Mastering - now I get it

[Dave Bryce]

I had the current project on which I'm working mastered by Stephen Marsh yesterday. Steph is one of the finest mastering engineers in LA, and it was a pleasure and a privilege to watch the brother work.

 

Honestly, I've always regarded mastering as being kind of a necessary evil, and have occasionally preferred my original mixes a bit to what ended up on my records....but that changed yesterday. I feel like every single piece of music on this record was significantly improved by the process - all of them more even, more defined...and in some cases even a bit more alive....and the translation across systems has been outstanding.

 

I'm really impressed, and am camping very happily.

 

dB

[KenElevenShadows]

Cool. We turn in pretty good mixes, but giving our mixes to a mastering engineer, I feel like, if making an album, we get something that is more coherent. It has more flow. And the mixes improve about 5% or so, which is great. More definition, sometimes, simply, a bit more balanced in terms of frequencies. And yes, translation across systems.

[kelp]

Nice. I'm a firm believer in the art and science of mastering. But yes, I've gotten projects back and wondered, "What did they do?" (as in, I can't tell)

 

I like projects where I say, "What did they do?" (as in, what sorcery was applied to make this sound so awesome!)

[ITGITC]

 

 

So... What did they do? :idk

 

Happy Friday, gang!

 

 

[Synthoid]

I'm really impressed, and am camping very happily.

 

Ghost stories and smores?

 

 

http://arizonasports.com/wp-content/uploads/cms/37/3756/375642-620x370.jpg

 

 

[Resolution 88]

This is a well-timed post - David, I'm very glad you're so happy with your mastered results! I think mastering does vary hugely between personalities - some people stamp their signature on the music, whilst others are fairly transparent and fall in the 'what did they do?' camp I guess..

I see it as a dark art that I am still very naive about but also very respectful and appreciative of! And I'm about to do two hours of skype work which is very frustrating / tantalising because I've just downloaded the mastered files of our next album and I'm desperate to hear what Bob Power's done with the music!

[Resolution 88]

('Clang' I know, but it's relevant and it's happened right at the same time as this thread popping up).

As Ken said, I think one of the main things is a coherent sound across an album as well as enhancing mixes of each song. It's very important to make sure you have a coherent flow to your album before you put it online for streaming / downloads and people just purchase / loop one track

[Bobadohshe]

Man that's so interesting. I've had the same experiences of course. Sometimes stuff sounds crappier when mastered. Or squashed and less musical. Or all the cool sonic ear candy gets buried.

 

It's nice to know that in the hands of those great at it, a mix can be transformed into something incredible.

 

Can't wait to hear it.

[zxcvbnm098]

Bob Power is a super talented hombre......I'm sure it's gonna sound fantastic.

 

I worked for the late Doug Sax for a bit, and it was interesting to observe the process up close and see it over different projects. It is a bit of a dark art. In his case, he had some amazing custom made EQ's and stuff, (all tube) that really added some depth and air to everything. Plus almost 50 years of experience.

 

 

[The Real MC]

Mastering is an underappreciated skill. Too many musicians focus on themselves and not on the group as a whole. This is where another set of unbiased ears is valuable.

 

Developing those ears... that's tough. The hardest thing is shutting out the discriminating musician ears and replacing them with the laymen ears. Over the years, my ears were subconsciously developing. I accumulated a respectable studio with the ambition of not just my keyboards but also groups. Years and years of listening to CDs taught my ears how to make the pieces of the puzzle work, and the last few group projects I have recorded and mixed have turned out well.

 

Probably the best book on the subject is the one by Bob Katz. It's not how loud you make it, it's how you make it loud. Books alone won't make one a mastering engineering, you need to break outside your box and listen to other styles that may not appeal to you.

[KenElevenShadows]

The "Dark Art" of Mastering?

 

Great ears, overall perspective, attention to detail, and (hopefully) great equipment and knowledge of how to get the most out of it.

[Barryjam]

Katz book I found online was Mastering Audio The Art And The Science.

 

SOS review: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct03/articles/bobkatz.htm

[Resolution 88]

The "Dark Art" of Mastering?

 

Great ears, overall perspective, attention to detail, and (hopefully) great equipment and knowledge of how to get the most out of it.

 

Yes, I was being flippant of course when I referred to it like that - and I'd sum it up in a similar way to you.

[The Real MC]

Katz book I found online was Mastering Audio The Art And The Science.

 

SOS review: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct03/articles/bobkatz.htm

 

That's the one.

[area51recording]

I've always thought about it like this....When I'm mixing, I'm trying to make the tune I'm working on sound as good as possible, not necessarily worrying about how it hangs with other songs in the project. a good mastering engineer takes all those separate mixes and turns them into one cohesive work, ie, an ALBUM that flows seamlessly from one song to the next....

[RABid]

I went to GearFest a day early last year and took the ProTools mastering class. (I think the instructor was Mark Hornsby.) It was a real earopener for me. Not as a ProTools class, but witnessing what he was listening for and how to make corrections. Things like removing clashing overtones and creating sonic space. It was a good day. Wish I could remember more of what was taught.

[Resolution 88]

I also remember Bob saying to me, the first album we did, that his approach was just to make the music more of what it already was.

[Dave Bryce]

It's nice to know that in the hands of those great at it, a mix can be transformed into something incredible.

