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Who has money for mastering?

considering theres no money in the dance music industry, and even if you create a rare gem of a hit, the money will still not likely be anything specatular, who actually has money to afford mastering when the return is so low?

i got a guy that will do it for $40. same day usually

Eh, compared to 4 years ago when i started producing a bit. There are so many tools that make mastering/mixing/compressing so easy for the producer @ home these days.

Question is maybe, are people even bothering mastering externaly?

quote:

Originally posted by palm as far as i know the producer dont pay for mastering, it will be withdrawned from the income of your track on your invoice from the label as promotion-costs will be. or many of the labels have good mastering-gear themself inside the label so the costs wont be that much, only a few hours of work for the a/r or anyone else.

That's a shabby deal if you have to pay for mastering out of the profits you make. The label should be responsible for mastering. If they believe in your track that much, they should foot the bill, or have someone at the label do it in-house.

You can get mastering done for as little as $25 online. Why bother though, when there's no guarantees you will sell enough to make that money back. Just slap a limiter on your track and hope your EQing during mixdown was good enough

i don't find a guy who charges $25 or even $40 a promising solution...Sounds like that 'guy' is probably just putting on the same bandaid solution he does to any track, without critically listening to the requirements of the track itself.

And sure there are tools to master yourself, and i am capable of doing bandaid solutions as well, that sound appealing to listen to. But it could definitely be better if a professional attended to that duty.

Remember that audio engineering is something you can major in in select universities, and its a life long process of mastering. Even though we are capable of obtaining the necessary tools, i think its far fetched to say 'most' of us are cabaple of using them the way they're designed to be used. And as a result there are tons of poorly mastered songs on labels because of this mentality.

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0729 i got a guy that will do it for $40. same day usually

t-racks?

Guys I was in a pro Studio some days ago and the man there showed me some Wavesssssss plug ins
But I was surprised when He told me that he prefers to use Izotope Ozone 3 because it has presets and its easy !!!!
So I don't think that its impossible or so hard to do

and btw the Guy was certified not only to use but also to teach Pro Tools so hes really PRO

quote:

Originally posted by Khayat Guys I was in a pro Studio some days ago and the man there showed me some Wavesssssss plug ins

waves aren't that good.

any mastering engineer working purely off presets has no credibility in my eyes.

quote:

Originally posted by djbruuen i don't find a guy who charges $25 or even $40 a promising solution...Sounds like that 'guy' is probably just putting on the same bandaid solution he does to any track, without critically listening to the requirements of the track itself. And sure there are tools to master yourself, and i am capable of doing bandaid solutions as well, that sound appealing to listen to. But it could definitely be better if a professional attended to that duty. Remember that audio engineering is something you can major in in select universities, and its a life long process of mastering. Even though we are capable of obtaining the necessary tools, i think its far fetched to say 'most' of us are cabaple of using them the way they're designed to be used. And as a result there are tons of poorly mastered songs on labels because of this mentality.

A few people here say that http://www.master-your-track.com/ does a good job. I just realized though, that 25 euro is 70 U.S. dollars. So not really an option for me. Man, the Dollar blows now. If you don't like what they've done to your track, you don't have to pay. Fair enough I guess.

As far as mastering, the only thing I do is use a limiter to raise the volume up. I don't squash it though. I'm afraid to use EQ, exciters, or anything else, because I don't want to ruin a track. I firmly believe now, that mastering should be left up to the labels. I'm label shopping right now, and I'm determined to only go with ones that have tight quality control. That is probably going to narrow my choices.

Just because a person has a certificate, doesn't mean they are good at what they do. That's true for any profession, audio engineer is no different.

quote:

Originally posted by Khayat and btw the Guy was certified not only to use but also to teach Pro Tools so hes really PRO

jesus christ

if you guys can't fathom spending 100$ to master a track , you don't need it mastered because you aren't a professional so it matter so much.

quote:

Originally posted by palm as far as i know the producer dont pay for mastering, it will be withdrawned from the income of your track on your invoice from the label as promotion-costs will be.

this is gonna sound stupid, actually it is stupid but. i wonder if anyone has ended up getting a bill because the cost of mastering and promotion were more then the sale of the release.

technically they would but if you aren't making enough money to cover the mastering costs, chances are you don't have the IQ to use the mail service to send said bill

I have plans to hire a Professional Sound Enginner for the Mixdown&Mastering for my upcoming CD.
Alot of us, have a good sound, but I am not even close to do what a Professional Sound Enignner can manage to do, with a studio with alot of money on hardware, and the experience of years and years of work, and I want to achieve the higuest quality posible.


Kopi =o.

quote:

Originally posted by kopi_luwak I have plans to hire a Professional Sound Enginner for the Mixdown&Mastering for my upcoming CD. Alot of us, have a good sound, but I am not even close to do what a Professional Sound Enignner can manage to do, with a studio with alot of money on hardware, and the experience of years and years of work, and I want to achieve the higuest quality posible, for digital sales. Kopi =o.

I think you're doing the sensible thing. You'll have an advantage over all the lesser quality productions out there. You will be able to approach the larger labels with confidence. Will it pay off? Who knows. I would hate to sink $1000 into production costs and end up selling only a few hundred copies. It's worth a shot though.

I run a small mastering studio, which tends to specialize in dance music. One of the reasons I got into it originally was an annoyance with poorly-mastered music that I had bought. As is the topic of this thread, I have tried to keep the rates I charge within reach of smaller labels and independent producers (being one myself). And as people have said, there are indeed a large number of fly-by-night online mastering operations out to make a quick buck, so as always: buyer beware!

If you want to read more about what I do, you can check my website at http://www.purefocus.ca. In brief, my rates start at $35 CAD per track for online delivery, my turnaround time is very quick (usually 1-2 days), and like some other places I offer a guarantee whereby if you're not happy you won't be charged. This has yet to happen though

As a consumer I would certainly be complaining if I bought music which had been badly mastered to the point of ruining it, and if it were unmastered I would be going and mastering it myself! Such is often the case, though, in the wonderfully pared-down modern music industry.

Cheers,
Robin

quote:

Originally posted by Massive84 Eh, compared to 4 years ago when i started producing a bit. There are so many tools that make mastering/mixing/compressing so easy for the producer @ home these days.

Having lots of software does not make mastering 'easy', you need an impeccable monitoring environment, including acoustically treated room, along with years of experience. You can get a pretty decent mixdown in a home studio but you are going to need to hire a professional, who has a proper studio, to do your mastering. If you want to result to be any good anyway...

Slapping an L2 over your mix is not 'mastering'.

And I would really not trust any of these websites that will 'master' your tune for $40. I would use a mastering house with a good reputation such as Heathmans.

quote:

Originally posted by Sanguis Mortuum And I would really not trust any of these websites that will 'master' your tune for $40. I would use a mastering house with a good reputation such as Heathmans.

Or Porkys (shaftesbury avenue, London)

quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 Just slap a limiter on your track and hope your EQing during mixdown was good enough

+100 this got me signed. if your mixdown is perfect enough a limiter should give it the beef needed to stand out to labels.

quote:

Originally posted by sterilis +100 this got me signed. if your mixdown is perfect enough a limiter should give it the beef needed to stand out to labels.

I agree, Its really not neccesary to spend money on mastering, if the label wants it done better then they can pay, but paying for mastering yourself is stupid.

There is so much arrogance about this topic, contrary to popular belief, you don't need a great monitoring environment to master well, just a wide range system and a decent pair of ears works fine. It does take a while, but some of the tracks I've spent that time on years ago still sound good to me on any system today. I was mixing them on a Teac stereo at the time.

In the old days of the rock industry, then mastering was a big deal, you had to worry about the idiosyncracies of vinyl, and you couldn't ever go back and mix and master again, once it was on tape, you were committed. But these days, a track often gets a remix and remaster after a few years, you don't need to worry about needles skipping the groove 9/10 times, and if you turn around in a year and discover that your mastering was crap, go and do it again! Each track is preserved along with all your automation, its not like you've mixed down to stereo and can't get the original 20 tracks back. Redo it and call it the '08 remake!

People who go on about mastering are missing the point, mastering is about making sure the track will sound good on most peoples systems, not some audiophilic 20 000 grand system. And most of the time the best mastering IS an L3 plugin and a hi pass at 40 Hertz, putting more rubbish on a track won't make it any better, it'll almost always make it worse.

And it doesn't matter if your paying someone $100 to do it

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips you don't need a great monitoring environment to master well, just a wide range system and a decent pair of ears works fine.

There's some truth to that, since a lot of mastering has been done on less then stellar sound systems..

However, there's not many cheap sound systems that will translate well onto other speakers, so using more expensive/flatter sounding speakers WILL make life a lot easier for people.

But if you know your speakers/phones well enough - you should do "fine". I for one am sick of guessing the result of my mixes, only having some sennheiser hd500 as disposal. (rubbish for critical listening)

Luckily I got some cash for some really good monitors lately, and I think it's both more fun, and rewarding making music on good speakers. Sadly since my room has acoustical problems I haven't been able to use them much.

quote:

Originally posted by Beyer However, there's not many cheap sound systems that will translate well onto other speakers, so using more expensive/flatter sounding speakers WILL make life a lot easier for people.

Exactly.

Im not saying you cant get passable mixdowns without a rediculously expensive studio, you can get a nice mixdown, put a limiter on the top, and have an end-product that will sound good in a club, but dont call it 'mastering' because it isnt. Most places like Heathmans will master your track before pressing it to vinyl and this can make a big difference to the sound, meaning your final track will sound good on a crappy 5.1 system with a boomy sub in an undersized room as well as sounding great on a 50k rig in a 3000 capacity club, as well as sounding good on �30 PC speakers...

You cannot possibly overestimate the importance of a good monitoring setup, simply not having a properly acoustically treated room can cause differences in levels of over 10db at certain frequencies!

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips I agree, Its really not neccesary to spend money on mastering, if the label wants it done better then they can pay, but paying for mastering yourself is stupid.

No, I want it done better, that's the point of mastering, to reach the higuest level, is stupid to think that to pay for mastering is stupid, that not may work for you, because digital sales sell bad, etc, is other think. We are talking about if you want to release your stuff with the best quality posible, and to give your track best chances to success, or just another average sound track in the digital shops.
If we are talking about digital releases, then I think I understand you, but for CD releases, mastering is absolutely mandatory, for me, even mixing from a professional sound enginner, you dont want to get your CD out there, and to listen to the CD's done by other Producers properly mixed and mastered in a studio, and to realize yours is good, but just not as good as could be, you have to reach the higuest quality you can get if you want to fullfill all your chances to success.
Other issue about to think like you is, that the quality of the productions you hear now out there are not as good as it used to be in the past, practically all the tracks you hear now in the sets, audiojelly,etc, were mixed and mastered by the producers who made the tune, the overall sound of the productions dicreased a % compared with the days when there were only major labels with a quality standart.
As I stated before, my mix is good enough, but I am not even close to what a sound enginner can do with years of experience and good hardware.
Other think is, you send a CD to Cafe del Mar for example, and your mix&mastering is not the best, they could just ignore it, usually big labels want something already done to be pressed, a CD properly mixed&mastered by a sound enginner, is your best card, for your material.

Kopi =o.

Who needs mastering nowadays if you're a good producer?

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