I'd say to be a mastering engineer is 'a art' for sure. Their expertise immediately allows for anticipation of 'this pop tune is probably going to get a lot of radio play, iPod downloads, MTV coverage.' or 'this classical guitar performance of Handel is going to be in a audiophiles library. low band FM stations, and high quality car stereos' and can immediately focus the levels, eq, spectralizers, etc. for those given scenarios. Whereas the majority wouldn't have a clue what to do.
And that's the line that separates say Daft Punk from say some Soundclick duo named Punk Daft from 'breaking through'. One might say Punk Daft has better songs and stronger beats and should be HUGE in popularity. But what sounds good on desk top monitors may sound crap on a iPod, a iPhone, a dance club, a cheap home stereo, a high end surround sound stereo, etc.
So yes, good engineers are like proffesional scotch tasters. They can discern from 192kbs vs. 320kbs, 90 degree angle absorbtion, speaker types and brands in most personal DVD players, what Bose has that Phillips lacks when it comes to 6 channel sound to name a few talents they could and should posess. No matter how much hardware and software we get, CD's we study, posts and FAQ's we read - we're just bongo banging hopefuls with demo cassettes still.
Some of us know to use Chrome and Dolby C as opposed to Normal is all.
MasteringModerators: Christophe, Mark
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MasteringI don't know....... it's not even about the technical jargon, it's about being sensitive to, or being able to hear minute details in sound that others might not IMO. Even the most technically well informed person could be a complete idiot in terms of mastering. So, it's pretty easy to talk about all the rates, etc..... but when it comes down to it, the art of mastering has every bit to do with the ability of the mastering engineer, and a bit less about the jargon.
edit: The difference between knowing your scotch, and being one with the bottle. Although I'm pretty sure Bob Katz doesn't drink scotch before a session. Last edited by Icaro on Tue Apr 27, 2010 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MasteringThe jargon comes with the talent I'd say. And a good engineer is going to hear something different, off balance between one song and another or something. Ask the band did something change in the studio during the sessions. And they might inadvertly say 'the recording dude kept moving the mic around in front of the kick and changing the mic's and little box things after every song...' So he better surmise that the engineer may have started with a Shure Beta 57, and may have switched to a ribbon mic with a better stepped down DI box. Maybe the variety is good, as the band is? Or maybe these guys are one hit wonders at best, and all material should have a general feel and may squeeze out a B side to the Top 50 for 2 weeks as well. Hey kids, can I see your manager for a moment...
So how about a cop who moonlights as a scotch taster? Know the jargon, the lingo, the who's who on the streets. And be versed somewhat in laws and statutes of the surroundings, state, and nation. Plus, have good first aid skills as well as tactical combat. Be diplomatic and sensitive to victims loved ones and witnesses... And be able to tell a 25yr old single malt from a 12yr old just by smell alone off duty. So whether the engineer uses the jargon or not - he better damn well know it. Or take time to learn it and get a understanding of it. You wouldn't want a cop that didn't know 'crack', or 'lifted', or 'tripping balls' protecting you would you? Just as much as you wouldn't want a engineer to say like Yoko Ono 'I don't know the technical jargon, but it's as if there is a hat with a butterfly in front of the keyboard thing'. I'd leave tout sweet if I ever heard that. Nor would I put up with 'The azimuth of the Audio-Technica's polarization is 15 degree's off balance to the Q shelf response setting with a soft knee on the comp' Yeah, so? Can you make it bigger or not?
Mastering
That is why you must rely on nearfield monitoring. It takes all of those things out of the equation
Exactly, which is why you should never do that, or at least you should never take that into account. e.g. There is a strange acoustic anomaly in my livinig room, whereby if you sit on the lounge, the bass gets really boomy. If you stand up or move to a different seat, its sounds quite different. It is a problem with the room that affects everything I listen to. If I took it into account with all my mixes, they would all sound shithouse [more than they do now]. What is more important than anything else is consistency. You need to have your head in exactly the same place, with respect to your speakers, every time. In a good nearfield set-up, you will get the best results if the speakers are less than 1m from your ears and on roughly the same level. Turning them in slightly to point at your head is a good idea too, but something you would not normally do for a hi-fi stereo set-up.
That is certainly true of going into an unfamiliar studio but I have been working with the same set-up at home for about 3 years now, so I am well past the point where I know exactly how something will sound in my car or on my stereo without actually having to test it any more.
