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-- Danny Byrd - I send to mastering house AFTER my own mastering + limiting with O-Zone
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Danny Byrd - I send to mastering house AFTER my own mastering + limiting with O-Zone

Just a bit of a contrarian take on masterbuss processing and self mastering added prior to sending for pro mastering.


My Byrd is massive in the UK just now and IMO makes incredible Friday night fun packed music.


Now he says something here that I myself had been thinking a while back when I sent a track to a label to master. I was worried they would loose some of the natural energy I'd spent a long time coaxing, and in my opinion that's then exactly what happened, some energy and ermmm flava was somehow lost.


Danny sums it up perfectly at 3.35 when he says "when you take it(own mastering) off and send it to mastering house, you loose some energy".

Now I can imagine people thinking this is nonsense, but what I think can happen is you spend weeks with your 'baby' endlessly tweaking masterbuss settings, way longer than an outside jobbing mastering guy would so you kinda gradualy and organically tweak it to an energy level that fits like a glove. You may not have his experience but you know your baby intimately and may have tweaked the mastering for weeks or even months on ened whereas he might have an hour with it.

So I'm specifically not saying you don't need separate mastering, but I am deffo from the school of thought that some, even a lot of masterbuss mastering can actualy be a bonus.

i sometimes use ozone's multiband on some frequencies before i send it to mastering, i've found most mastering engineers won't work so much on the sparkle but more on the "corrective-ness" of it all

as long as you apply it as "creative compression" there is nothing wrong with it, but don't overdo it and also do not dither since once on 16bits the 24bit dynamic range potential is lost and the engineer has less dynamic range to work with.

isnt that the exact reason why you should have someone else master it?

because you get too "intimate" with you're track like you said, so there for you are inpaired to make the proper judjements.

not only that, but "shaping the dynamics" is destructive, it's a one way street and there is no way back from a wrong turn. so "sort of" getting that vibe (like 70% right, but not quite exactly how you want it), most of the times ruins the potential to get that vibe a 100% afterwards, not "preshaping" this vision yourself actually helps to engineer to fulfil your vision.

Ofcourse non of this is relevant, if you know exactly what your doing and if u can trust your ears, monitoring and room. But then you also wouldn't need the engineer to spice up your track.

At the end of the day there is not 1 sole religion on the creative part. However common sense around dynamics and destructive editting should always be taken into consideration. once it's imprinted and quantized/dithered to 16bits it's gone forever.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie as long as you apply it as "creative compression" .

creative compression is the only reason you would do it. Some people want a certain that is a creative choice. That isn't the mastering engineers job unless I suppose you have a long standing relationship with him and he knows what you like.

The mastering guy isn't going to make your tune pump. Well I should clarify, a real mastering engineer won't but all the EDM guys that pretend to master will because that is about all they really know how to do.

I think you would be surprised to find mastering tools like a mc in most studios on almost every buss. The overheads are getting it, the bass is getting. That is how you make pop sound like pop. Not saying its good or bad but shit Raphie, you irk me.

i feel you should send the mastering house your version as a guide, and an un-effected one for them to work on.

basically saying, "This is what I want. Get me close to this while smoothing anything I might've overlooked when I did it."

quote:

Originally posted by kadomony i feel you should send the mastering house your version as a guide, and an un-effected one for them to work on. basically saying, "This is what I want. Get me close to this while smoothing anything I might've overlooked when I did it."

Agree with this and L4C's sentiments - Mastering engineers are meant to do very subtle things, and I wouldn't look for them to add energy as such to my track. If I wanted them to, it would only be because they have access to some compressor I don't (shadow hills etc) and I trusted them implicitly, otherwise hell no, it's something the producer should be doing.

The interview more tells me that their particular strain of DnB really uses a lot of brickwall buss and master limiting, so I understand why he wants it on there before sending it to the mastering house (again because the mastering engineer should not be adding energy or drive so when they master it, it doesn't have his preferred aesthetic).

