Have a professional master your songs, do it yourself?

[3dot...]

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.

most mastering people will re do it until it's right for the costumer...
(well ...2 rejects is fair..)

[UKRuss]

I voted 'somtimes' because I think it depends on what your project is.

If it is a one off track, EDM, I am more than happy to pop an Ozone preset over it, or Vintage Warmer or a combo of T-Racks plugs because I know in advamnce I am unlikely to have the record signed (probably because i don't put any effort into shopping it around as much as it possibly not being good enough anyway) So, I save my cash but raise the overall loudness and get some sheen going on it etc. Do a bit of a/bing and that's fine. If for some reason someone did take a liking to it then I would probably expect the label to have it pro mastered anyway at their cost,not mine. Either way, in this scenario I do see spending money on external mastering a bit of an overkill.

One has to consider the expense put in against the likelihood of making a profit. Just taking your rate as an example T, I spend $40 to have my track mastered. I then need to sell 40 (say $1 a track) copies just to break even. Balance that against it just being a vanity release with no marketing behind it and no label so it won't even get to Beatport, then I lose $40 just to have the vanity pleasure of some external mastering.

I'd be skint pretty quickly if I adopted that process.

BUT

For my other projects where my music involves guitars and vocals and I'm making on an album, then yes. I think external mastering suddenly becomes essential because, and I note no-one has mentioend it yet, mastering is not just about polishing your single track it is about prepping multiple tracks for duplication. In this case I need a mastering engineer to gel those tracks together, make them sound cohesive and that they are meant to be on the same album, that they are all the same level, that they have the right gaps and fades and that a redbook standard master is produced at the end of it so I can have CDs manufactured if I so wish.

This is not somethign I could do with an Ozone preset and not somethign i could trust myself to do even for a vanity release.

The downside will again be capital outlay on my part to get that done but for an album, as I say, it is essential.

At lease if someone does buy it they might pay £3.99 or £4.99 and over time and with effort and the right distribution I could hope to make my money back.

Therefore again I voted 'sometimes' because I think different types of music and different projects can be treated differently when it comes to mastering, I don't think it's cut and dried.

[leedsquietman]

Good points.

I have mentioned in previous discussions on this topic (as have others) that sequencing/fading/and red book CD compliance with PQ lists for duplicators etc is all part of the overall deal in a commercial release. Which is another reason why I use Soundforge, because that (in conjunction with the bundled red book authoring program CD Architect) can do things which are expected in commercial release as well as giving better audio and visual analysis and statistical information and much quicker and easier audio editing/fades/crossfades and procedures such as DC offset removal, clipped peak restoration, clipping detection and declick/denoise/noise reduction tools (rarely needed but if you want to bring older analog tape recordings or vinyl translations to digital are useful).

The thing about break even is also true. This is partially why the type of software mastering offered by Tarekith (and others, including myself) is popular, because we have tools which can enhance the mixes (certainly for the lesser experienced user at least) and do all the preparation for a red book compliant CD release at a much more affordable rate than a pro mastering job where they use Cranesong Avocets for monitor controllers, Weiss gear such as the DS-1 (super expensive hardware de-esser/compressor/limiter endorsed by Bob Katz and others) and real high grade converters such as Lavry Gold or Mytek etc. Not to mention dedicated multi thousand dollar monitors etc. Those of us providing budget end mastering obviously don't have this type of dedicated mastering hardware/software, but we can clean up mixes and get the volume at least in the ballpark of a commercial release and (if doing a CD release) handle the red book side of things. For unsigned artists, this kind of 'demo mastering' can still be useful and make a difference to getting a deal or putting your music out on Beatport etc.

You need to be signed to a major or a more established indie who will give you a reasonable recording/mixing/mastering budget and/or have high ambitions of a reasonable selling release to be able to justify a mastering expense like using Sony Music Mastering or Sterling Sound or Bob Katz's mastering facilities etc.

In the meantime - everyone can learn this stuff, even if you don't handle it for yourself. Get a reasonable recording / mixing environment, get some reasonable monitors and headphones, do some basic acoustic treatment and sign up for courses, or get books such as Bob Katz's 'Mastering Audio - The Art and the Science (2nd edition)' (p) Focal Press 2008 and just practice, practice, practice. Everyone should be able to do the fundamental things without too much pain but which can elevate the quality of your mixes and make them sound closer to a commercial release soundwise and level wise. It really is no black art or mysterious thing. Pro MES had to put their time in just like everyone else.

[SubFunk]

well, i tried hard, i wanted to totally pull out of this thread, but i really can't...

i totally agree with leedsquietman, and i am thankful that he has a nice and very diplomatic way to express his thoughts, well i don't have those skills.

but i like to add at least one major thing that is missing in what he wrote:

In the meantime - everyone can learn this stuff, even if you don't handle it for yourself. Get a reasonable recording / mixing environment, get some reasonable monitors and headphones, do some basic acoustic treatment and sign up for courses, or get books such as Bob Katz's 'Mastering Audio - The Art and the Science (2nd edition)' (p) Focal Press 2008 and just practice, practice, practice. Everyone should be able to do the fundamental things without too much pain but which can elevate the quality of your mixes and make them sound closer to a commercial release soundwise and level wise. It really is no black art or mysterious thing. Pro MES had to put their time in just like everyone else.

