mixing and mastering in one swoop

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This topic is something that grabbed my attention as it is something I've been doing for a while now.
Firstly I agree with what people have said, it is certainly not mastering, but having compression and other plugs on the master certainly works for what I do.
I make club/dance music, I've been using the same monitors for over 6 years, I have a great understaning of what they are telling me and how this will transfer to the club system. Having the mix compressed and limited as I'm working certainly brings it closer to the club sound. I find this practice is works for me because all of the tunes I make have the same target (club sound system) and  there are certain dynamics characters that I like to acheive on every track.
I always take the master effects off when I do my final export, then I master sompletely from scratch, I can always get the final master to that perfect balance of crisp round and punchy in all the right places. I am not proclaiming I am a seasoned mastering engineer, how ever I can master my own material and others in the similar genres to me, to perfection.
Again let me make it clear, I know that being a mastering engineer involves working on more than a niche market, and you need years of experience working with many music styles with many target audiences and environments. (sorry just dont want any retalliation of the kind "oh you should never master your own material" blah blah blah)
 
I produce mainy my own music,, what we do, when we can't afford the mastering we pass it along to musician friends: I master yours you master mine. It's quite effective ! I still think thats the minimum the label should pay, if the don't pay advances anymore actually !

Nicholas
 
Hi everyboby;
This is an interesting subject I've been working on for years now (mixing and mastering).
Being a engineer since 1988 I used to only mix tracks but I was not always pleased with the master version I received, so years after years I worked on mastering going to see top master engineer mastering my mix and time after time I started to master other's mix; This is not a job you take without a lot of practice before, it is another approach then mixing and you have to be able to separate the job even if you'll do the both.
I recently openned my studios, one recording and mixing room (SSL) and one mastering room (neumann board etc) As business is going very tight many clients need to cut in their budget so we need to skwiz the mastering in mixing. For this I connected my two rooms when I finnish my mix I print it for safety go to sleep and the day after I master the song I mixed the day before. One good thing is I don't need to print the mix and take a generation One things that's hard to do is to know how the song will have to be in the final disc. This technic works very well but I would recommend to not master thru the same listening path then you mixed, there is a sound on every volume knob and it is to me very important to have something close to the final result "at the customers house " witch is not what a mixing room gives you.
Also it is good for the project to have another pair of ear to work on your project but sometimes budget are not allowing this. Mastering your own mix is not easy.You have to know your defaults and have enought experience to see your mix kinda backward.  This experience if you want it to be succefull need a great load of humillity and you will need to forget what you did in mix it is not a beginer job to do. So my advice is be carefull with that don't do it if you are not sure of what you do or want for the project.
I agree totally with Queff and Nicholas without the proper set up, room  and rig don't try to master and when you can master do it in resqpect of what you have to invest to have a mastering room. It is not a 50$ per track job...
Bruno
 
Autophase said:
I make club/dance music, I've been using the same monitors for over 6 years, I have a great understaning of what they are telling me and how this will transfer to the club system.
Click to expand...

Besides making a good replication master this is the essence of mastering, translation. My boilerplate first question is "is there anything you know you want to work on". I probably would have gotten this post as an answer. It would be a quick job. Hypothetically I might say something like "this bass drum will probably not translate well to earbuds. Do you want me to see if I can control it without ruining it?"

Much of the time I'm trying to be invisible. How can I better balance the mix so you don't notice much of a difference.



 
I will NEVER pay a professional for mastering again, ever ever ever.

I took my first, beautifully mixed (2" tape mixed through a Neve console in a top studio to a Studer 2-track, done exceedingly well) to a San Francisco mastering facility with a fabulous reputation and excellent gear.  Here's what happened.

First, the mastering engineer could not align his Studer with my tape tones.  So he tried it with his tape tones.  He couldn't do it.  So he switched me to an ATR-102, after billing me for one hour.  Then, after another 30 minutes he more or less gave up, using the excuse that there was something wrong with both recorders, but we went ahead anyway.  He began playing the first song and I'm already billed for nearly 2 hours.  And I admit it sounded spectacular but not at all accurate once he started his processing.  He tweaked and tweaked and wouldn't let me say a word for another hour or more of billable time.  Just the first song!

