Mixing and/or Mastering definitions

[dNA]

I've never personally met somebody who considered themselves a dedicated "masterer"

Of course you haven't! Because somebody referring to themselves as a "masterer" would sound pretty dumb. The term is "mastering engineer" and I've known a handful of people who make their living strictly as mastering engineers.

of course, that being said, I don't think spending a lot of money on mastering for a small-scale project is a worthwhile investment, and I do agree that it's good just to have a fresh set of ears listen to the music.

 

[SkuttleFunk]

the folk/rock band I play in is heading to a mastering session in two weeks. we spent the summer recording, and the last part of Sept / first part of Oct mixing tracks. our upcoming mastering sesssion is scheduled to be four - six hours at RFI here in Seattle (http://www.rficd.com/)

I have several friends who operate professional studios, and (contrary to what was posted earlier in this thread) all agree that the recording studio is NOT the place to have your work mastered - for projects worthy of formal release, they recommend to have them mastered by a specialized mastering professional who also works with bands in the same genre as your work.


let's use this analogy: mastering your own work at the studio you recorded at is like assembling a Warmoth parts guitar - sure it can come out good, but you're limited to what can be done by choosing from the limited set of parts/options they offer. just like professional mastering,  the skilled art of actually building a guitar from rough lumber with your own hands/tools in your own shop is significantly different than what's required for simply assembling a Warmoth parts guitar. like professional mastering, this building from rough materials activity takes years of practice to develop skills and designs that are of an exceeding quality level. using plug-ins and pre-made parts can give one a inflated sense of the true skill set they actually have, and one tends to rely on the pre-defined options in setting their capability standards. a professional mastering engineer or a professional luthier has a skill set that allows them to understand the fundimental rudiments of their craft, enabling them the freedom to work in ways that are outside the working spectrum for hobbiests

all the best,

R

 

[AndyG]

Definitely +1 on letting a true mastering engineer do the work.

With home recording technology coming as far as it has, the mid-sized pro studios are slowly falling into extinction. Even commercial production houses are setting up their own small recording suites because, in the long run, it is cheaper than paying for studio time.   Larger studios will always exist, for the simple reason that if you want to record an orchestra, you need the physical square footage and a 120 input console to accomodate them.  The same is true for mastering houses in the sense that signed artists are not going to master their records by basement mastering engineers!  Band demos have existed since the beginnings of recorded music.  If you record something at home, a semi-pro mastering engineer may be able to get you what you need, in the same way that tracks that were recorded at a home studio probably didn't go through boutique tube mics and preamps.


It all comes down to "you get what you pay for".  If you have a buddy who is a mechanic and has some pretty good tools, you might trust him to give you an oil change or change your brake pads, but if you had a race car that needed dynometer testing, you'd have to go to a pro.

I know that the analogies here aren't always 100% on the mark, but you get the idea    :glasses9: