crap mixes are crap mixes... even if sent to a mastering house... but i disagree that mastering is useless... I would strongly suggest anyone who has got the right front end and a very well mixed song send it to a good mastering house like Brad Blackwood http://www.euphonicmasters.com/ ;) Then come back to this thread an tell me it was useless ok \m/

 

I really rather not.

 

Since you're getting confused by the AS crowd, I tot i'd add my (signature) junh1024 sensiblity. The definition of mastering is to target & make changes the audio to a specific medium, however it may be. WEB, CD, Vinyl, etc. There may be economic factors too (more changes/equipment = more $$$), and psycho/social factors (louder = better = more $$$) too.

When I Master, it's mainly loudness adjustments, downmixing, & format conversions, etc. If there's anything else wrong, usually it's at the mix stage, and I go back to mixing.

 

If you run a studio you don’t get to pick and choose only those acts you think are cool, because you’ll be empty most of the time and end up broke if you do. The purpose of mastering is not to make something sound good, that’s what mixing is for, the purpose of mastering is to make something sound right. What separates great mastering engineers from rank amateurs is the ability to master what the customer brings, not to choose clients you think are cool.

 

"Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more;—where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.."
This is from Tomas Gray's "Ode On A Distant Prospect of Eton". Educate yourself to the reality of the function and ambition of the professional mix engineer and you most assuredly will no longer lay in the deep, dark cave of incomprehension in regard to the importance of their utility.

 

"Never take yourself too seriously, only be sincere"
& eat some ice cream too,
especially (winter) when mastering,
that is my philosophy from now on.


edit : oops...i forgot Peace & Love to Everyone....that too

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 31, 2018

I've never seen an ME pull out a manley massive passive or SSL console and not do some sort of eqing and compression on vocals, bass or instruments...Like ever, and I've sat in at mixes at Mastering sessions at Fat Buhddas and Jupiter studios..lol Most of the time the mastering engineer is making corrections on mixes done in poor acoustic environments.

 

I also don't think it's good for business to tell clients and customers "hey go remix this song, because the lead vocals aren't warm enough, or your instruments stems are a bit to loud" lol

 

I think the mastering engineer's job is to paint a visual picture of where the stems should fit in the mix when you listen to a song. Vocals here, guitars here, bass here, percussion here. Balance isn't just about how good everything sounds mushed together and loud. There should be some recognizable perception of space and depth to a good master.

 

That's just me and I don't have a bottom line to meet as a business, if it meant putting food on the table, then I most certainly would quite possibly not possibly offend a prospective client. About sitting in at big houses, how does one eq and compress a vocal, bass or other instrument in isolation if you haven't the stems to mix. Most (now I'm talking out of possible ignorance) ME's only receive the master and cannot possibly do that. Fat Budda and Jupiter are charging for the mix and then for the mastering, either by the hour or other arrangement, not as a matter of fact, don't worry about it scenario.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 31, 2018

Mastering means, taking a finished song intended for the public. then using a variety of tools to make the song sound uniform on a variety of playback systems and speakers headphones. ( in such a way where whether cheap speakers headphones or very good ones, you can hear everything clearly and uniform.)

the reason for this has to do with the way speakers work in reality. they change the sound the cheaper they are is the more they filter and alter the original sound.

without mastering your "levels" sound wildly different on each set of speakers you play through.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't that a part of mixing? I thought mastering "engineers" (PC term, sort of like "sanitation engineer => garbage man?) started with a (stereo) mix?
Once upon a time, a mastering meant making workable masters:

...an involved, technical process. Audio processing at this stage was meant to be as transparent as possible -- maybe some leveling/limiting, but mostly adjusting the lead rate on the cutter (spacing between the tracks, so loud passages don't bleed into adjacent tracks).

 

ME's can further enhance the characteristics of the mix. As people have mentioned the most common form of mastering is about making the material sound consistent across a wide range of sound sources. EQ'ing and other techniques can actually help with this on the mastering end but as you mentioned you can only make adjustments to however the mix engineer has things arranged.

It really helped me understand more about mastering when I started sending songs off to have it done. Whenever I got stuff back I noticed how it didn't sound very different from my mix except, and without being able to pinpoint what it was that was making the difference, everything just sounded better. Once I started investigating some techniques that's when I realized what it was about the ME's mix that worked better and some things I can do to get a rough master. If its anything that is worth money I'll always send to an ME tho.

 

I'd rather say that the basic idea behind mastering is that it's done by someone else than the mix engineer in a different room on different monitors.
So for ages (before the loudness war) the mastering engineer found and corrected the remaining flaws in the final mix. Plus he had to bend the sound of muptiple tracks to one consistant sound on an album.
Mastering is a good thing and not to be meant to push a limiter until it pukes.

 

This should be attempted in the mixing stage, though pretty certain to fail (laptop speakers don't have the same bottom end kick that huge subs do). You ̶m̶u̶s̶t̶ should probably listen to your mix on target systems, and make compromises. On top of that, mix at high volumes if your stuff's meant to be played at high volumes, vice-versa for low volumes (so you could hear what the listener will hear, and compensates for this:.

Starting from a (stereo) mix, your only option is fiddling with EQ knobs (smiley face)/compressing the whole megillah -- you no longer have the option to simply bring e.g. bass guitar & kick up in the mix.
You can not undo anything -- you can try to expand some overcompressed vox, but you'll be expanding everything; try to take down some of the hideous verb, but you'll be cutting off tails, at best.

TL;DR: Decide what the burger is gonna taste like *before* putting on the special sauce; sending a Whopper(TM) with everything on it to a mastering house, to scrape off some of your special sauce/add their sown is, arguably, not the way :|

 

Last edited: Mar 31, 2018

I wouldn't mix at high volumes because loudness can deceive, mixing at lower volumes will always help make sure things that need to be audible are, you can always raise the volume and make adjustments from there.

Actually ME's can make these kinds of adjustments from just a stereo file, I think that's where a lot of the mystery comes from.. There is more to it then just compression and EQ.

 

It's literally what a listener will hear, while listening at the same volume. The listener will be subjected to the same "deception" (if any).

Sure, and a good line cook can scrape off most of the special sauce from a Whopper. It can be done, but is (arguably) a suboptimal way to make burgers :\

 

I know that is supposed to make sense, and sounds logical but I'm telling you there is a reason mix engineers insist on lower volumes when mixing, this isn't just some idea I came up with on my own.

Making some of these adjustments on the mastering end (using tools more focused for mastering) can impact the overall mix and there are definite benefits that differ from simply making adjustments on the mix side.