It had a fiddle in it playing melody at approximately equal volume with guitar.  It was plain as Jane in the mix, the fiddle was obvious.  But this quy gave it the usual disco EQ treatment which suppressed the mids so much that the fiddle vanished!  It was so accurate at filtering, he literally made the instrument disappear.  The guitar sounded gorgeous, but it was a fiddle tune, not a guitar tune!  After several hours the guy finally turns to me and says, "what do you think?"  And I say, "it sounds great, but where's the fiddle?"  He looks at me blankly, and then I realize, this super mastering engineer never even realized there was a fiddle in the tune!  He couldn't tell!  He never heard it!  He never listened!

He continues to work today in a premier SF mastering house and has been showcased in Mix magazine a few times...

I got out of there after a few more hours of torture with a huge bill and only one song mastered. Luckily, due to the excuse that he couldn't align the tape recorder I was able to cancel future mastering sessions until they "fixed the Studer" ha ha, there was nothing wrong with it as this guy couldn't even align the ATR and had just started without a proper alignment after all the back and forth...  (the tape sounded good without any alignment, that's how good our mixes were).

This experience taught me that there is no magic in mastering.  It's mostly BS, mostly boost the high and boost low end and compress and limit.  Period.  I'm sure there are other subtle things one can do, and I'm sure some recordings can benefit and I'm sure some pop genres need it (so they all sound the same), ...but in virtually every case where I heard a pre-mastered version and a post-mastered version I prefer the unmastered original.  In my opinion this is another slap-on-the-tried-and-true-formula with little actual listening or understanding or respect for originality.   This is what usually passes for mastering.  And it's Sh*tE!

There is another famous mastering/mixing facility in the Bay Area with a super-treated room and blah blah.  Same story.  Total BS smoke and mirrors for the producer and artist who don't know how to listen.  I've heard friend's projects come out of there just sounding like crap.

Don't get me started, I think mastering is terrible towards originality.   :mad:

Granted, level adjusting and such needs to take place in most cases, but not really.  I've released records which never even got close to peak levels, and they sold fine.  

The point is that a good producer needs to be involved in the mastering process to protect and carry forward the artistic integrity of the music.  That can mean working with a mastering house, but just as easily DIYing it...  
 
tommypiper said:
I will NEVER pay a professional for mastering again, ever ever ever.

I took my first, beautifully mixed (2" tape mixed through a Neve console in a top studio to a Studer 2-track, done exceedingly well) to a San Francisco mastering facility with a fabulous reputation and excellent gear.  Here's what happened.

First, the mastering engineer could not align his Studer with my tape tones.  So he tried it with his tape tones.  He couldn't do it.  So he switched me to an ATR-102, after billing me for one hour.  Then, after another 30 minutes he more or less gave up, using the excuse that there was something wrong with both recorders, but we went ahead anyway.  He began playing the first song and I'm already billed for nearly 2 hours.  And I admit it sounded spectacular but not at all accurate once he started his processing.  He tweaked and tweaked and wouldn't let me say a word for another hour or more of billable time.  Just the first song!

It had a fiddle in it playing melody at approximately equal volume with guitar.  It was plain as Jane in the mix, the fiddle was obvious.  But this quy gave it the usual disco EQ treatment which suppressed the mids so much that the fiddle vanished!  It was so accurate at filtering, he literally made the instrument disappear.  The guitar sounded gorgeous, but it was a fiddle tune, not a guitar tune!  After several hours the guy finally turns to me and says, "what do you think?"  And I say, "it sounds great, but where's the fiddle?"  He looks at me blankly, and then I realize, this super mastering engineer never even realized there was a fiddle in the tune!  He couldn't tell!  He never heard it!  He never listened!

He continues to work today in a premier SF mastering house and has been showcased in Mix magazine a few times...

I got out of there after a few more hours of torture with a huge bill and only one song mastered. Luckily, due to the excuse that he couldn't align the tape recorder I was able to cancel future mastering sessions until they "fixed the Studer" ha ha, there was nothing wrong with it as this guy couldn't even align the ATR and had just started without a proper alignment after all the back and forth...  (the tape sounded good without any alignment, that's how good our mixes were).

This experience taught me that there is no magic in mastering.  It's mostly BS, mostly boost the high and boost low end and compress and limit.  Period.  I'm sure there are other subtle things one can do, and I'm sure some recordings can benefit and I'm sure some pop genres need it (so they all sound the same), ...but in virtually every case where I heard a pre-mastered version and a post-mastered version I prefer the unmastered original.  In my opinion this is another slap-on-the-tried-and-true-formula with little actual listening or understanding or respect for originality.   This is what usually passes for mastering.  And it's Sh*tE!

