I'll post it again since it landed so far down on the previous page.. In case people'll overlook it .....

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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?

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Originally posted by lenieNt Force 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?

In my experience, they've wanted it the way my DAW has spit it out, without me loading it up in Audition and throwing a limiter on it as I'd do if I were to play it out or give it to another DJ to play out. Ideally, it shouldn't sound a fuck of a lot different after being run through EQ + hard limiter, it should just sound a few db louder in the right spots so it comes out banging at the club. If your track is sounding noticeably "different" after mastering then there's something fucked going on with your original mixdown.

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

Yes, that's exactly what it should be IMO. I try to nail it down so it's loud and crisp when I render the track, with the levels close to maxed and very little left for the mastering stage to accomplish.

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Seems you are a bit confused about what Mixdown is, and Mastering .

Kopi =o.

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Originally posted by kopi_luwak Seems you are a bit confused about what Mixdown is, and Mastering . Kopi =o.

Well the fact is that it is not very different anymore, in this day and age. The ideal form of mastering would actally be to do a perfect mixdown, with just a maximiser on the final output. Mastering isnt that big of a process anymore, imo. With the digital era of musicproduction, the mixing and mastering processes has just merged more and more together.

Sean Walsh:

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In my experience, they've wanted it the way my DAW has spit it out

Was the final output compressed when you sent it off? i.e. did you have a compressor/ multiband compressor on your master track in the mixer? (Usually, this is considered mastering.. so Im a little curious.)

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Originally posted by lenieNt Force Was the final output compressed when you sent it off? i.e. did you have a compressor/ multiband compressor on your master track in the mixer? (Usually, this is considered mastering.. so Im a little curious.)

Never. Perhaps it was just naivety on my part, or lack of tools available, but compression on my final mixdown was never done until the track was already sitting as a lump of .wav on my HD spat out from the sequencer.

Mastering, to me, was taking that .wav into an external audio program such as Audition/Soundforge/Whatever, and applying external effects to it such as a hard limiter or 24-band EQ. Honestly, anything I did in these programs was random tinkering and rarely resulted in anything all that useful, so I can see where the mastering engineer comes in and actually earns his paycheque.

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Potentially you could throw a compressor over the master channel to make the whole track pump in a way a mastering engineer definitely would not do, unless you specifically asked them to.

Absolutely, you can determine what is a creative, artistic decision. There's nothing stopping you putting the entire mix through a phaser, if that is your creative decision.

Ultimately, we all make the final decision on our art.

Generally, having a master channel with nothing on it is a good sign. Then again, there are some very experienced engineers creating fantastic sounding mixes, who have eqs across the master channel to get the sound where they want it, rather than leaving it up to chance that the mastering engineer has the same sonic taste as them.

There is a wide range of trance out there - some of it has biting high end, some is quite subdued, some is lush, some is hard-hitting. I've had mastering engineers take my music in all sorts of directions before I decided I wasn't going to put all this work into my mixes, only for some guy to come in and work on it for half an hour and take it somewhere else.

Whether I'm doing the mastering or not, I take full responsibility for the end product. If the mastering engineer doesn't give me what I want, then I wasn't clear enough in telling them what I want.

Once you spend a certain number of hours in the studio working on your mixing skills, you don't spend time thinking about mastering anymore. The tracks already sound the way you want them to sound, and yeah, when you get an album together (or a track, if it's a one-off) then you sit with a mastering engineer and get the thumbs up. If they hear too many things they'd like to change, go home and remix and bring it back.

This threads loaded with great info, bump and thanks everyone who contributed.

i dont mean to throw in a wrench but people might find this interesting:

when i was finished mixing down my Small World EP and it was time to get it mastered, i decided i didnt like the summing algorithm of ableton. so instead of sending the one file mixdown of each song, i sent all of the stems to the mastering house and they summed it on an analog mixing desk. i really liked the result. im weird i know.

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Originally posted by No Left Turn 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.

No it wouldn't be done this way because if you send 30 channels to an engineer to get each one 'mastered' you are basically asking the guy to mix your track for you since you seem incapable of doing it properly yourself.

Mastering never has and never will be a cure all for a shit mix. You can't very well call yourself a producer if you can't mix. Either get busy trying to improve your mixdown and get real results or pack it in, sell all your gear and spend it on something you want to put some effort into in order to get good.

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Originally posted by Eric J 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.

Great post. Yes, A lot of budding producers don't realize this, or really understand what mastering is. We all must realize that our tracks are going to be heard on every kind of system; from Ipod buds to cheap PC speakers, all the way up to high end club speakers. What sounds great on your studio monitors, might blow away little PC speakers.

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Originally posted by derail 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.

Another great post. I agree with you that most of us don't have the knowlege, skilled ear, or proper listening environment to be able to do these things properly. Most major labels insist that your tracks be mastered by their inhouse engineers. This is to ensure quality control.

Once you understand what mastering is, you will quit thinking it's some kind of magic bullet. Your mixes must sound great unmastered. I have to admit, it took me a while to truly understand exactly what mastering is.

Alfi's mastering tips of the day:

You can send a bag of dog crap to the mastering company, and it will still be a bag of dog crap when it comes back. Only difference is that it will be louder, and your wallet will be thinner.

Always fix any problem in the sound image before your final mixdown. If you don't, you'll prolly be hearing the frequencies crash on that mid-bass and that awesome hook, that you spent so much time on. Or whatever that is the problem hehe..

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