Good online mastering?

woodwardjnr · Post by **woodwardjnr** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:43 pm

can anyone recomend a decent online mastering company?

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:59 pm

www.nebulae.com

popslut · Post by **popslut** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:05 pm

http://www.emasters.co.uk/

Highly recommended - run by Kevin Metcalfe who has a list of credits as long as your arm. I've spent thousands with them and I've always come away more than pleased.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:14 pm

^ or you can use me for $50 per song, $100 per DJ set, with a sliding scale for full albums, etc.

Tarekith also does a lot of mastering with high praise...I won't speak for his rates, but I believe his rates are slightly lower.

Not to knock the old school mastering houses...they of course get due credits for what they do and the great/expensive gear they own (and you'll pay for their services!), but I am a firm believer that these days, you can easily get 90-95% of the way there with a significantly lower fraction of the cost.

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:16 pm

you get what you pay for

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:17 pm

+1 each for nebulae and Tarekith

jez3122 · Post by **jez3122** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:19 pm

b0unce wrote:you get what you pay for

Thats bullshit

Moody · Post by **Moody** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:27 pm

nebulae wrote:^ or you can use me for $50 per song, $100 per DJ set, with a sliding scale for full albums, etc.

Tarekith also does a lot of mastering with high praise...I won't speak for his rates, but I believe his rates are slightly lower.

Not to knock the old school mastering houses...they of course get due credits for what they do and the great/expensive gear they own (and you'll pay for their services!), but I am a firm believer that these days, you can easily get 90-95% of the way there with a significantly lower fraction of the cost.

Hey Neb,
Do you prefer to do the mix and master? Or should I say, do you do the mix and master?

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:32 pm

Moody wrote: Hey Neb,
Do you prefer to do the mix and master? Or should I say, do you do the mix and master?

I'm happy to help with both, although doing a mix is more detailed and costs a bit more. It also requires more contact, because for example, you might have a bass part that's too boomy and I make an eq cut, but then it changes the feel of the song you had in mind, and we'd have to do more back and forth, so it can get more intricate and take some more time. But I'm happy to do it, and I've helped a lot of folks with their mixes...after I do a few, you can usually learn some good tricks and take it away on your own.

The mastering of the mixdown is more common, as that takes some experience and really good ears to get right. People will send me 32-bit mixdowns of a song or a render of a long DJ set and I can get that back to you with two rounds of review built into the price. Again, I'll go through my mastering chain and talk you through what I did, and hopefully you'll get the hang of it soon enough

Moody · Post by **Moody** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:45 pm

nebulae wrote:
I'm happy to help with both, although doing a mix is more detailed and costs a bit more. It also requires more contact, because for example, you might have a bass part that's too boomy and I make an eq cut, but then it changes the feel of the song you had in mind, and we'd have to do more back and forth, so it can get more intricate and take some more time. But I'm happy to do it, and I've helped a lot of folks with their mixes...after I do a few, you can usually learn some good tricks and take it away on your own.

The mastering of the mixdown is more common, as that takes some experience and really good ears to get right. People will send me 32-bit mixdowns of a song or a render of a long DJ set and I can get that back to you with two rounds of review built into the price. Again, I'll go through my mastering chain and talk you through what I did, and hopefully you'll get the hang of it soon enough

Sounds good. I am not to far from you so if I ever finish a song I will get in touch.

popslut · Post by **popslut** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:47 pm

nebulae wrote:you can easily get 90-95% of the way there with a significantly lower fraction of the cost.

I'd say more like 40% to be honest.

And that last 60% makes all the difference.

But don't let me stop you mastering whereever you want. The more bad sounding records there are in the world, the better mine sound by comparison.

[BTW, EMasters will master your tracks for less than £99 a track and for that you get about 30 years of top-line mastering experience and a signal path to die for.]

DJ Etain · Post by **DJ Etain** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:55 pm

As someone who has been at the receiving end of Neb's fantastic mastering abilities, I give him a 10/10 for quality and service. He really pulled the finer and more intricate elements from my mix and really made them stand out. Impressive work.

Etain

vinkalmann · Post by **vinkalmann** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:55 pm

+1 for Nebulae!

Neb's mastered two of my completed mixes at this point:

http://vinkalmann.com/index.php?option= ... &Itemid=25

and

http://www.mixdepot.net/VinkalmannKorruptor

Overall I have been VERY satisfied with the end results. The mixes both benefited in a major way from having Nebulae working on them.

He's VERY easy to work with and I can genuinely say that he cares about what he's doing.

The process was great. I sent him my finished work. He listened to it and came back with notes and suggestions. We the listened to the mix at the same time while talking over IM. He made notes as to what he would change and things that I wanted changed. He then made the changes and the process over IM was repeated. We only needed to do this twice, but he would have done it a third time. I highly recommend giving him a try as his rates are very reasonable and there's a full guarantee on his work. If you don't like the end result, you don't pay. Not bad since there's nothing to lose!

mohler · Post by **mohler** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:57 pm

nebulae wrote:www.nebulae.com

Go Neb, right in there!

I'd agree with beats me. Personally I'd give my business to my fellow forum members before I went for a big company that I didn't have a relationship with.

How can you go wrong, there's Neb^^ offering mastering tips and a discussion so you can learn how to do it better yourself next time.

That's not how it works if you go to an online guys.

i guess it depends on what you are looking for and prepared to pay for.... I'll have to finish a track so I can send it on!

pixelbox · Post by **pixelbox** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 8:12 pm

nebulae wrote:www.nebulae.com

+1. This guy can work magic. I've heard many before and after examples of his work, and he's definitely a pro.