There is another famous mastering/mixing facility in the Bay Area with a super-treated room and blah blah.  Same story.  Total BS smoke and mirrors for the producer and artist who don't know how to listen.  I've heard friend's projects come out of there just sounding like crap.

Don't get me started, I think mastering is terrible towards originality.   :mad:

Granted, level adjusting and such needs to take place in most cases, but not really.  I've released records which never even got close to peak levels, and they sold fine.  

The point is that a good producer needs to be involved in the mastering process to protect and carry forward the artistic integrity of the music.  That can mean working with a mastering house, but just as easily DIYing it...  
Click to expand...


That really sucks... I have heard a few horror stories about certain mastering veterans in the Bay Area. In one story involving a friend of mine, the ME did refund the band's money in entirety.

I have had mostly great experiences with ME's, more often than not at a historic joint in the tenderloin... I can't imagine that person treating you that way as he's always been really receptive to feedback, and has always made my mixes translate really well.

Did you get a referral from your mix engineer, or was that you? I have seen cases where people are really loyal, even when their counterpart is obviously burnt out and phoning it in.

Otherwise, someone who can pull off a great mix will always know the right person to master it, they have such a vested interest in having their work presented in the best possible form. Anyway, sorry that happened to you... drag.
 
tommy sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. However I must point out that in the hands of the right engineer mastering can really give you that extra push off the cliff.  It can take your mixes up to 11.  ;) I know be curious to as to know which facility and or me you had delt with.... PM if you like.
 
Pucho, maybe.... I'll tell you if I see you at AES in November.  (You coming?)

To answer Rattleyour, yes it was a referral from the mix engineer.  The mix engineer was good, and said basically the mastering should just involve sequencing and maybe some level changes, but no EQ.  However, I ended up with a different mastering engineer, although in the same facility as the referral.  The main engineer we wanted was never available...  maybe, and presumably, he would have been more understanding of the material.  (These two mastering engineers still work together.  If you want to sleuth, it won't take you long to figure out who they are... but I'm not giving any hints or more about it.)

I work in a different, non-pop genre, that's part of the problem.  Most average engineers know only how to treat rock and pop.  Period.  

There is no need for extreme compression or blistering, breathy high end in non-pop genres, but the engineers (both mix and mastering engineers) still treat us that way.  All the mainstream commercial and corporate engineers I've encountered are clueless. (Excluding Nashville, where I've worked with Bil VornDick many times and he knows acoustic music and gets it.  He rarely compresses at all and has a very light touch on EQ, etc..).  

If you listen to old classic rock, it was never mastered with the crap extreme EQ and limiting of today.  It's just plain WRONG.

BTW, I didn't use the track the mastering engineer worked on -- in the end they withheld the track because I hadn't paid.  And we both saved face by them saying they would fix the Studer and me saying I'd wait till then.  

I ran in to this same mastering engineer at an AES tour of his mastering facility a couple years ago.  He didn't appear to recognize me or remember me, but he was flippant and again an idiot when I asked a sincere question about why he was monitoring CDs on consumer equipment as his only source...

I will never pay money for someone to screw me again.  It's been DIY ever since!
 
it's pretty hard to find a good mechanic to work on yer car...

i feel that i have been screwed a few times, but i'm not
gonna try my own auto repairs (especially with engines looking
like the equivalent of surface mount s^it to me.)

a good mechanic is waay better than me.
even if i did know about cars, i wouldn't.
 
tommypiper said:
Pucho, maybe.... I'll tell you if I see you at AES in November.  (You coming?)

To answer Rattleyour, yes it was a referral from the mix engineer.  The mix engineer was good, and said basically the mastering should just involve sequencing and maybe some level changes, but no EQ.  However, I ended up with a different mastering engineer, although in the same facility as the referral.  The main engineer we wanted was never available...  maybe, and presumably, he would have been more understanding of the material.  (These two mastering engineers still work together.  If you want to sleuth, it won't take you long to figure out who they are... but I'm not giving any hints or more about it.)

I work in a different, non-pop genre, that's part of the problem.  Most average engineers know only how to treat rock and pop.  Period.  

There is no need for extreme compression or blistering, breathy high end in non-pop genres, but the engineers (both mix and mastering engineers) still treat us that way.  All the mainstream commercial and corporate engineers I've encountered are clueless. (Excluding Nashville, where I've worked with Bil VornDick many times and he knows acoustic music and gets it.  He rarely compresses at all and has a very light touch on EQ, etc..).  

If you listen to old classic rock, it was never mastered with the crap extreme EQ and limiting of today.  It's just plain WRONG.

