Anyone here do Mastering as a full time gig?

smartabletonuser · Post by **smartabletonuser** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:39 am

I'm just wondering how lucrative mastering CAN be?

I see a lot of people offering services, but I know if I were to get into it I would save up the full 50k to open an entry level studio. I can save cash now and maybe do this in a few years - I'm just wondering if it's worth it and if anyone's making a decent to very good living in it before I quit my job in architecture.

Chang · Post by **Chang** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:48 am

smartabletonuser wrote:I'm just wondering how lucrative mastering CAN be?

I see a lot of people offering services, but I know if I were to get into it I would save up the full 50k to open an entry level studio. I can save cash now and maybe do this in a few years - I'm just wondering if it's worth it and if anyone's making a decent to very good living in it before I quit my job in architecture.

Mastering will become a thing of the past and proper mixing will also. Eventually everyone will be making junk recordings and putting them on the net for free making everything sound like shit. In this inevitable environment investing in mastering equipment would be a bad investment.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:59 am

following the doctrine of nathann

make it sound like shit and release it on mp3 or vinyl and make it free

can't exist as a mastering engineer under those conditions.

Big recording studios and mastering houses are disappearing and making less and less money. In an economic recession, people turn to cheap or freeware to make their their music and spend less on pro treatment.

Still, if you are interested, I'll master your music for a good price

kaffein · Post by **kaffein** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:01 am

If you can call out a 1dB bump at a certain frequency only using your ears, I would say go for it.

chalkline · Post by **chalkline** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 9:27 am

when you see kids listening to music through the speaker of their mobile phones, why bother with mastering, we are back in the days of transistor radio again!

DJ VAKIS · Post by **DJ VAKIS** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:38 pm

chalkline wrote:when you see kids listening to music through the speaker of their mobile phones, why bother with mastering, we are back in the days of transistor radio again!

Thats right,transistor radio.
Please say it again.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:04 pm

I've been slowly working on trying to go full-time mastering, and it's been taking awhile. After talking with quite a few people doing it full time and some financial advisors, the conclusion I've come to is that it doesn't pay to go ahead full steam until you get a deecnt client base, people you know will come back to you for your services and pay off any loans you take out for gear. The traditional route of teaboy -> assistant -> engineer -> mixdown engineer -> mastering engineer doesn't really apply for 99.99% of the people interested in this field, so you have to approach it from a different way.

Even after doing this for a few years and having a pretty steady stabel of artists and labels that use my services, I still can't see myself making a living off it yet. My business plan calls for at least another 3-4 years of networking before I get to that point.

YMMV

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:03 am

Yup.

I've recently mastered 4 albums, 2 of those for friends groups so all I'm getting is a credit on those (but I am confident they will do well and help get my mastering service better known)

(I do all the processing from level adjustments/eq/dynamics/ through to sequencing, edits, fades, and red book compliant burning with PQ lists etc)

The other 2 albums were minimal and I ploughed that profit back into buying a couple of extra mastering plugins and upgraded Soundforge to SF9 from SF8.

I wouldn't give up my day job. I wouldn't give it up for any kind of music/engineering work, there are layoffs galore and in the current climate of Nathann think, * he is actually in the majority, even if I disagree * of free music, the chances of earning a good living in this field are just minute, even the very best and established people are under pressure.

3dot... · Post by **3dot...** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:01 am

leedsquietman wrote:Yup.

I've recently mastered 4 albums, 2 of those for friends groups so all I'm getting is a credit on those (but I am confident they will do well and help get my mastering service better known)

(I do all the processing from level adjustments/eq/dynamics/ through to sequencing, edits, fades, and red book compliant burning with PQ lists etc)

The other 2 albums were minimal and I ploughed that profit back into buying a couple of extra mastering plugins and upgraded Soundforge to SF9 from SF8.

I wouldn't give up my day job. I wouldn't give it up for any kind of music/engineering work, there are layoffs galore and in the current climate of Nathann think, * he is actually in the majority, even if I disagree * of free music, the chances of earning a good living in this field are just minute, even the very best and established people are under pressure.

bummer...

yearlongyeti · Post by **yearlongyeti** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:06 pm

I'd like to think that good production and mastering will save the music industry. While the industry will always churn out pop music with a compressed transistor radio type sound. I'd like to think that people will start wanting quality again. Weather its vynil or 24,96bit etc (see t-bone's 'code fidelity'). Maybe the industry will stop pushing out fluff and start putting time and resources into quality. Mind you I do still believe in the tooth fariy also. But it would nice to believe.

Anyone here do Mastering as a full time gig?

Anyone here do Mastering as a full time gig?

Re: Anyone here do Mastering as a full time gig?