Our experience was the complete opposite. We allowed someone else to master our first album and no-one liked it at the time and to this day I think it sounds much worse than the two albums I mastered at home. Dell G7 (Hexa-Core i7)|Cubase Pro 10||Analog Keys|Ultranova|MicroMonsta|Uno|Skulpt|Craft Synth 2.0|
novakill.com
MasteringBut even as you listen to your stuff in your living room, don't you regret the bass maybe a little TOO loud? Then again, it depends on the type of music one makes. I doubt many of your fans are going to poor a nice glass of wine, get the fireplace going, and put on Novakill. But even when you play live, you must go to the back of the club doing a sound check? So mixing and mastering shouldn't be that different. Sure, concetrate on nearfields and headphones first. But eventually movement and different locations should be accounted for. I'd rather clean things up at my place or a studio first, then discover it plays rotten at a friends quirky house or 75% of a club unless one's at the front of a stage. Fans up front already know who you are, it's the people in the back you want to attract.
Mastering
I read a lot of opinion here but very little actual knowledge on the subjet (being 'mastering'). Maybe you should educate your self a bit more on the subject Mastering, after all, is a craft mainly based on scientific principles, empirical evidence and training on the subject, lots and lots of training. Then, the real masters of mastering are engineers with decades of experience. Google is your friend
Mastering
um...... ok, just kidding........... but, I think you miss the point of my post a bit. Of course you need to know the lingo, in order to get your groove on in a way that convinces... but it's easy to throw tech jargon around to sound like you know what you're doing. That's all.
MasteringExactly Icaro. I don't profess to be a mastering engineer by any degree. It's an art that is worth the money - when you can find the right person. In Bone's case, he might've gotten duped? His stuff now sounds okay to me, but maybe an engineer at EMI or Nothing Records might laugh their asses off? Maybe not? I was humbled coming into the studio and the engineer was pretty impressed with my mixes and overall sound.
And as been said before here Crimson - most of us suck anyway. Whether we Google the subject, take a course, hang out at studio's everyday. The key components to not having a proffesional say 'Jesus, this might take awhile.' and/or charge exorbent fee's and treat you like a idiot is to put oneself and music in the listeners realm. And the majority of us here have true fans that can be counted on two hands, That will sit and listen intently to what we do and how we do it. You could be a great guitarist with a lousy recording, a bad guitairist with a great recording... 90% don't care. No matter how much money you spent on gear, on learning, on a pro studio, on fancy graphic's and videos. You got 30 seconds tops to make a impact. And that impact has to come through cheap desktop speakers, earbuds, across a living room, back of a club, a iPhone... So DONT get too comfertable with how good you can make your mixes sound on 200w nearfield monitors and Sennheiser headphones. Keep in mind there's a kid in Nebraska with horrid speakers in a corner that's going to hear an overbearing 909 snare, no bass, arpeggios that sound like a washboard and nasal vocals regardless. Hopefully there's something in the music they become a fan of. And may go out and buy an even worse stereo when they do. Hopefully better - but even then it might turn them off? "Gee, I don't like all that bass now. Where'd that great snare go? The singer sounds like they're in a cave now..." To think people are going to hear your music exactly like you do? Absolutely wrong! To sense an effort that you or a engineer made an attempt to get to them... That's why Daft Punk or Britney Spears or Jay Z et al are successful. They cut through the crowd, the TV's, the car stereos with no fuss or muss. Maybe not as 'heavy' as Jay Z had hoped for, maybe not as AM radio pronounced as Daft Punk hoped for... But listeners 'get it'. (Or labels can better sell it, if you want to look at it that way?)
MasteringI think now the line between mixing and mastering is getting fuzzier here.
Nearfield monitors are great for both. Think mastering engineers don't use them? Think again. They deliver the sound, eliminating most of the variables you can think of, allowing you to get your music to sound exactly as you want it to be. Spend an awful amount of time working with them, listening to other music and your own, and you will know how they sound. And then, why would it be hard to bring that final sweetening touches of a mastering to your mix, if you know how? So, in an essence, nearfield monitors will deliver the "true sound", and it's not a problem when you know that every other system thereafter is tuned to their own sound. When you see a home hi-fi stereo having equalizers on it, most users tune those to their preference anyway. Same is with the clubs. Their massive systems are tuned for the usage in the club. Know what the "sound check" is about? Basically just to see if things are working. Some clubs go as far as to tune crossfaders for the speakers, and that's it. I remember one guy at this club we were playing at, came to me and asked if I'm playing CDs or if sound is going from the laptop. Just tweaked just one knob on the mixer when I told him it's from laptop. They do absolutelly nothing if a DJ is playing a music on vinyls or from decks, even if it's not a "studio" music (ie. mastered). Entire "sound check" done in under a minute. So, taking your music to other locations doesn't really come into account when you make music with your nearfield monitors, and basically every professional studio Britney Spears and alike are recording in do, as the sound will imprint on other speakers with their own custom settings for the system. As for earbugs and such, a good mix will play quite well on those even when mastering includes just turning up the volume by limiting and/or compression. SoundCloud ::: Facebook
Masteringfor trance music it is EXACTLY how artists end their demos to labels. Mixing on monitors/phones. If your production sounds close to a labels target material you dont have to worry about getting to sound right on some shitty desktop speakers. LOL i hope there are no Nebraskan's here. id say to hell with Nebraskan's, pump up the volume!! they are successful because of culture and social conditions dictate their chances of stardom. nothing to do with studio engineers. Last edited by suneel on Wed Apr 28, 2010 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mastering
Well, for starters, I never listen to our stuff in my living room but even if I did, I wouldn't worry at all, because everything sounds boomy. IN fact, I'd more likely worry if our stuff wasn't boomy. The problem is with the room, not the music.