I personally feel that his "mastering" is more actually an engineering/producing aspect, not mastering in the traditional sense.

Also, very true about sending at as 24bit.

You would be surprised how many people ask for a certain vibe from a supplied example track. Ofcourse none of this is applied unsollicited.
only thing i am saying is, that if you don't know a 100% sure how to get there, it better to explain what you want, than to sort of apply it on forehand

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney creative compression is the only reason you would do it. Some people want a certain that is a creative choice. That isn't the mastering engineers job unless I suppose you have a long standing relationship with him and he knows what you like. The mastering guy isn't going to make your tune pump. Well I should clarify, a real mastering engineer won't but all the EDM guys that pretend to master will because that is about all they really know how to do. I think you would be surprised to find mastering tools like a mc in most studios on almost every buss. The overheads are getting it, the bass is getting. That is how you make pop sound like pop. Not saying its good or bad but shit Raphie, you irk me.

i would be surprised if these were actually professionals having mixed it by a professional asking the mastering engineer for a vibe. That would surprise me. What wouldn't surprise me are EDM producers getting their tracks mastered for 10 quid thinking mastering will make their tracks sound hype asking for like a hands up hype vibe. I'm never surprised by the number pof idiots that don't know what a mixing engineer is , what a mastering engineer is and what those processes involve. I suppose in most cases, the 10 quad mastering guys just load up the vibe from the preset list and the problem is really a non issue.

And if you don't know how to get there, you ask an engineer. It is a mixing issue and should not be done at the mastering stage.

Reality is not always your perfect world. So sometimes u do indeed both. But we're shifting discussion again.

We're talking bedroom producers here, not session artists recorded by a hired recording engineer, who is going to handover the induvidual tracks to the hired mixing engineer, near always this is a 1 man show with no budget for "pro's" whatsoever.

it's always funny to read how your perspective depends on how the discussion is going, in a "pro" discussion you come with the not relevant for bedroom argument, in a reallife bedroom producer topic, suddenly everything is different in "pro" land.

if you added some sort of disclaimer to your posts, I'd stop. Put in your signature something along the lines of , I am a bedroom producer and despite my wicked setup, I kinda don't really know what i'm doing.

THe problem is that you speak like you do and people will take your advice which is often pretty bad.

My advice is fine, it's your deliberate attemps to rathole which is a problem. also your obvious begrudge to my setup, but then again, that's just you, you can't help it, i don't mind.....

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney if you added some sort of disclaimer to your posts, I'd stop. Put in your signature something along the lines of , I am a bedroom producer and despite my wicked setup, I kinda don't really know what i'm doing. THe problem is that you speak like you do and people will take your advice which is often pretty bad.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie You would be surprised how many people ask for a certain vibe from a supplied example track.

Then they're asking the wrong person. They should be talking to a mixing engineer (or a producer), not a mastering engineer.

Songs shouldn't sound noticeably different after mastering. If they do, then there are issues which should have been addressed at the mixdown stage.

Hopefully a mastering engineer who gets requests to drastically change the sound of a song doesn't just say "yeah okay" and simply apply treatment to the stereo file. In the vast majority of cases this is going to sound worse than applying the changes to the individual instruments which require the treatment, rather than compromising a number of instruments.

Hopefully a mastering engineer who gets requests like this asks for stems and does a proper mixdown (for a higher fee, of course), or suggests to the client the ways their mixdown could be improved before the song is sent for mastering.

quote:

Originally posted by derail Songs shouldn't sound noticeably different after mastering. If they do, then there are issues which should have been addressed at the mixdown stage.

Really? Seriously? So whats the point of it then?

I think mastering means different things to different people. Some people like to correct problems at the mastering stage. I'm sure it works for them.

I would recommend u guys to buy and read thisbook

answers all of your questions and more. For me the definition is as described by Bob Katz.

