Mastering is basically its own niche culture. Populated by knob-tweaking mastering nerds who love everything to do with mastering. If you're not one of them and didn't obsessive-compulsively spend hundreds, thousands of hours on the audio equivallent of tabletop railroads, then it's going to be pretty mysterious to you.

But the bottom line is that it's great for your music, it's another pair of experienced and ultra picky ears, who's going to massage what you created (if necessary) so that it's going to shine as best it can on most playback systems around. It's rare but sometimes you'll send a track for mastering and the engineer does nothing to it - yet it's now mastered. Just because he critically listened to it and determined it doesn't need anything!

I always liked your work and tireless creative struggle. If you're having annoying trouble finalizing your favorite tracks foster, feel free to PM me and we can see what we come up with as far as mastered results.

 

Last edited: Mar 23, 2018

Q : Do you really know what you're doing in the mastering stage?

A : @foster911 are you really trying to open Pandora's box ? all mastering secrets are in there



* Love you foster....there are many great tutorials out there & some great info from members here too

 

No, I just randomly pick 12 plugins [because I think it's a good biblical number] and load them into the master bus. If it doesn't sound good... well, I can always blame the mixer.

 

Yes.... well no. If you take all the songs in one specific genre there a lot of similarities.
Or rather recurring phenomenas

Tonal balance control gives a nice piece insight, and only nipt the tip on this science.

 

It's is a completely different process from mix. I'm not really sure how you anyone can have a mixdown by itself that's good enough to bypass mastering altogether. You can really give the mix depth, glue things together nicely, and place some general sound adjustments to give balance. IE I recently heard of someone rolling off some very subtle high frequency air from the stereo sides to help give balance.

 

Let's get some dislikes:

I've watched millions of videos and I can swear, non of them had real surgical minds. Just loading a plugin into the slut quite by accident and tweaking some knobs, boosting or attenuating some frequencies and adding some flavors and getting satisfied at the end in their listening environment. This is what I've grasped.

Mastering must be problem-finding and surmounting but if people have different views to the problem itself how to be sure what's an actual problem. This insinuates that mastering is more art than an engineering process and in art there's no right or wrong.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 23, 2018

Imho foster focus your energy in your compositions/arrangements
No one but you, can make this ^,it is your own unique signature & the voice of your soul ^
A mix/master can always be improved in later stage,also if you release something commercially there are many top mixing/mastering engineers out there that love their craft/art & do this 24/7 365 days a year
hope this helps

 

well you're right foster, the average producer just produces and then masters his own usually without taking care of the mix and leaves it behind as a final... but in general it's the art of how to master mastering art, that's most important

 

Send me an unmastered but mixed track and I'll show and tell you what i'll do. I'l place stems from the different stages.

 

A not so "average" human being said to another not so "average" human being that his train runs faster & goes from point A to B...well faster
To which the second not so "average" human being said : so now that you gained some time,do you know what to do with it ?

 

There is ALWAYS a reference point Foster, even if I don't wish to use a professionally mastered track as such. I can use four focal points to listen to a master on.

1) The obvious best sound system I can lay my hands on.
2) Headphones
3) An old basic laptop with basic speakers
4) A car stereo which has a RIDICULOUS amount of bass. So much so, that switching the wrong button will make you throw up.

 

Mr Analogy HIMSELF

 

haha, what a story mark!

 

Actually you can polish a turd, but you just end up with a shiny turd.

 

time to get your hands dirty. start putting all that knowledge into action and you will get the experience

stop consuming start creating.

 

This is actually you talking sense? Not entirely since at the end you -more or less- conclude wrong. It actually is quite the opposite and with an emphasis on the engineering process.
The first and deciding factor for this, is in the mastering stage you do not create music, so there is no artistic input here man.
For the most part it is a CORRECTIONAL PROCESS. Whatever embellishing ideas may occur in the master engineer's head while they are at it, they play a secondary, cosmetic role and are typically done AFTER the engineer has made sure the content fulfills the standards for the market it is being targeted at.
The art part comes to place when the engineer knows deeply the genre they 're mastering and not just the standards. This is also where taste, experience and personal touch shines best and usually costs top dollar too.
Yes yes i know, probably most peeps here wouldn't care less, some may believe it is the "lobbyists", but at the top of our "industry", it is the experienced engineers who grab the accolades. And for many their roster reads from classical to EDM and everything in between.

 

Deserved the best answer too.

 

I think Mastering in everything is obtained by travail and great devotion and can not be taught much by others. Teaching system for the mastering phase has not been defined yet. Mastering at the end reaches the human's self perception and can not be measured by any standard because masters are acting beyond the average individuals' using standards.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 24, 2018