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Mastering Gone Bad! (Why I Don't Trust Cheap Mastering Engineers)
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- Опубліковано 22 кві 2020
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OK, it's rant mode time! Justin Colletti shares some of his experiences working with mastering engineers early in his career to help show what can go wrong, and what to look out for in your own projects.
Thanks to Soundtoys, Focusrite and Gear Club for sponsoring this episode.
Even the idea of a preset mastering approach chills me to the little bones in my ears! As you say it's an art and we need to be in the moment - hopefully the same moment or mindset of the originating artist(s) on the project so as to sucessfully ARTiculate (I meant to do that) the feeling or flavor of what's going on in the music-message-mystery...etc.
Great episode, I found it really encouraging. Had a lot of these bad experiences starting out, and honestly still do every once in a while. Thanks for reminding me to always trust my vision. Cheers!
how can one call himself a mastering engineer while blindly using presets, that's beyond me. always try to understand what is best for the song!
Exactly, the artist could slap on presets themselves for free.
Presets could just be a point of start where you depending on what you listen can activated o deactivate, or just knowing how they work start from the point. Do you really think the best mastering engineers don't have a chain ready to use? Just go and master your record with one of them before full your mouth of non sense words
i agree. mastering is such a small amount of steps, even using a template is not giving me the effort that i would give another person. i sent off to get some demos for cheap-ish masters and they were clearly just run through a template; complete shit.
@@ozono3videos you're missing a point, mate. chill out
That's great! Thank you!
Great video, I feel like I have a much better understanding of what good mastering is now.
I have learned more in attending sessions with a great mastering engineer here in Michigan, than just about any other thing I've done as an engineer. Second is working with other engineers in their studios.
I'm really glad you posted this talk. I am currently doing my first "for real" CD project, and the prospect of having some "Mastering Engineer" lay hands on my acoustic instrumentals and having them come out sounding like a robot is the single most worrisome aspect of the entire project. (I've heard it before, more than once). You are helping keep things pointed in the right direction.
Great content Justin. You touched on one thing that really resonated with me and is a real concern for me: the authority given to mastering engineers. Personally, as an artist who has little experience in dealing with ME’s and who is reliant on their ‘ears and expertise’, I want to give them authority. That’s why people generally don’t do their own plumbing - they get a qualified tradesperson to do it because there is a level of trust in their abilities. Personally, I don’t know if there’s ‘enough 3k in it’ or ‘it won’t translate to vinyl’ etc. I know what you’re saying is spot on and that all I can really do is look at the engineers track record, but I wish I could place my trust in ‘an expert’s’ hands.
Thank you again Justin! You told about the reasons I master my solo projects all by myself.. :D I have a solo project DreamSpy, dark atmospheric rock with no guitars...the main force is my EUB. I asked a demo mastering from two mastering engineers and they both ruined my thing, in different way. The first one was squashed -8.5 LUFS and my ears were bleeding when listening that...very aggressive, harsh sound. All the created"poetry" was gone. Boring. Another master was a bit more dynamic but the bottom end was something I didn't like. So I mastered the record in my way. Now I'm mastering my second album - there's no deadline so I took a little break from mastering and I have watched your great videos and got some ideas to try, before it's time to say the mastering process is ready.. :)
Great video
As someone who only read about mastering but never witnessed it, this video was tremendously helpful.
finding your video after getting bad masters back!
Yes, follow the concept of the project - keep it from being too muddy in any range - especially in the lower end, use your HPF Carefully! Don't just have a favorite roll-off point and rate of slope, experiment 'till it's right. On the higher end as he says be very careful of overdoing it because of Ear Fatigue - it's real. Not only because it gets tiring after a couple of tunes on an album but since so many recordings are over bright (starting with Condense mics' unrealistic curves) people who are changing the station likely were already hearing over-bright stuff.
Yeah i know what you mean. It's always hard to explain someone how it should sound.
Truer words have never been said
I have never mastered a track but I'd do it for £20. Bung on a few plugins, twiddle some knobs, and you're done. What's the big deal? 😃 Just my SOH sorry. Thanks for the great content.