These topics aren't really fruitfdul overhere, because teen bedroom producers are advising eachother to go to mixing engineers, while the've never seen a real studio from the inside, let alone they can recommend engineers based on past jobs they assigned to them. since they don't know any. Please let's stop the smartass bullshit and stop referring to what you've read before somewhere on the internet.

Guys you need to decide what you want to discuss:
- pro world, with pro budget, education and pro job definitions
- or bedroom real world with bedroom budgets / self tought production skills.

It's confusing when u guys keep jumping from the one into the other universe and back all the time.

It's the same thing as M4B is trying all the time. not really helping a realworld discussion is it?

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie Guys you need to decide what you want to discuss: - pro world, with pro budget, education and pro job definitions

I've been in a couple of professional studio's (fully soundproofed and disconnected from other spaces and about 50-100K of gear) and surprisingly the results coming from there where not too impressive. I've sometimes even seen guys with a pc plus a 200E soundcard and Behringer Truth's do better. This is the age where pro is no longer defined by the amount of money you spend, it's just about how much money you make doing it.

Does it earn you enough to make a living -> pro.
Doesn't it earn enough to make a living -> amateur/hobby (even though the amateur results sometimes are better then the pro's)

Raphie

I own Bob Katz's "Mastering Audio" and have read through it.

In it he addresses the limitations of working on a stereo file - for example, page 105 in the chapter on equalization. He'll ask for a remix where it's required.

Expecting mastering to vastly improve the sound of a song is to ignore the limitations of working on a stereo file.

Yes, absolutely, a lot of times the mastered product sounds quite different to the original version - maybe some nasty resonant frequencies have been tamed, or the tonal balance has been improved. My viewpoint is that these are things which could have been fixed during the mixdown process and that the end result sounds better when these things are fixed during the mixdown process.

I do wonder about your arrogant tone - what's with all the comments about "teen bedroom producers" and "pros"? It's your choice whether to debate the issues or call people names. To me, that behaviour leans more towards the unprofessional side.

It's not being arrogant, it's just about everybody having their own definition and switching back and forward depending on how it suits them.

discussions become very cumbersome without any focus.

Reality is quite simple:
- Most producers on this forum are in their teens, some in their 20th and a few older, that's not me, that has been a poll existing here for quite a while. not saying good, or bad, just fact of life

- very few here have a primary income from producing, writing or engineering. with primary income i don't mean students who got paid $50,00 and 2 happy meals fro a release or remix. But guys who receive a monthly payslip of which they can pay their monthly bills. (morgage, groceries etc)

- most of us here do produce from thier bedroom with limited means (avg monitoring, no room treatment, often software based, maybe with 1 or 2 synths. Again not a bad thing and I am not ratholing into Storytellers statement of being able to get better results with low end gear than high end gear, as that mainly depends on it's user not the gear itself.

So let's get real about it, if we want to discuss mastering here, let's focus on what people can achieve at home and the budgets they have to have their track finalized. All the BS about how things are being done "professionally" is totally irrelevant. as no one here has the means or opportunity to ever have their works being produced that way. So what's the use of smartassing about "professional" mixng engineering when we all know that's not gonna happen here.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie - most of us here do produce from thier bedroom with limited means (avg monitoring, no room treatment, often software based, maybe with 1 or 2 synths. Again not a bad thing and I am not ratholing into Storytellers statement of being able to get better results with low end gear than high end gear, as that mainly depends on it's user not the gear itself.

I'm just saying pro gear does not mean you're pro whilst you are implying spending big bucks is the only way to be (or sound) pro.

quote:

All the BS about how things are being done "professionally" is totally irrelevant. as no one here has the means or opportunity to ever have their works being produced that way. So what's the use of smartassing about "professional" mixng engineering when we all know that's not gonna happen here.

Ur doing it again.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips Really? Seriously? So whats the point of it then? I think mastering means different things to different people. Some people like to correct problems at the mastering stage. I'm sure it works for them.

