Mastering EQ and Compression

[bmanic]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need, then it can cost from 150 up to 500 per song.

But many of us do mastering as a consultation/lend an ear kind of business now, with minimalist setups and rather affordable rates. I suspect this may be the future going forward, competing against AI options that are rather hit and miss still.

[El°HYM]

Aside from a fresh and well trained pair of new ears, a deadline for Mastering can actually also be a good pattern in ones everyday musical Journey.

[standalone]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need

Or unless we are talking about Aussie dollars, not real dollars.

[bmanic]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need

Or unless we are talking about Aussie dollars, not real dollars.

That's still almost 100€ per song, even if it's bastardized dollars.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

To me it's just three stages:
1.If sound designers do their job - it's easy to mix.
2.If mixing engineers do their job - it's easy to master.
3.If mastering Engineers do their job - people like the song and pay money to listen it :):)
2023 year without alcohol - cheers

[Synthman2000]

I will give my input one last time. It is really quite difficult to see so many confused views on mastering and ignore.

I will do my best to be short and to the point for what is actually a very complex topic.

Mastering is not adding this and that and a limiter. Mastering is listening and responding to only that what needs to be corrected and with the least detriment possible. That alone is not easy under most people's monitoring situation and experience level across every genre under the sun. A mastering engineers job is to know what not to do as well.

Firstly there are almost no people who are not mix engineers who are making really good mixes. Even mix engineers arguably make some not so good mixes, I have heard quite a few and feedback and advise on them and help mix engineers become better. I heard this from a client only today. Good mixes are incredibly precise, that precision is not baked into a production easily.

There are mix engineers working on $300.00 monitors, $2,000.00 and $3,500.00 and $25,000.00 speakers, there will be a difference there along with experience knowledge and ability and room.

Imagine any mid to top level artist of last 30 years. They likely employed a producer and mix engineer, those mixes were likely to be very good mixes, unless they have superb ideas and happen to be a trained audio engineer. The biggest artist employing the biggest named mix engineer still master the tracks. What does it suggest about your own tracks, that you mixed in let me guess a non world class mix room ?

They still had them mastered. There are good reasons for this.

You are purchasing objectivity which is impossible without a very long drawn out procedure. Objectivity must be coupled with accuracy otherwise any corrections maybe flawed.

It is not an advert as I would have my services in my sig if I was after work here. I master for less than 1/3 of $150.00 - I am using top level gear in a superb room. Serious level mastering is available at many price points. And I was not just out of sound engineer school last year.

We hear things others miss, that comes from objectivity, accuracy, resolution of details, decades of listening experience and repetition on non changing, very wide bandwidth, minimum 3 driver, reference systems down to infra sound.

Where a new layer of skill appears is in the EP and Album, where tracks are produced at different times, different systems, different styles, different instrumentation, different rooms, different studios. They need to be brought together.

The last thing I would say is if I had had a mastering engineer available with my skill level today at the price I charge my knowledge skill and ability in mixing would have been relatively at warp speed compared to the length of time it actually took to know what I was doing.

I have been working as a full time professional sound engineer as a job for more than 2 decades and that was after training, now I do 1 job only for many years - mastering. Hope that gives some perspective.

There is so much misunderstanding it is difficult to know where to start.

"3.If mastering Engineers do their job - people like the song and pay money to listen it "

People liking your song, or even knowing it exists is the biggest problem you have, fortunately plenty of people (even hobby musicians) want the song they have made to sound as good as it possibly can do, even for a handful of listeners and themselves.

[Michey]

To me it's just three stages:
1.If sound designers do their job - it's easy to mix.
2.If mixing engineers do their job - it's easy to master.
3.If mastering Engineers do their job - people like the song and pay money to listen it :):)
2023 year without alcohol - cheers

That was, like, 20 years ago. lets put it in another way, in context of music making nowadays :
1.If sound designers do their job - people will REACT AMOTIONALLY to the sounds. but people don't give a $h1t about technicalities and "quality". on the contrary (the result of the abundance of music\playback options available today).
2.If mixing engineers do their job - mastering engineers don't have to change a THING. A-N-D they (the ME's) get paid for it. unfair world, eh ? (at least that's the case with the high profile ones. the low-to-mid tear are close to being obsolete. or they actually are as of now).
(as an alternative : If mixing engineers do their job - they can release it as it is. with todays tools - and given the mixers taste and ears - it will translate good enough on most target playback mediums)
3.If mastering engineers do their job - they get paid. and will have a shot at being asked for their next gig (a thing that becomes a rarity as time goes by, and will completely halt when AI would be able to nail it 99% of the time)

and, of course, there's a forth point you omitted :
4. if a plugin developing company's marketing division does it's job, people will believe that they need their "mastering" tools in order for other people to listen to their music and even buy it. some usable magic words are (not limited to) : "vintage", "sheen", "katz", "pink-floyd", "beatles", "woodstock", "silky", "used by <enter here your revered ME from the last 30 years in the industry>", "pultec", "Neve", "SSL", "No' 1 hit".

