Mastering help - URGENT

[El°HYM]

I would say, if you choose the right Engineer, maybe one who is also known in the kind of genre you are producing. That alone should generate enough sales to pay him off, even with an independent self release. On the other hand, a perfect mix often just requires a last final touch, which could indeed be some limiting in the end. Yet, having some experienced ears with a professional listening environment, is surely not the worst investment.

[jamcat]

You are completely incorrect.

Then correct me

Sure. You say mastering is just exporting a track at a high level of LUFS.

However, for just a single track, so no album concerns, the list of processes that you pretend doesn't exist, but that mastering engineers use can include:
Corrective EQ, including deess
Tonal shaping EQ
(Often with dynamic EQ these days, sometimes multiband compression)
Some m/s to widen mixes
High quality compression, which can accentuate groove as well as glue things together
Tasteful saturation
Sometimes noise and click removal
Occasionally reverb
And finally some limiting for final level

Just look at the equipment list of mastering engineers...

But most importantly mastering provides an objective look at your mixes, that you otherwise likely don't have.

Tbh, it sounds like you've never attended a mastering session and heard music you've sweated and agonised over suddenly played back on an blindingy accurate and honest system. It can be a humbling experience, but a very informative one.

Everything you listed are arbitrary creative decisions that are the exclusive domain of the producer and principle engineer. Not one of them can't be done in the mix, at the source. Some of it, like REVERB(!) should absolutely never be done by any mastering engineer ever.

It's not a mastering engineer's job to add reverb or saturation or reshape the sonic fingerprint of the artist's work. Mastering engineers are technicians. They are not the artist, and they have no business altering the artist's art. Their job is only to fit what has already been created into the appropriate package. Using the art metaphor, their job is to put the painting in the right-sized frame without damaging the canvas. Their job is not to rework the colour palette.

If it really was true that just any mastering engineer had better ears and better gear than the mix engineer who poured countless hours into it, then topics like this wouldn't exist. But the fact is the mastering engineer in this case couldn't even hear the damage he did to the OP's track. In the end, you just had someone who spent 5 minutes listening to a song substituting the artist's creative choices with his own. Clearly he didn't have any special skills or equipment that the OP didn't have. The only thing he had that the OP didn't was an undeserved confidence in his own abilities to master, and the audacity to charge money for it.

[jamcat]

I would say, if you choose the right Engineer, maybe one who is also known in the kind of genre you are producing. That alone should generate enough sales to pay him off, even with an independent self release.

In what world does the audience know or care who the mastering engineer is, or have even any inkling of what it is he supposedly does?

[jamcat]

You say mastering is just exporting a track at a high level of LUFS.

I don’t think jamcat was making statements about mastering in general. I think he was making statements about this particular mastering job.

That was the context, yes. But also, a real mastering engineer's job is to make the album sound the same as the mixdown on vinyl, tape, and CD. That takes a lot of knowledge, skill, and experience, and it is the source of the mythology surrounding mastering engineers.

What is passed off as "mastering" today when delivering digital recordings for digital distribution is not the same, and it is absolutely a matter of selecting the correct target media from an export menu in your DAW.

[_leras]

It's not a mastering engineer's job to add reverb or saturation or reshape the sonic fingerprint of the artist's work. Mastering engineers are technicians. They are not the artist, and they have no business altering the artist's art.

If it really was true that just any mastering engineer had better ears and better gear than the mix engineer who poured countless hours into it, then topics like this wouldn't exist. But the fact is the mastering engineer in this case couldn't even hear the damage he did to the OP's track. In the end, you just had someone who spent 5 minutes listening to a song substituting the artist's creative choices with his own.

Saturation (and reverb less often and very subtle) can lift a track sonically while being barely perceptible, and certainly not affecting artistic intention.

The point about room, equipment and ears is just about being objective. Not everyone has a perfect room to mix in, or the time to do multiple iterations of a mix with a lot of critical listening in between each one.

Have you attended any mastering sessions?

[_leras]

That was the context, yes. But also, a real mastering engineer's job is to make the album sound the same as the mixdown on vinyl, tape, and CD. That takes a lot of knowledge, skill, and experience, and it is the source of the mythology surrounding mastering engineers.

What is passed off as "mastering" today when delivering digital recordings for digital distribution is not the same, and it is absolutely a matter of selecting the correct target media from an export menu in your DAW.

You are long out of date, especially for the realm of electronic and dance music. Cutting singles and making the track sound as good as possible has long been a key component of mastering.

You keep saying album album album - but vast amounts of mastering are for individual tracks and has been for ages.

The better a mix the less a mastering engineer can do, but many many mixes are far from perfect and can benefit greatly.

[El°HYM]

I would say, if you choose the right Engineer, maybe one who is also known in the kind of genre you are producing. That alone should generate enough sales to pay him off, even with an independent self release.

In what world does the audience know or care who the mastering engineer is, or have even any inkling of what it is he supposedly does?

Presumingly not in yours.