Absolutely it should, and is. When we are sound-checking it is for a very specific situation. i.e. everyone who hears that show will be standing in that room, so the sound must be tailored to that situation. OTOH, I am the only person who will ever hear our album in my studio or living room, so tailoring the sound for that will only benefit me, not the [hopefully] thousands of other people who buy the disc and listen to it in their living room. Every living room is different and making something sound good in mine is no guarantee that it will sound good anywhere else, so taking the room out of the equation, by using only nearfield monitoring [and headphones, of course] is the only way to ensure that the sound is as pure as it can be.
What if one day you discover that it is your house that is quirky and that your stuff sounds bad in every other living room but yours? That's the problem, you can't control where and how people listen to your music, so you have to provide a neutral mix that can adapt.
Fans up front don't get the front-of-house experience, they mostly hear the fold-back and on-stage amplification [in the case of guitar bands]. That's why I usually try to stand in front of the FoH mixing desk, unless there is a mosh-pit going, then I'm down the front. Dell G7 (Hexa-Core i7)|Cubase Pro 10||Analog Keys|Ultranova|MicroMonsta|Uno|Skulpt|Craft Synth 2.0|
novakill.com
MasteringAgain, it's that self assured arrogance of how our music's being done and should thus be perceived by listeners. Just because we have nearfield monitors, headphones, and a pro (or unpro) mastering house down the street. Yes, the main thing Bones says - make music that can adapt to anyones space. Be it condo, house, car, club. I like to think I'm pretty good at it. Bones seems good at it, many seem good at it. Now would I have a crap if I saw Filofax's current set up? Probably. Would Suneel if seeing mine... Probably. Would Crimson if seeing Bones... Probably. Not to say anyone's worse than the other.
But definately mix and master HAS TO be made to adapt. Be it a specific room, a generalization of specific clubs, car interiors, condos, lame desktops and 6 channel Bose surround. If arrogance and faith kick in, and you're turning up the volume to extremes and the bass on the amp. You're going to have a dud dance track - no matter how good the music is. I worked with one in past, in a nice studio - and he and the engineer mixed at such an insane volume, it made me ill. It was a thrill hearing my synth stuff so loud, and these guys stoked about what a awesome tune it was going to be for this person. Playing back at a 'decent volume' in a car - it out and out sucked. I still got paid, but never saw any 'hit' money. Same with Britney and Jay Z and all - they may play it loud in the control room once or twice when they think the mix is done. But never would they mix that way. And again, labels have some of the best mastering engineers - and is damn scary how that Jay Z song 'State Of Mind' whatever translates on a mono TV speaker, my monitor speakers, laptop speakers, a car, and a iPhone. (Yes, I was subjected to ALL all in one day.) Now for some other people I've been checking out and pushing, all in a day... Not so good. Bad on a mono TV, nice on my monitors, lacking on a laptop, awesome in a car, awful on a iPhone. People that worked their asses off on their mixes, went to pro mastering, spent thousands. And that's not to say every mastering engineer that isn't with EMI or Sony is going to suck. But regardless of 'culture and social conditions. Likes or dislikes.' Jay Z, Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, Nickleback - they all sound amazing, wherever they're played. And chances are out of those 4 mentioned, 2 engineers are responsible. And 1 might hate all of their styles and prefer Patsy Cline. But still comes out amazing. How they make the music 'adapt', all the science and phsyics used, the millions of dollars worth of gear at their disposal. We are but ants by the treads of a tank. Mighty in ourselves in ratio perhaps.... But 'a tank'? Come on! :rofl:
Mastering
I don't think it's arrogant of any of us if what we do, do good. The music will speak for itself, and in the end, it's not that we want listeners to perceive the music as we want them to, but how they want to. They adapt to the music, instead the music to the listeners. The listeners can adapt their sound systems to the music according to their own preferences and tastes, be it via equilizers speakers placement or something else. Music can't control those things. If we had to think about adapting music, we would have versions of the same song specially crafted for clubs, for living rooms, for laptop speakers, for iPod, etc. Yet, we don't, it's not a practice in any sense of it, nor does it have any sense of doing that. It just costs too much, and wastes too much of precious time. The best thing you can do is to deliver the neutral sound as you want it to be, as close as possible, mastering engineer fine tunes it, and label releases it. That's how it's done, and most of the nearfield monitors will allow you to achieve that by giving you the (close to) flat frequency range. Other sound systems will do the rest. I don't have nearfield monitors myself (it's on my wishlist for quite a while now :hihi:), I work with headphones, been doing for years, and by now I know exactly how they sound, and how the sound will translate to other systems. I do have some other reference sources. I check music on my desktop speakers, my BlueBerry Tomcat, my brother's speakers, my relative's 2.1 speakers, my friends hi-fi stereo, and when I get the chance to go to my other friend on his nearfield monitors. Music will sound like crap on crapy reference, and there's nothing any mixing technique or mastering engineer can do about it.