Nowadays, "Mastering" feels (to me) like a buzz word used by amateurs trying to show they "know".

But alas, everything CONVERGES... it is just that nobody told them that.

[Synthman2000]

My view on the 1,2,3's

Velltone's

1 It depends on your composition as much as a sound designer, many people make their own sounds.
2 With a really good mix, in some ways it is easier, in other ways more difficult, the less to improve the harder to find what can be improved. This is where monitoring as a system, absolutely, without question, counts.
3 Mastering engineers have little to do with someone liking a song.

Michey's

1 Wrong, many people care about sound quality in these times, it is absurd to say otherwise. They need only to listen to their favourite artist and compare and often they hear a gulf, so they definitely care.
2 Mixing engineers are human, mistakes are made, some make reasonable mixes, good mixes and very good mixes. Good mastering engineers have work. Those who are not so good have less, it has been no different.
3 AI is limited in its abilities, it's not real mastering, it is what people do to save time, literally they must be broke if they can only afford AI mastering. I have never had a client say to me, AI made a better master than yours. It has just never happened. There are many other reasons people choose human mastering.
4) Tools are only as good as those who use them. Wrong settings make music worse.

A lot of what mastering has become on the internet is a parroting of truths, part truths and misunderstandings.

Always test your tracks against the best in your genre. That'll give you the truth of the sonic situation. If everything sounds on point, you are the man or the woman ! If not there is work to be done and that work is not necessarily done best by yourself or on your own.

[ramseysounds]

But many of us do mastering as a consultation/lend an ear kind of business now, with minimalist setups and rather affordable rates. I suspect this may be the future going forward, competing against AI options that are rather hit and miss still.

I will never ever trust any mastering to AI or any of the mix process for that matter. I know it's how it's going, but not in this studio.

@velltone - your point number 3; utter nonsense. People like a song because it's hooky, catchy, well written, well performed. Not just because a mastering engineer has finished it.

[MogwaiBoy]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need

Or unless we are talking about Aussie dollars, not real dollars.

New Zealand dollars, so even less real

[MogwaiBoy]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need, then it can cost from 150 up to 500 per song.

But many of us do mastering as a consultation/lend an ear kind of business now, with minimalist setups and rather affordable rates. I suspect this may be the future going forward, competing against AI options that are rather hit and miss still.

In my experience the 'cheap' ones are a mixed bag. I've looked back on some tracks I've had cheaply mastered, and they didn't fix pretty sizable DC offset, bass stereo phase issues, clicks and pops and other basic stuff - seems like they just ran it through a limiter. Admittedly that's ultimately my fault as I should not have delivered pre-masters in such a poor shape, but in the sub-$50 range there may be an element of "you get what you pay for". I am only speaking by my experience here and I am not bagging on any mastering service that offer cheap rates, who could very well deliver a top service.

You mention the word consultation and that's a big part of "paying the extra" too - you get the care and attention to detail that you don't get when you just go in a daily queue.

Another aspect for me is that working almost entirely in the box, I want some analog final touch to the wave file - as dumb as that sounds. I have Pro-C and TrackComp, but I don't have a tube-driven analog compressor in a rack. I know this goes against science (people often prefer the digital versions to analog in blindtests, etc) but it's just a nice peace of mind for me... that the track has been spat through some analog circuitry and 'printed' as final. If I want to make any changes I have to produce another pre-master and pay for mastering again - which is a barrier to endless revisions and never being sure of myself - so it helps me LET GO and move on to my next musical obsession

[Synthman2000]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need, then it can cost from 150 up to 500 per song.

But many of us do mastering as a consultation/lend an ear kind of business now, with minimalist setups and rather affordable rates. I suspect this may be the future going forward, competing against AI options that are rather hit and miss still.

In my experience the 'cheap' ones are a mixed bag. I've looked back on some tracks I've had cheaply mastered, and they didn't fix pretty sizable DC offset, bass stereo phase issues, clicks and pops and other basic stuff - seems like they just ran it through a limiter. Admittedly that's ultimately my fault as I should not have delivered pre-masters in such a poor shape, but in the sub-$50 range there may be an element of "you get what you pay for". I am only speaking by my experience here and I am not bagging on any mastering service that offer cheap rates, who could very well deliver a top service.

You mention the word consultation and that's a big part of "paying the extra" too - you get the care and attention to detail that you don't get when you just go in a daily queue.

Another aspect for me is that working almost entirely in the box, I want some analog final touch to the wave file - as dumb as that sounds. I have Pro-C and TrackComp, but I don't have a tube-driven analog compressor in a rack. I know this goes against science (people often prefer the digital versions to analog in blindtests, etc) but it's just a nice peace of mind for me... that the track has been spat through some analog circuitry and 'printed' as final. If I want to make any changes I have to produce another pre-master and pay for mastering again - which is a barrier to endless revisions and never being sure of myself - so it helps me LET GO and move on to my next musical obsession

Missing DC offset is not the end of the world, there are vastly more important factors. Though should be checked for and removed. (bear in mind Cubase has a DC detection bug so it often gives a false reading so use RX). The other issues are inexcusable, they must be deaf, incompetent or don't care. I use high end analogue along with every digital option here. I don't mess about and take my work and other peoples music seriously.

You just went to the wrong places. I have heard poor mastering from places charging triple what I do and often get work after poor experiences at expensive mastering houses.

Price has nothing to do with getting a good end result.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Thanks for sharing info in topic i guess all 'mastering' enthusiasts are interested to learn something:):):)
Agree that mellomans listen on different sound systems,have different taste, understanding and interests by vast spectrum of sounds available in modern music and everybody is free to do whatever like to do...
Music is like food - there is no two people on the planet who will evaluate same thing same way when it comes to definitions and details,despite it's the same thing,just people are different:)
My 10 years experience show me that even small changes during composing and mixing process,just changing a single instrument will effect entire mix...
My idea is not just to avoid mistakes and confrontation inside the mix,but to find or build theses sounds,which complete each other and to use these connections to built on that base something emotional and distinguish as charater...
This probably sound like some theoretical thing in my mind,but in fact is something i do experiment last 4-5 years,so probably have to record something to hear it in action.
Stay away from alcohol.
Cheers

[bmanic]

it's worth the $150+ per song.

150$ per song seems a bit steep, unless it's top tier "Named" mastering you need, then it can cost from 150 up to 500 per song.

But many of us do mastering as a consultation/lend an ear kind of business now, with minimalist setups and rather affordable rates. I suspect this may be the future going forward, competing against AI options that are rather hit and miss still.

In my experience the 'cheap' ones are a mixed bag. I've looked back on some tracks I've had cheaply mastered, and they didn't fix pretty sizable DC offset, bass stereo phase issues, clicks and pops and other basic stuff - seems like they just ran it through a limiter. Admittedly that's ultimately my fault as I should not have delivered pre-masters in such a poor shape, but in the sub-$50 range there may be an element of "you get what you pay for". I am only speaking by my experience here and I am not bagging on any mastering service that offer cheap rates, who could very well deliver a top service.

You mention the word consultation and that's a big part of "paying the extra" too - you get the care and attention to detail that you don't get when you just go in a daily queue.

Another aspect for me is that working almost entirely in the box, I want some analog final touch to the wave file - as dumb as that sounds. I have Pro-C and TrackComp, but I don't have a tube-driven analog compressor in a rack. I know this goes against science (people often prefer the digital versions to analog in blindtests, etc) but it's just a nice peace of mind for me... that the track has been spat through some analog circuitry and 'printed' as final. If I want to make any changes I have to produce another pre-master and pay for mastering again - which is a barrier to endless revisions and never being sure of myself - so it helps me LET GO and move on to my next musical obsession

Missing DC offset is not the end of the world, there are vastly more important factors. Though should be checked for and removed. (bear in mind Cubase has a DC detection bug so it often gives a false reading so use RX). The other issues are inexcusable, they must be deaf, incompetent or don't care. I use high end analogue along with every digital option here. I don't mess about and take my work and other peoples music seriously.

You just went to the wrong places. I have heard poor mastering from places charging triple what I do and often get work after poor experiences at expensive mastering houses.

Price has nothing to do with getting a good end result.

If the DC offset is huge, then it should be removed if it impacts the potential loudness (provided that the client is prioritizing this). However, doing so _will_ change the sound quite a bit. Perhaps the person mastering thought this was the case? I very seldom mess with the overall DC offset of tracks. Especially if they have been tracked through a bunch of analogue hardware as it immediately removes some of the charm. DC offset is a natural byproduct of tube gear for instance and some transformers too. If you remove that, you are changing the overall tonality quite a bit.

Same with the stereo image in the lows. If the tracks are destined for Vinyl at some point, it may be wise to check this but more often than not you just need to make sure there are no wildly out of whack frequencies in the past 90 degrees polarity, in terms of dynamics. Getting those dynamics under control helps solidify the whole image without sacrificing the width.

