Have a professional master your songs, do it yourself?

[evon]

Well you started it again Tarekith. Just like SubFunk, this is a topic I also feel passionate about. Ah mean, I am not a pro or anything although I have been in and around the industry for quite some time.

Unlike SubFunk though, I am passionate about mastering my own productions.I have no problem with the services being offered by the pro ME's and in fact I have nothing but awe for these individuals.

Somehow though, I get the feeling that the ideal situation would be for the artist to be able to master his masterpiece.
In fact it was a similar experience that got me learning a musical instrument. No musician could play the chords quite like how I was hearing them in my imagination when I was singing, so I decided to learn to play a guitar. I never had any of my songs mastered, but somehow I tend to feel that I wouldn't trust someone else with what is still in my imagination.

Well, that is my 2 cents and I am outa here.

[Tarekith]

Thanks guys, keep 'em coming, exactly the kind of answers I was looking for.

[leedsquietman]

If you got the budget and are wanting to make an impact commercially, then get you should seriously consider using a professional - but beware some of the low cost mastering out there, make sure you can get a sample test. There are people out there who know little about mixing or mastering who have some cracked waves plugins and will run it through a preset and charge you more than Tarekith or others who have experience and good ears and will be discerning an your processing and not just toss it through 'moderate 16 bit limiting*' preset on an L2. The person mastering should have a superior monitoring environment and significantly more experience than the client. Check this out and if you are not satisfied this is the case, walk on by. Someone genuine will be more than happy to list their gear, offer you a free sample and talk turkey.

Ableton Live is a great sequencer but doesn't cater for mastering in the box. It doesn't have audio statistics, no phase scope, and the limiter is just a basic affair with no oversampling. EQ8 is a good track EQ but not really suitable for mastering purposes, it doesn't have steep enough filters and induces more phase distortion than a mastering EQ when boosting. Unless you buy some dedicated 3rd party tools, a quality limiter with oversampling, a quality EQ with really tight filters and/or linear phase options, and some better monitoring options are options which need to be at least considered. Possibly a nice buss compressor too.

If you don't have the budget, or your commercial ambitions run to family, friends and a few people on a music forum, i.e. 2 or 3 dozen sales, or you are just working on demos, and you have some knowledge and experience on mixing and mix finalizing/mastering, then there is less need to use someone else.

[davepermen]

Just curious how many people are getting their songs mastered by someone else, versus doing it themselves. If you do it yourself, why? Costs too much, you like having total control of your music, you don't trust someone else, etc?

I think I asked this here a couple years back, just curious how much has changed since then.

I'm still learning so I like to try out all myself. I know I shouldn't as I hear all sort of bad things when I take my tracks to other places. I know that when I'm sane, I'm running to you to master it. But I like that "It's my work" feeling..

And for learning, it's always great to try every step on my own, I guess.

But you're number one on the list of who I'd call for mastering

[evon]

Sorry, I am still here.
You know I always wondered, if mastering is such a '"Misterious Art" then how does one learn to master?

[ChiDJ]

We have three main producers at our label. We all work closely together and often master each other's tracks and / or master together. I have total respect for "dedicated / pro" mastering engineers. We used to use several, but as of late, we found that they tended to miss our vision of the mix. We are much happier with our final mixes since we've kept everything in house.

Tod

[Rave]

I master my own demos but for releasing I get a pro to do it. Unfortunately due to costs I have to look for cheaper deals.

[evon]

We used to use several, but as of late, we found that they tended to miss our vision of the mix. We are much happier with our final mixes since we've kept everything in house.

Tod

See, this is what I mean "vision of the mix".

[mikemc]

I do it myself, although may not be as good as paid for, because before I'd pay for mastering I'd have to have proof that it would make my tracks that much better.

[leedsquietman]

Yes - but it works both ways. Sometimes your vision might be the ULTIMATE vision for a track.

Other times, you are so close to the track that you can't see the WOOD FROM THE TREES.

Tod at least has a circle of friends with experience to run it by, so there is some external objectivity there.


At the end of the day, the best way of doing this will vary from user to user there is no one definitive 'one size fits all' answer.

[Sage]

I do it all myself. I'm not releasing anything where I'll ever see a return if I did go to a pro ME.

[knotkranky]

Seriously, If a professional mixes to begin with, mastering is a non issue.

Consider mixing as mastering but with way more tracks

[Khazul]

I currently do my own demo/preview level mastering, however a couple of point with that:

1. I tend to aim for the sound and dynamics Im after in my mix, so I rarely need to apply mch if any post mix compression or EQ - maybe an enhancer sometimes if I like the result.
2. Its really only a quick post procesing pass - roll of EQ to suit to target medium and limiting to squeeze some kind of useful range out of an mp3.

However I recognise that the job I can do on my own stuff seems to be utter shite compared to that I have done for others, and the guy I work with who is a musician and definately not even a useful mix engineer can however accurately pick holes in my mixes that a best I may only suspect after hours of working on the damn thing.

The simple problem is it doesnt seem to mattter how long I leave it between mixing and mastering, I just cannot seem to shake being used to the way the track sounds - even doing things like mixing it in a test set help for frequency balance etc, but it still isnt the answer.

OTOH, my mate brought a load of stuff in for me to very quickly mix from a few stems and post process and walked away an hour later with just about the biggest grin on his face I have ever seen.

I dont pretend to be a skilled mastering engineer, but there is definately something in the technical objectivity and more discliplined listening of working on someone elses mix and not being already so used to the sound of your mix that your hearing memory and intent plays tricks on you.

So, for commercial release - we will be using a good mastering house, besides, the accoustics in here are just not good enough to really reliably get even a good balanced mix.

[3dot...]

if it's my music I'll give it to a pro ...(probly a friend)
otherwise (some shit commercial job)
...I'll stick my presets on it adjust some gains and hit render...ftw

[Akshara]

Though I have mastered commercial releases for others, I try to take my own work into a mastering house when the budget is available, as by the end of a project I've usually dove so deep into the microscopic nature of things to have lost all perspective, and appreciate having a fresh set of ears to notice the obvious things.

There have been two occasions though, one where I took a project into a professional mastering house and the other where I mailed it off to a colleague, and then ended up mastering it myself for the final release, and ate the mastering costs, which were both in the thousands of dollars. Even with the best skill, ears and equipment, a lot of it depends on if the engineer simply gets the sound you are going for or not.