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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

Last edited by Eric J on Dec-13-2007 at 05:10

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...

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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.

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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.

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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.....

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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.

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