In general:

The most valuable asset of any 3rd party mastering is the objective way anybody outside the project can approach it, be it dynamics, frequency response of overall "feel" (the glue/rhythm/pulse of a track). Good mastering can help reveal a new perspective on a track and thus enhance the emotional impact. This is why the person is always more important than the gear. Some people are absolute masters of getting a good feel for tracks, even with absolutely minimal tools. I know of people who literally only use a single digital EQ, a basic high-end digital compressor and a few different tools for loudness and still churn out amazing masters. Heck, Bob Katz was always known for his minimalist approach and I don't see many people dismissing his skills as a mastering engineer.

@OP

Definitely go the DIY route if mastering is something that interests you. It's the best way to learn. Just make sure you offer your services to your friends and acquaintances as well so you get a broader spectrum of things to practice your skills on. When you do master your own tracks, the best advice I can give you is to take a LONG pause in between. Try not to listen to your own, to be mastered tracks, for at least two whole weeks. Avoid them like the plague. Then return to them with completely fresh ears and mind. Resist opening the final mixdown and try to do as much as you can at the mastering process, keeping it minimal though. Try not to start notching out tons of frequencies with narrow Q EQ nor use stuff like Soothe, Gullfoss nor Voxengo TEOTE. Start by applying only a few bands of very broad stroke EQ and very gentle dynamics processing (if needed). Do the most you can with the least amount of processing. Then rinse and repeat this process over a few days, always when your ears are fresh and rested.

If you are not entirely certain your monitoring is up to snuff, then make sure you listen to your masters on as many different sources as you have available. Phone, laptop, TV, home stereo, boom box, car, friends house, local bar/club etc. and take detailed notes of what you hear! Make sure to always A/B between the original mix, loudness compensated. You can always splice a little remix where you have 10 second clips of original vs mastered where these two alternate. Then take this clip to every place you can and listen for the differences. What improved, what didn't? How did the feel of the track change. Also be sure to ask other people of their opinion too, even if they are not at all into audio. Their feedback may be invaluable.

Most importantly, enjoy the journey!

[Michey]

Michey's

1 Wrong, many people care about sound quality in these times, it is absurd to say otherwise. They need only to listen to their favourite artist and compare and often they hear a gulf, so they definitely care.

Pay attention to my wordings : PEOPLE, NOT MUSIC MAKING/AMATEUR OR PRO TECHNICIANS.

"listen to their favorite artist and compare" ? nope, "comparing" is meant only to those who want to buy as much gear (nowadays - plugs) as they can, because they strive to a reference point (an elusive table that grades every known processor in existence, tools we pitch our chosen processors against).

In real life - close to 100% of nowadays tools are able to produce broadcast/streaming worth of results. it is THE INDEVIDUAL AT THE HELMS who makes the tool regarded as "mastering grade".

I've heard mixes that were produced with tools that you wouldn't even sniff on - that were MOVING. and vice versa : I heard songs "mastered" with tools so expensive, that you'd have to sell your grandmother to buy them. but alas - they did not MOVE me. their otherwise technically superior quality was SO irritating (to me), it was almost itching. maybe it is my (very long) years of listening to music and years upon years of processing audio - but this is how I experience it.

2 Mixing engineers are human, mistakes are made, some make reasonable mixes, good mixes and very good mixes. Good mastering engineers have work. Those who are not so good have less, it has been no different.

If a mixing tech is not good, give it to another mixing guy.

3 AI is limited in its abilities, it's not real mastering, it is what people do to save time, literally they must be broke if they can only afford AI mastering. I have never had a client say to me, AI made a better master than yours. It has just never happened. There are many other reasons people choose human mastering.

Not so. as time goes by, AI is getting closer and closer. in some cases, it's already there.

4) Tools are only as good as those who use them. Wrong settings make music worse.

A lot of what mastering has become on the internet is a parroting of truths, part truths and misunderstandings.

Mixing and mastering became an interchangeable term, for too many people. people refer to mastering when they are actually just 2bus processing.

Always test your tracks against the best in your genre. That'll give you the truth of the sonic situation. If everything sounds on point, you are the man or the woman ! If not there is work to be done and that work is not necessarily done best by yourself or on your own.

You know what, I thought so too.

I am not sure anymore, as there is an insane diversity in every genre (and guess what, LISTENERS STILL DON'T GIVE A FLYING FACK. neither do they "compare" ).

IMO, as long as you have a good (ie. sufficient) personal aural taste, a good (ie. sufficient) monitoring environment and a decent set of tools (be they plugs or HW) - you're good to go.