YES!, totally, but if you ever want to become any real good in it, then never do learn, train, practise or do it with your own created and mixed material, get tracks from friends, neighbours, the guy next to you at a bar you meet in a club, steal them, or whatever!!!, but don't do it with your own material.

again, the reason is: you will miss the point of what you have to learn and discover and 'hear', besides applying then the the technical aspects, you will be always to close, magnification glass close, inside and emotionally attached to your own material, and you do not ever will be able to 'hear' and discover the things, which you need to figure to to do a real good mastering job.

i hope i managed to explain this in a way now, so you might understand the point?

p.s. to people who said that they want to be 'in control' about the product a 100% until the last stage, if a mastering engineer is able to take you away from the 'soul' or your 'goal' or whatever you want to call it of your track, well then already in the making process / mixdown is something so entirely wrong, you will not ever get 'fixed', you basically miss the point by a mile and a half, already!

well, why i do actually care?, it's me who is the stoopid one!, trying to explain something which has not even something to do with my personal opinion.

well, i really need to pull out of this conversation, once and forever.

p.s. not talking about a quick 'n' dirty budget level job you do yourself, i mean all this talking about *mastering*.

[Tarekith]

Quiet you! Don't make me put you back in your cage!




Thanks everyone for taking a second to chime in with your opinions, very interesting!

[SubFunk]

ROOOAAAARRRRRR!!!!!

[davepermen]

indeed. somehow, the main reason i don't look for other help is the selfishness of wanting it to be my work, and my work only. great for learning, but obviously, sharing, and getting different views would help for learning, too

if i would send you a track, tarekish, would you consider giving info out what you changed (roughly) and why? or is that corporate secret?

[leedsquietman]

I have done this for a couple of other users on the forum and I'm sure that Tarekith and/or any serious candidate for mastering would be happy to run you through a sample clip with either some visual screen dumps and/or a brief synopsis on where they made the changes and what they used to affect those changes.

It's not really a secret, because what was done would only apply to that material. Big Time Mixer Dave Pensado (Christina Aguilera, Pussycat Dolls, Black Eyed Peas, etc, etc) states in Sound On Sound Jan 2007 where he gives screen dumps of plugin settings and talks through exactly how he mixed 'Buttons' and 'Beep' by Pussycat Dolls sums this up well. 'Protecting one's mixing secrets is as useless as Hemingway hiding his verbs - the settings I give here would only apply to this track in this context - with a different vocalist and different program material, I would react differently with my settings, so what I give is for reference only. Copying these settings to something else blind will most likely not have the desired affect'.

[Tarekith]

I always let people know what I did if they ask, indeed I think that's one of the best parts of having someone else master your work.

[davepermen]

I always let people know what I did if they ask, indeed I think that's one of the best parts of having someone else master your work.

indeed. without that, i would not consider it, except for just stomping out tracks for making money with them.. which is not nothing, but not my main goal. learning is. learning and understanding.

[aizo]

FOR ME I would send it off to specialist. I have pretty good skills but I just don't have the quality equipment to master it mahself. Same thing goes with recording. At home I can track my ideas all day to find out what works and not. Once I figure out what I finally want, I rent some time and have it tracked with great quality gear in a great room.

To each his own.

I just know that race car drivers wanna race not tune the engine.

Another reason I avoid mastering my own productions is the hatred that comes from listening to your track 30,000
times to make is sound "right."

[mihai]

me mate trevor has this crazy waves multiband compressor preset that makes my tracks madphat. he does my mastering for only £12.

but.

mostly and mainly it's a combination of cost and professionalism for me. i'm sure that quite a few of these "pro mastering" services advertised around the web are just a dude in his mom's basement with a couple of torrented waves plugs indifferent of whatever walls and racks of analog gear are advertised on the site. as for the worthy me's... unfortunately money is an issue.

i'll be honest and admit that i've never contacted or sent my work to one so i'm merely speculating. at the same time i want to improve my own skills and indifferent of what some people might say, i do believe that mastering personal material offers one something to learn as well as far as the process is concerned [and not that "you should always send your tracks to an me"].

either way, so far i'm happy with everything i'm making and i'm getting positive responses from fellow non-/musicians.

sorry to disappoint, subfunk & co.

in the end nothing beats a good multiband compressor preset that's crisp in the highs and madphat in the bass. period.

[davepermen]

get it?

[SubFunk]

one word about costs, you never should pay for it yourself, if the label does not pay it, then the deal is wrong! and you have been screwed from them.
any respectable label will send it anyways to an ME, if it has not been done before hand... properly, well it is more and more often happening our days (leaving the ME out and screwing people, and most importantly people accepting being screwed!!!) well you can experience the result yourself all to often, on Beatport and such...

i think it's a vital part as well to get this wrong thinking out of the head that a track needs to be mastered before send to a label...
a good label does not care, a good label judges the music, if it fits the label, respectively if they believe it sells, then they bring it to an ME, no questions asked. maybe that is the vital point many people don't seem to understand.

respectively to many young labels don't understand their responsibilities.

EDIT: that does not mean that you can't go yourself to an ME respectively choose your preferred one... i only talk about the cost distribution, in a serious deal.

[eggnchips]

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.

Ha ha, this is surely a self promotion thread if I ever saw one.
What's up Tarekith? Work a bit dry around the festive period?

Why do the debates here always get taken so far here?
For me it's simple: If it'd be worthy of a demo, then I'd pay and have it mastered.
Up to now though I still slap on a master preset as I'm not yet so far.