[lord_bunny]

This is a thread for mixing guys who own project or pro studios who master their own productions.

My philosophy for mastering my own stuff is that the budgets I deal with don't really speak to the need for an outside mastering studio.

The way I mix I try and compress and limit as much as I want the track to be compressed and limited. My mixes in the "dense pop" genre can be -11 to -9. My philosophy in mastering is to get the various mixes on a record to gel cohesively taking in to account their track order by using e.q., very light compression on some and very light limiting.

A month ago I wrapped up a project and had a listening party out in the tracking room with folks who played on the record as well as other musicians and local industry folks. I have a pair of pwoered 3-way JBL's that we're positioned nicely. I hadn't mastered yet, I just wanted feedback on the mixes.

I heard all kinds of stuff in one song in particular that I didn't hear on the nearfields int he control room. It was great to get a little objectivity by using a different set of speakers in a much different room. My tracking room is around 1400 sq ft, where my control room is big enough for a desk, couch and chair with a little room to spare.

My mastering process went so much more smoothly... I was able to listen in the big room, take notes... listen in the control room and then do a tweak and head back out to the big room. I found I could hear the problems on the nearfields so much more after hearing them clearly on the larger JBL's.

It's the nicest master i've done. My thought was maybe to get a monitor, keyboard/mouse etc on a mobile desk and roll it out to these JBL's for mastering... even mixing perhaps. Has anyone else done this?

I know they aren't mastering monitors by any stretch, but I just feel that having a vastly different listening environment and going from 6.5 woofers to a 15", 12" and horn will give me better objectivity. Besides the room is big and treated with 703, so any monitoring problems my control room has (although it's filthy with 703 and foam in the corners) it's got to be a positive change.

Thoughts? (besides "send it to an ME")