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Mastering vs. Good Production Ethics

This may or may not be a stupid question I'm not sure.

But its like this. As my production skills get better and I'm almost 3 years in now I'm begining to focus A LOT on mastering and achieving professional sound quality.

This is the thing I can't understand. If you submit a track to be mastered professionally you're giving them *1* chunk of audio to run through their fancy hardware.
But when you're mixing a track you could be mixing between 10-20 different sound sources into one big mess. So as a producer you have access to each sound, you can equalize & compress them independently. So shouldn't your ability to achieve a professional sound from that standpoint (being able to manipulate a single sound) be much higher than if you send the whole mix to a mastering studio?

I see all this talk about analog this and analog that but how important is mastering really? How big of a difference does it make to a track if you already have a great mixing technique?
Just that sending a track off to be mastered seems limited in the idea that the masterer can only deal with one chunk of audio.

And my final question is - is there anyone here who sent a well produced track off to be mastered and can maybe submit the pre- & post versions? I'm really curious to see what all this expensive hardware can actually do to a track. I can understand the idea of mastering but not neccessarily the importance or potential. Any comments/opinions are appreciated. - Roxx

Mastering is an important step. It is not, however, the answer to getting a "professional" sound. I think a lot of beginner producers think that mastering is some sort of "magic bullet" that will rescue a poorly produced track and give them that "sound" they are looking for. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Mastering is generally aimed at increasing the apparent loudness of a track and giving the track that extra "sheen" and final polish. In a traditional album setting where you have 10 or 12 tracks on a CD, one of the jobs of a mastering engineer is to balance the various tracks across the album and make the tracks sound cohesive when listening from one track to the next.

Since EDM is more of a "one track at a time" affair, the mastering process is not overly concerned with continuity, but more with making the track as loud as possible without losing the dymanics of the track and having it sound "squashed" my over compressing it. There are also some minor balance issues that may be corrected in the mastering process for EDM, but if the mastering engineer has to make major boosts or cuts to the track at the mastering stage, it is usually indicitive of a poor mixdown or poor choice of sounds and/or arrangement.

You track should sound full and complete in it's pre-master state and the mastering process should only add the "icing on the cake" as it were. The mastering process should remain the final step in a long line of steps where YOU, as the producer, should have made every effort to have the track sound good before it is sent to the mastering house.

This does not mean that you can just slap a limiter on the track and consider it mastered. Part of the mastering engineer's job is to provide an objective set of ears and hear things that you may have missed. These should generally be minor problems and any major work needs to be fixed before the track makes it to the mastering house. A well-produced track should sound pretty darn good before the mastering engineer even touches it and most mastering engineers who specialize in dance music shouldn't need to work all that hard to get your music into its final "mastered" state.

What should not be overlooked is that a proper mastering engineer will have the equipment and expertise to identify how your track will sound across a wide variety of systems, from crappy consumer-grade speakers to a big club sound system. He or she should be able to balance your track in a way that allows it to stand out on any system it is played on. His or her role is very important in providing a good balance for your track and preparing it for its final media destination (vinyl, CD, etc.), but he should not be relied upon to fix your broken mix.

With a lot of artists, the sound they're hearing as they're working on their mix is almost indistinguishable from the mastered end result.

Mastering is there for fixing problems and raising gain in an inoffensive way. That's it. If there happens to be a heap of low-end rumble in your mix which you can't hear because of your listening situation, then a good mastering room will pick that up and a good mastering engineer will remove it.

But really, if you're listening to your track pre and post mastering and can notice an obvious difference, then that's something you could've taken care of in the mix. That does take some experience though, so it's good in the beginning to hear the difference and to ask the engineer why they made that change, and learn from what they say, so you can make that adjustment yourself in future.

From my perspective - tracks I release I always take to external mastering, but I make sure it's with a guy who'll give me what I want, not what THEY want and I make sure I'm sitting there during the process and finding out exactly what processors they're using and why they're using them. It's incredibly valuable information.

But what I don't expect or want, is for my tracks to sound different, post mastering. I don't always nail my mixes, there's always room for improvement, but ideally a mastering engineer you can trust will give your mix the thumbs up and raise the apparent level of the track in a non-destructive way. It's money well spent for the peace of mind of having a professional having heard it.

Long-term, your tracks should sound "mastered" while you're mixing/ producing.

what i've learnt from this board is that, as said above mastering is to fix problems and raise the level.

but problems should be fixed before you master i think.

maybe just a little compression and/or limiting to get the levels up.

but focus mainly on what you have and try and make that the best it can be!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J

/thread

i hear some producers dont master the track as a whole, but merely "master" each individual channels, Eric Prydz for example.

it seems to work ok for him. does anyone else do this or do they feel that mastering the track as a whole is essential?

my productions fail on the mastering front as im not very good at it yet! but i do feel that getting each channel spot on before you master it as a whole is essential

Mastering in a EDM setting is barely 15% of the final sound, it's all about the quality of the mixdown and post production work and the sound you go for when doing this.