What's your mic in this clip?
That is a JZ Amethyst!
Some people fear/hate Landr but if the artist has some Landr masters it's a baseline for myself. When there's a happy accident and Landr is competitive with my initial masters I don't rest until I can figure out what I've missed. Also I want to know what the artist thinks of those versions because that gives me a far better idea of what they are aiming for than references because they can be more specific. Additionally they are focused on the sounds they HAVE got rather than any ghosts they were chasing in the references (as the saying goes: To sound like Bonham, first you must _play_ like Bonham!).
I'm a firm believer in communication, so I have to ask...in the case of the "Beck"-ish mix did you or the artist communicate to the mastering engineer the INTENT of the project? Did he know that the production was reliant on dynamic and genre variety and still master them out?
Yes, I'd say a good portion of it was likely lack of communication. It was one of the many experiences that made me recognize how important communication is. And if I was still mixing today, I'd prefer to be in contact with the mastering engineer directly on every project I mixed.
I always request the mix engineer to give me their test master. Without that, I want references. In either case, it is never my job as a mastering engineer to change the mix. If something needs corrected, I'll always try to work with the mix engineer to correct things. Bright masters is just inexperience. Mastering engineers really need to have a great room and monitoring. I'm fairly inexpensive as masters go but I always go into it wanting to achieve the artists vision. Also, a good producer is worth every penny.
Also, many mastering engineers start by brightening up the track first which initially will sound good. I always work from the bottom up. Most of the time, when the low end gets tightened and controlled, the top just blooms nicely and usually doesn't need much.
Great insights @@JasonBuffin. I'm with you on so much of this.
Bright doesn't mean bad or inexperienced, it depends on the genre, track, and what the client wants that we deliver to them. Brightness suits certain songs and genres.
But the problem is just making something bright for the sake of it and without thinking about it, that's the problem, if you listen to a track and say alright this mix is a bit dark, I'm going to add some air and brighten it up a bit , that's not inexperienced, but going alright I'm going to add a load of top, I'm going to scoop the mids and add some bass, just for the sake of it sounding brighter, that's inexperience.
And agreed on working from the bottom up, generally tightening the low end first and sorting that out already usually opens the top end, and from there it's a matter of going: right, is this good as is or do I need to add a bit more top, knowing when to adjust things and leave them alone is what takes experience
Hair!!
alter your setup, every time, because no two audio recordings are the same.
Because no one should trust them.
SAGE audio is horrible.....
That hair is not real, it’s got to be nylon!?
"Oh it's real....and it's spectacular." It's also gone now.
Why do you need a mastering engineer anyways? You listen to most songs on Spotify and iTunes mastered by so-called pros and the sound is nothing special. You can do your own mastering while mixing. Plugins have made it easy. Don’t bother wasting your money on an expensive mastering engineer. Not worth it.
Roniya Mensah That Logic is utterly ridiculous.
Some records do indeed sound amaaaazzzzzing. A great many of them are mastered by great mastering engineers. But perhaps not all of them.
On the other hand, a lot of records just sound ok. Some of these are also mastered by great mastering engineers. But a great mastering engineer can’t turn a sub par mix into an amazing one. And many are mastered by less than great mastering engineers.
Some records sound pretty awful and amateurish. Some of these are mastered by very good mastering engineers given very bad material to work with. Some are mastered by mediocre mastering engineers. And some are mastered badly or not at all.
But the big thing is this: A truly great master can make a record sound up to 20% better. Maybe less. Or maybe even more.
But a bad master can easily make a record sound 100% worse.
Hope that helps!
Mastering can only gild the turd. If it sounds meh on Spotify/iTunes it was stinking before it was mastered.
Another factor is artists/producers who insist on crushed results. The loudness normalization will reveal how bad that crushing was and make the song sound limp because it has no dynamics. Crushing is rarely the choice of the mastering engineer so pointing the finger at them is missing the mark.