I'm with derail. Mastering is meant to add that extra bit of polish on top of a very good mixdown. If an engineer is correcting mistakes, they could and should have been fixed before the mastering stage.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz I'm with derail. Mastering is meant to add that extra bit of polish on top of a very good mixdown. If an engineer is correcting mistakes, they could and should have been fixed before the mastering stage.

Ofcourse, but it depends on how u define mistake?

example 1: a track with way too less bass because of standing waves in the room, it sounds thin and lacks definition in lows between kick and bass. Artist provides a reference track of how he thinks his track should sound. you are the ME, what would u do?

example 2: you've received a track, which has been emphasized by the artist as "final" the percussion loops in the track don't allign nicely and every 8 measures you hear a little bit of tearing when the loop goes round, you are the ME, what would u do?

example 3: You get a track with nice dynamics, well mixed really not much to complain about, supplied reference track is a piece of the latest ASOT podcast. and artist want to have it sound EXACTLY like that, you are the ME, what would u do?

Curious what decissions u guys will make and why? sometimes it's a very thin judgement line between what's artistic and what's factual engineering... also other dimensions can be the feasibily/abillity to improve amongst many more.

For me the bottom line will always be that grey area between the 2 where the relationship between artist and ME will pave the path to succesful resolution. communication is key. Much more than debating when something is engineering, or just creativity which one needs to leave alone. also managing expectations and perspective in relation to reference tracks.

Mastering is neither about sole engineering correction, nor about complete audio makeovers, it's about hearing potential and delivering that in the end result. sometimes you do nothing, on other tracks u do an immense ammount of work to deliver the artists vision.

^^ I agree with the last part I think. I also agree with everyone else that your posts are pretty arrogant, but I've been trying to tell you that for ages.

quote:

Originally posted by Fledz I'm with derail. Mastering is meant to add that extra bit of polish on top of a very good mixdown. If an engineer is correcting mistakes, they could and should have been fixed before the mastering stage.

Of course it COULD have been fixed, and in a perfect world it might have been. But realistically, none of us live in a perfect world, and mastering engineers undoubtedly fix errors that could have otherwise been fixed at the mixing stage all the time.

Its not neccesarily a bad thing, you have to remember that the producer's primary job is to produce the music, if they're obsessing over minor details then NO music is ever going to get produced. So sometimes its better to pass it off to the mastering engineer.

Not sure if it's arrogant, i just like clarity and refrain from ambiguity in discussions like this. Arrogant would be where i would mock M4B for lack of credentials, say all tracks created here a mediocre shite that don't deserve my services

I hear you, sometimes i can sound a bit harsh, confronting, or determined, but that's often just in the interest of the discussion.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie Ofcourse, but it depends on how u define mistake? example 1: a track with way too less bass because of standing waves in the room, it sounds thin and lacks definition in lows between kick and bass. Artist provides a reference track of how he thinks his track should sound. you are the ME, what would u do? example 2: you've received a track, which has been emphasized by the artist as "final" the percussion loops in the track don't allign nicely and every 8 measures you hear a little bit of tearing when the loop goes round, you are the ME, what would u do? example 3: You get a track with nice dynamics, well mixed really not much to complain about, supplied reference track is a piece of the latest ASOT podcast. and artist want to have it sound EXACTLY like that, you are the ME, what would u do? Curious what decissions u guys will make and why?

Example 1: Well, there are two issues here. The low bass level overall and the lack of definition between the kick and bass. It sounds like a remix would be in order. If the kick and bass in the reference track sound very different to the customer's sounds, I'd point that out to them. Maybe they can choose sounds which work better. If the sound of the kick and bass is fine, but they're just too low in the mix, I'd just ask for a mix with these instruments turned up by a specified amount.

Example 2: Again, I'd point out to the customer that the loop doesn't loop nicely. Maybe they didn't notice. In any case, this is something that should be fixed via a remix.

Example 3: I'd listen to their tune and the ASOT reference and point out the differences and what would be required to push it towards the ASOT track. I'd explain what I could do, and what some undesirable effects of this processing could be, and let the customer decide.

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