More than likely your not going to be concerned with getting versions ready for different media, or shaping the sound you want for an album to give your band and album a style (think of the range of songs you might hear on a rock album - slow to fast etc).

quote:

Originally posted by Acton i hear some producers dont master the track as a whole, but merely "master" each individual channels, Eric Prydz for example. it seems to work ok for him. does anyone else do this or do they feel that mastering the track as a whole is essential?

In an ideal world, all masters would be done this way. I can't think of a mastering engineer who would prefer to master a stereo mix rather than the individual stems because they think they'd get a better sounding master. Yes, it's more work, but the end product can be much more detailed.

My ethics when it comes to production tend to be very utilitarian; I do what does the greatest good to the largest number of people and does the least harm to the smallest number of people.

When I put a limiter and so forth on my Master Channel, there is always a significant increase quality. If I was to send a track off to be Mastered properly should I take off my own Mastering efforts or should I leave it as is?

quote:

Originally posted by thoughtlessjex My ethics when it comes to production tend to be very utilitarian; I do what does the greatest good to the largest number of people and does the least harm to the smallest number of people.

SOMEONE listened during ethics class

quote:

Originally posted by Blahzaay When I put a limiter and so forth on my Master Channel, there is always a significant increase quality. If I was to send a track off to be Mastered properly should I take off my own Mastering efforts or should I leave it as is?

thats a very good question!! im curious to know as well. anybody???

quote:

Originally posted by Blahzaay When I put a limiter and so forth on my Master Channel, there is always a significant increase quality. If I was to send a track off to be Mastered properly should I take off my own Mastering efforts or should I leave it as is?

Take off your own mastering so the pro can go to town on your mix. He can and will slap on the limiter, but he may make some slight adjustments before doing so that will result in a greater quality mix.

I mean, if you're going to bother going through the trouble of getting a professional involved, let him do all the work for you. Chances are he'll get better results than you.

As for the thread itself, just read Eric J's response as he covers it quite comprehensively.

So if a master engineers job is just to correct minor "problems" and increase the overall volume etc.. why cant u do some work with a multiband compressor on the master track yourself? It can, afterall, have drastical effects on the sound itself. And you're to get the mix as good as possible before mastering it, right?

So what the hell determines wether compression on a master track is considered a mixing or mastering effect?

quote:

Originally posted by lenieNt Force So if a master engineers job is just to correct minor "problems" and increase the overall volume etc.. why cant u do some work with a multiband compressor on the master track yourself? It can, afterall, have drastical effects on the sound itself. And you're to get the mix as good as possible before mastering it, right? So what the hell determines wether compression on a master track is considered a mixing or mastering effect?

One of the most important reasons that you wouldn't want to do this yourself is that is is very difficult to listen to your own work from an objective viewpoint. A mastering engineer is going to have experience to take other people's music and be able to identify and correct problems that you most likely would not hear.

In addition, many people who specialize in mastering will have hardware and software that is specifically designed for the mastering process. There are a lot of compressors, limiters and other hardware that is specifically designed for mastering purposes and a mastering engineer is going to have the expertise to use it.
The process of mastering may use the same class of hardware and software that we use in production (compressors, eq, etc.), but it is a different art altogether.

One other thing that a good mastering engineer will have is several different sets of speakers with different properties so he can get a good idea on how your mix will sound on a wide variety of systems.

You can probably get a track signed without proper mastering, or even doing your own home grown mastering. For the purposes of getting a demo to a label this is probably just fine, however any good label looking to release your music on high quality media is going to want to master your music with their own engineer to make sure they can maintain a high quality sound. If nothing else, music must be mastered in a specific way if it is to be cut to vinyl in order to prevent problems with the cutting process such as needle jump and things of that nature.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J One of the most important reasons that you wouldn't want to do this yourself is that is is very difficult to listen to your own work from an objective viewpoint. A mastering engineer is going to have experience to take other people's music and be able to identify and correct problems that you most likely would not hear. In addition, many people who specialize in mastering will have hardware and software that is specifically designed for the mastering process. There are a lot of compressors, limiters and other hardware that is specifically designed for mastering purposes and a mastering engineer is going to have the expertise to use it. The process of mastering may use the same class of hardware and software that we use in production (compressors, eq, etc.), but it is a different art altogether. One other thing that a good mastering engineer will have is several different sets of speakers with different properties so he can get a good idea on how your mix will sound on a wide variety of systems. You can probably get a track signed without proper mastering, or even doing your own home grown mastering. For the purposes of getting a demo to a label this is probably just fine, however any good label looking to release your music on high quality media is going to want to master your music with their own engineer to make sure they can maintain a high quality sound. If nothing else, music must be mastered in a specific way if it is to be cut to vinyl in order to prevent problems with the cutting process such as needle jump and things of that nature.