BTW, I didn't use the track the mastering engineer worked on -- in the end they withheld the track because I hadn't paid.  And we both saved face by them saying they would fix the Studer and me saying I'd wait till then.  

I ran in to this same mastering engineer at an AES tour of his mastering facility a couple years ago.  He didn't appear to recognize me or remember me, but he was flippant and again an idiot when I asked a sincere question about why he was monitoring CDs on consumer equipment as his only source...

I will never pay money for someone to screw me again.  It's been DIY ever since!
Click to expand...

I think I know who you speak of if it is the studio I am thinking of. Yes I will be there...
 
QUEEF BAG said:
it's pretty hard to find a good mechanic to work on yer car...

i feel that i have been screwed a few times, but i'm not
gonna try my own auto repairs (especially with engines looking
like the equivalent of surface mount s^it to me.)

a good mechanic is waay better than me.
even if i did know about cars, i wouldn't.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on that.  Though I do my own auto mechanics DIY whenever I can...  :D  I do my own oil changes, and more.  Anything serious, I'm willing to pay.  

The point is, it's the same with mastering.  If all you need is to sequence the songs, or level out the peaks a bit, do it yourself.  In general, I feel "mastering" is not necessary if you have good mixes.  And most mastering, even on great gear, is destructive in my opinion.  But I need to qualify that by saying that I work in non-pop genres, as I said, and I have no big budget clients.   :D 

A little truly pro mastering probly goes a long way.  I've read Bob Katz' book and it seems very good, he seems smart.  Bernie Grundman has a great reputation.  I can't imagine these guys mangling things.

I've just encountered bad mastering locally.  Which made me rethink the whole concept.

I see two or three traps that everyone falls into regarding mastering:
1) I think it's the kind of situation where everybody says you need to get mastered at a top place, like it's a stamp of approval and must-have for success.  And when you hear that famous artists have been mastered there then you go, yeah, I'll pay for that.  When in fact you may not need mastering, and by the very fact of taking this step you're giving up some of your control and some of your objectivity.  You are now vulnerable to the influence of others and no longer objective.
2)Then the second half is the problem you get when a mastering engineer is encountering the music for the first time and has to produce a master without much time for testing, contemplation, knowing the artist, etc.  So they fall back on what they've used before or what the conventions are, or what they "hear."  And with the level of gear they have, virtually every tweak sounds good and will improve some spectral aspect of the recording, by increasing clarity or punch, detail, or something...  so they tweak.  Even though the tweak may or may not add realism or be true to the artistic direction of the recording.  In this situation you are almost guaranteed to lose your point of reference.  If it comes out louder, more aggressive, and more pop or rock sounding, 9 out of 10 times the producer will approve of it, and there you go, even if it no longer actually serves the music or the artistic impulse of the material, you accept it.  3)You pay, and because you paid, and because famous artists were mastered there, and because it sounds more aggressive, or more ______ (fill in the blank) done by an "experienced mastering engineer" you think you've improved it.  When in fact you've changed it, but not necessarily improved it.

I think I've said enough and I'm going to quit on this subject for now...  
 
I mix and master in one session when I'm doing volunteer work, or getting paid very little. Depending on the material it can be really easy to do. I recently recorded a live gig I was engineering; while mixing the recordings I added some processing to the main outputs. It worked fine on the material. Obviously more delicate material requires a lot more care.

As an anecdote: At some point last year an engineer friend of mine and myself where recording a band. My friend then went onto do the mix later and it sounded really good. No crazy loudness but let's not get into that. The band later sent it to an apparently reputable mastering engineer. The results were less than good. I found it hard to believe that even the equalisation was bad. It's not like he even compressed it into a mushy wet sandwich. It wasn't even particularly louder than the mix; it just sounded bad.

The same friend got his own album mastered later in a very very reputable studio. He later remastered it himself and it sounded 100% better.

I find that while mastering; you tend to use the same processing over and over: Eq, compression, limiter etc. But obviously it's completely down to which eq and HOW you use it.
It's not the kind of sector that can get away with using presets on the effects. Some mastering engineers are amazing. They can save an otherwise mediocre mix, or simply add subtle enhancement to a classical recording.

The audio industry is full of untrained professionals and uninterested, trained professionals. We can all fall into that trap. How many hear have been engineering a live performance only to not give the 10th act (of 20) your complete best. (Though with studio work I'm less forgiving as there is far more time to do the work).

Rob
 

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