Those guys either didn't know what they're doing, or they just wanted to give you "the ride" and get your money as quickly as possible with little or no work at all. Most of the people I know, and myself, always mix at listening level. Just normal, like when you play your favorite CD. Now, I guess the term "listening level" is different from one person to another, but I definatelly don't consider it as "hey, let's wake up the neighbors". More than often, I lower the volume to a barely hearable level. That's when you can hear what's sticking out in your mix, and what needs a bit of a kick in the rear to work. And whenever I'm in doubt about the volume balance between certain components, that never failed me. SoundCloud ::: Facebook
MasteringThere's two ways to look at why one makes music. It's personal expression, personal therapy, a call to arms, escapism. Now what makes one think they can get away with any of that is arrogance, selfishness, egotism, and narcissism. That's just the way it is and has been since the dawn of music. Probably it's worst level yet today. And as bad as it sounds, humanity thrives on leaders and followers - so it works out to a degree. Some people practice guitar, get really good, and record themselves onto cassette and honestly think they're going to go somewhere with it. It's possible. Someone can study the science of sound and mastering, compose some pristine little ditty, and go down in flames with it. But one's going to need that arrogance and ego to carry on still. For all the hoopla of Shakespere being such a great wordsmith, I say bullocks. He wrote a lot is all. Yes, he did write some great plays eventually, and maybe his early ones weren't bad.
But he was never detered by the worst critics or empty theaters. Bones sticks to his style, he likes it and is good at it. He makes great VST's too. But is he trend-setting and revolutionising. No. And he's cool with that. Me, I'm out to mangle sound, style, form anyway I possibly can. Good at it, or not - I'd rather be playing Barry Mannilow and Joni Mitchell type songs really. So Bones makes and sells Novakill the best he can, from the ground up pretty well. CD's live performances. And maybe using Skinny Puppy and Stranglers CD's as levels of excellence. Me, though I like Paul Simon and Aphex Twin and all, I try to go out of my way to go beyond that. Shock the listener, but make it a pleasent shock as well. I'm not better than Bones, Bones isn't better than Suneel, Suneel isn't better than Kriminal. But no denying there's that little devil on our shoulder telling us we are. It's what keeps us all going - for better or for worse. Bad recordings or mixes can sometimes lead to a 'new sound'. Pristine samples of 8 bit Atari games and 30 year old beat boxes can come off as 'retro'. It's that arrogance and ego that's going to take it to the mastering house and say 'I want this polished and on CD as best you can.' Maybe more time and care should've been taken beforehand, maybe not? It's a gamble any way one slices it. But just keep doing it, no matter how selfish and arrogant it looks. People will eventually follow. But by all means, don't piss off the neighbours... All the time.
Masteringi think ds you give too much importance to mastering. i am not denying that a good master does add a bit of a polish esp when you compile an album. but it shouldint be the key equation for an artist to get signed to a label. a label is not gonna say eh bad master, sorry. evey label has some specialist who will have his set of rules for you to submit the premaster. I know this for a fact for trance labels. And labels who reject you because your track was not mastered should be avoided like plague
ok now lets set this aside for a moment and put ourselves in the shoes of a common man who is not addicted to music production. he goes to office, comes back in the evening, heads to the club, has a few drinks, picks up a couple of babes and bangs em wham-bam. This dude really cant really tell the difference b/w a pre-master and a master. All he wants is some sound to break the silence for a short time in his daily busy schedule...like in the car on way to work or in his ipod while catching his regular train in the subway or in the morning when he wakes up. Do you think he is gonna notice that the bass is too high by +2.3db? or the stereo field is a bit crowded. NO. So the point is avg people cant really tell the difference. The only people who know the difference are people like you and me and those who work in the music industry, the rest of the world really cant tell the difference b/w an experienced producer or a novice producer who can play a decent instrument as long and they will be ok as long as the musical tone/structure appeals to them. Last edited by suneel on Thu Apr 29, 2010 4:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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