Spotify/Youtube/iTunes, etc has an average loudness normalization of -14 LUFS I make my songs to not surpass that number while I am doing some artistic decisions such as adding saturation, preamp, EQ, MidWide, Compression, etc.

My mastering process tends to be transparent and always keeping great dynamics like music had decades before in order to conserve the original impact of my music (in fact my songs, even the most intense one, has an average Dynamic Range of DR10 according to TTMeter which is the plugin used to measure the dynamic range of all the music in http://dr.loudness-war.info/ , althought there is a better version which is "Dynameter").

Also I almost don't use "reference tracks" because most (if not all) of the music of last decade is overcompressed, so I better compare my music with music from 70s, 80s and 90s.

 

What colorists do for vids.