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| quote: | Originally posted by Vortex_SA
well i think i can do it myself with lots of practice and trying, u know, sound engineers also been practicing until it sounded good, so i know that if ill practice ill reach good levels of mastering... so its plain stupid what ur saying cos what that made me a producer can and will make me a sound engineer (lots of practice and work)... and those "golden ears" are accuired by practice, its like i can tell from experience what synth people used to make a sound, or when im djing i can tell which of the tunes will cause a train if not adjusted right... so imo i think mastering is a part of my production and my art, and i wouldnt really like someone else to be doing that for me as they can destroy the whole meaning of the track... |
But practicing won't give you the environment needed to do a mastering, and a 99$ software won't do the trick compared to a full-blown Weiss digital setup.
What you and others are doing, I would say that is part of your final mixing.
What I mean by golden ears is that they also have a perfect audition, or they know where they are lacking and can compensate for it naturally. What may sounds right to you may not sound right to everyone else, because you may lack of 5 dB on in the 5K range. Have you took an audition test recently? That would be certainly important if you go out in parties or in clubs without protection.
And yes you can make a mix that will sound very fine, but it will never come as nice as if it was professionally mastered.
A purpose of the mastering, perhaps less known, when you're doing a complete album, is to ensure that everything will be glued together and you won't have tracks that will be too loud or too soft compared to other tracks. There's also a mastering required when you're releasing a track on vinyl, some things are NOT allowed in a song when cutting a vinyl. For example, you can't pan the lower-end when you're cutting a vinyl. It must be centered. Else the needle will skip when playing the record.
| quote: | Originally posted by Etherium
Simple. You ever heard of Nick Bracegirdle, AKA Chicane. He's quite successfull I assure you if you don't know about him. He doesn't master his tracks. "Don't Give Up", one of the greatest trance tracks of all time was barely mastered at all, and the part that was mastered was done by Nick.
But.
I do appreciate and understand what you're saying. Sure, Ray Charles or Whitney Houston shouldn't master their own songs, they would probably be shiite if they did. But with electronic musicians it is different. I know plenty of successful producers that have mastered their own tracks and "made them sound better". At the same time, sure, if they sent it to a mastering house it would almost always sound better (more bottom end or more sparkling highs)but many seem to get away with it.
Yes, mastering isn't something you just read about and apply, but with practice everyone can at least make their music a little better by at least trying it. True, sometimes it soils the track, but many times it helps. |
Yes I do know Chicane, I'm too a trance addict  I would bet 100$ that his tracks has been mastered before being cutted to vinyl.
Again, what most people do I would call that the final mixing and/or perhaps a pre-mastering. But I'll never agree on the fact that a track been "mastered" on 99$ software, in a home studio, with cheap monitors and an acoustic environment that hasn't been studied.
...Did you know that the best acoustician in the world charge $1,000,000 to study a space and design a studio? And some studios paid him. That is surely not because a bedroom studio can replace a well engineered room.
For people still not believing me, I assure you... call for a test session. As I said for people in Toronto I know Lacquer Channel Mastering do that, and I'm pretty sure others can do that as well. And mastering is not that much expensive, for studios working 24 hours, the nights are cheap... you can deal something like 60-75$/hours during off-peak / dead periods, and it takes approximately 1 hour per track.
For people in Montreal, I really recommend SNB Mastering in Ville-St-Laurent.
Slipstream
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"Oh, you mean those pianos and violins that were designed by Mother Nature and grew on a tree or in a garden - without design by man and construction by man? (As opposed to synthesizers that were designed and built with human hands made with components from the planet Earth, but deemed unnatural because electricity - which does occur naturally - is required for their operation and use). Is that what you mean by "natural" instruments?" --Zon Vern Pyles
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put on way to much strereospread, bass, mid, high....you name it 