This is good and all, but your not answering my question.

quote:

Originally posted by lenieNt Force This is good and all, but your not answering my question.

OK, your question, as I understand it, was:

quote:

Originally posted by lenieNt Force So what the hell determines wether compression on a master track is considered a mixing or mastering effect?

Basically from a technical standpoint, nothing. Compression on the master track is the same if you slap it on while you are mixing versus slapping it on to a 2-channel stereo file at the mastering stage. The point is to reduce the dynamic range of the track.

However, mastering is not just limited to decreasing the dynamic range of the track, it is also intended to make sure your track is tonally balanced (among the other things I have mentioned earlier). Could a mastering engineer do this during the mix process? Sure.

Since mastering is usually done at a different location, with totally different equipment, it has been the traditional route to hand him a single stereo file, for the obvious reason that it is not practical for a mastering engineer to come to your studio and master your track while mixing.

Also, I'm not saying this HAS to be done this way, it is just the way it is USUALLY done.

There are plenty of good producers out there that do their own mastering (Steve Angello and Prydz come to mind) and it sounds just fine. In that case, the only thing that a mastering engineer might do is make sure there are no technical problems with the mix before cutting it to vinyl or burning it to CD, which he or she sould probably do in about 20 minutes.

Some people can probably do it and it'll be fine. I just prefer to leave that stage to someone who knows a lot more about it than I do, and I like having the second set of ears to tell me if there is something wrong with my mix. In addition, the feedback is often something than can be valuable in pointing out something you may be doing wrong at the mixdown stage and you can make note of it and correct it with future tracks.

Some the things they tell you can point out things like areas where your monitors or acoustical environment may be weak and you may be over compensating in the mix, or maybe they notice that they consistently have to put a notch filter at your 50Hz range to reduce a problem frequency, which is a clue that you may want to see why things are peaking there, etc. For me, the more information I can get from people who know more than I do, the better producer I am going to be.

WOW. Eric J cheers for those posts. So much detail but I took every word of it in. I've spent so much time trying to learn about mastering techniques and apply them to my own tracks but maybe I'm wasting too much time on it...

quote:

Originally posted by Blahzaay WOW. Eric J cheers for those posts. So much detail but I took every word of it in. I've spent so much time trying to learn about mastering techniques and apply them to my own tracks but maybe I'm wasting too much time on it...

Well, the more information you have, the better off you are. I focus my energies more on the production aspect. If you feel like you are learning something from studing mastering techniques, then I don't consider that a waste of time.

Going a bit off topic here, but does a record label master your tracks for you? Or is it best to get a trusted engineer to master it before you send off copies??

I'm starting to get to the stage where I think I'll be confident enough to hand my work out but as I said before have always tried to master it myself.

Both tracks I've had signed (Gesture and Armada) had mastering done and the fee deducted from the royalties. No clue how other labels operate, but I'd imagine most of them have some sort of deal with a mastering house and pass all their signings through there.

That said, no reason to not submit a mastered version to them originally, as it will of course sound better than an unmastered one. If they decide to sign it they'll ask for the unmastered .wav and do it themselves. If you're giving it to a DJ to play, definitely give him your own mastered version as it will undoubtedly sound better at the club than the unmastered version.

quote:

Originally posted by Sean Walsh If they decide to sign it they'll ask for the unmastered .wav and do it themselves.

Which, generally, essentially means the track without compression and maximising, or without maximising only? As said, compression on top of a track can have quite dramatic effects on the sound itself. And if youre to remove this before sending it off for someone else to master it, it might be hard for this engineer to reproduce the exact sound it had with the compression on. What determines wether you should remove this compression or not, before sending the wav off to final mastering? What determines wether this compression is an effect to the *sound* itself, or if its considered a mastering effect? You, yourself?

Afterall.. Mastering should preferably only be, in this day and age, a very transparent modification to the track. So what do you say?

MASTERING DOESNT GIVE YOU A PROFESSIONAL SOUND.....

quote:

Originally posted by lenieNt Force As said, compression on top of a track can have quite dramatic effects on the sound itself. And if youre to remove this before sending it off for someone else to master it, it might be hard for this engineer to reproduce the exact sound it had with the compression on.

In that case you should fire your engineer and find a competent immediatly.

quote:

Originally posted by mysticalninja MASTERING DOESNT GIVE YOU A PROFESSIONAL SOUND.....

lol chill dude.. Who says this?

Not mastering alone, no..

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