 

Can't wait to hear it.

Here she be, for the most part. Still waiting on album art to send it off to the nice Discmakers folks.

 

dB

[linwood]

Sounds great, Dave!

[zxcvbnm098]

"The 'Dark Art' of Mastering?

 

Great ears, overall perspective, attention to detail, and (hopefully) great equipment and knowledge of how to get the most out of it."

 

Ken, in my experience the "Dark Art" is really the perspective part. There are lots of mastering engineers out there, but I have found that the go-to ones have the perspective thing down. Especially for vinyl....

[Resolution 88]

Dave, I really like the Mussorgsky reference!

 

[AnotherScott]

While I'm sure it doesn't compare to having a pro do it, the Final Touch IOS app for audio mastering is on sale for $4.99 - anyone have any experience with it?

[MAJUSCULE]

I don't have a huge amount of experience with pro mastering engineers, but I just gotta plug Guy Hébert from Karisma Mastering in Montréal. He did my band's last record and really had all those "dark arts" qualities. Great ears, very musical, slapped our stuff on beautiful tape, provided multiple file formats, and talked things over on the phone five or six times as he worked on it. Very cool.

[ITGITC]

 

 

Brother Dave this sounds great! I'm really enjoying listening!

 

Good work!

 

Tommy

 

[Dave Bryce]

Thanks - glad you guys like the tracks! I'm really lucky to be able to work with some really talented people...it's really the whole point of me doing these projects in the first place.

 

Back to the mastering thing, though. I'm really curious - do most of you guys get your projects mastered when you're done with them? Do you just add some buss compression during mixdown and call it a day? Both? Neither?

 

dB

[Doerfler]

This guy kills it in the mastering department.

Vlado Meller

I once had the opportunity to watch him work about 15 years ago while Sony Mastering was still open in NYC. He used a large room and worked at incredibly loud volume levels.

 

As for me, my projects never get finished.

[Mark Schmieder]

Out of necessity for the past few years, I have done my own mastering, but partly this is because I'm rarely confident there won't be yet more tweaks as everyone gets their say. One of my other projects sends to L.A. for mastering. I like my own mastering better, to be frank.

 

There is an art and science to mastering -- mostly the former. You have to have really good ears, and be aware of what makes for repeat listens being palatable. That part I have down in spades. The science part is harder, because it also includes gear, and more importantly, the space. Mastering is usually done with three-way mid-field monitors in a large room at loud volumes. I can't do that.

 

So, even if you have the talent (which I do), it is still better (when practical) to have someone else do your mastering, for two key reasons:

 

1. Guarantee of neutrality (some of us are good at it, but we can NEVER be perfect at it when we've been directly involved in something)

2. The space, gear, and efficient workflow from experience and large staffs

 

Mastering sin't that expensive, really. But you'd better be sure you're actually done at that point in time, or it starts to add up. :-)

 

Comparing some material that was mastered by four different people (with me being one of them), I am able to tell the advantages of the professional mastering house but generally find the results less musically pleasing.

 

The important point is that the mastering house tends to do things their way -- both good and bad, as it can offset any unfortunate biases you have that might hurt sales, but it also means they may not understand your genre, intent, the moods you want to convey, etc.

 

So, even though Mastering is affordable for most people (especially compared to recording or mixing at a pro venue), it is critical that you become familiar with that Mastering House's past work and also that you have been clear about what your goals are (e.g. you want the music to breathe and be dynamic vs. you want it to be slammed and flatlined).

 

In other words, the space and the gear (plus experience and efficient workflow) matters (i.e., the science), but it's really 90% art. Perhaps even more so than the recording and mixing phases. You can really transform almost anything at the Mastering phase in ways that might seem impossible.

 

The most important thing in preparing a Pre-Master is to leave adequate headroom for Mastering. The aforementioned Bob Katz is the authority on that subject, and his The Art of Mastering is a required read even if you hire out the Mastering as it will help you make better judgments of good Mastering Engineers as well as to do a better job of preparing your Pre-Master (too many people ovderdo the mix).

 

I just flipped back to the earlier responses and see that KenElevenShadows managed to sum up everything I just said, rather succintly in one simple sentence. :-)

[Tusker]

That's pure excellence.

 

Definitely a multi-listen album. Looking forward to picking up the release. Life on Mars was my fav track but I've been listening to the other dB (RIP) a lot recently.

 

Topping the album off with "I wanna hold your hand" is cheeky genius.

[Markyboard]

Very nice Dave. Maybe a credit to the mastering, or it could be at the tracking stage but I really like how the synth "voices" weave in and out on some of the songs. The arrangements are outstanding.

[Theo Verelst]

It's interesting I think for keyboardist to think about mastering subjects. This week I've turned some of my Ac/Dc and a Commodores high definition tracks into power producing 96/24 remaster for testing my grasp on the foundation of the science of A grade mastering and I must say I'm not disappointed in what I've made as tests on the basis of sampling, multicompression, averaging and Lexicon acoustic processing I've Preset signal paths for now. But after about 4 passes of processing I've only started to get those good sounding 80s types sounds yet, but the separation of elements and the logic of the buildup is only a little short of amazing. My preferred results fit good on big monitoring and medium size as well but I like power.

 

When I got back, I'll listen to the example track from this thread.

 

T.