Help on mastered music / Mix gear

[studioland]

I've had two very different musical project I mixed which have been mastered by great mastering engineers in great mastering studios.
I can hear bad audio quality on the final results. It's not coming from the masters it's coming from what I sent. Problem is I don't get to know what causes this. I can hear some crappy stuff in the hi-range, maybe the converters suck, or the verb programs ?
I don't want to post those here but would do in private.
Could someone help me here find where it comes from ? what is this thing I hear on both project which are musically very different so that I can improve.

Thanks

[Darius van H]

I believe that bad sound is often a cumulative process.......not just one thing........a hundred small bad choices can lead to one big bad sound........caused by a lack of experience (hopefully not a lack of talent!)

bad converters, bad musicians, wrong mic technique, over-use of plugins, bad gain staging in your DAW, low res monitoring, lack of experience, accidental MP3 conversion, wrong clocking, excessive compression, mistaken EQ, silly arrangements, phase issues, unintentional distortion etc etc etc the list could go on and on.

That said, it could of course be one thing that's causing the problem (a trip through i-tunes?), but i doubt it.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by studioland

I've had two very different musical project I mixed which have been mastered by great mastering engineers in great mastering studios.
I can hear bad audio quality on the final results. It's not coming from the masters it's coming from what I sent. Problem is I don't get to know what causes this. I can hear some crappy stuff in the hi-range, maybe the converters suck, or the verb programs ?
I don't want to post those here but would do in private.
Could someone help me here find where it comes from ? what is this thing I hear on both project which are musically very different so that I can improve.

Thanks

As a mastering engineer I only have time to give a free consultation to a mixing engineer who's going to be doing mastering with me. But perhaps for a fee I (or someone else with more time than I and no fee!) you can find a mastering engineer who would listen to and criticize/comment on your mixes and their work.

But I have another suggestion: Improving your mixing skills is a lifelong job :-). Mastering engineers can give you general help, as to your tonality and dynamics practices and perhaps even your reverb practices, and this can help you take your work up another 10% for sure. But I suggest that you gain the acquaintance of a very good mixing engineer and either apprentice with him/her or better yet, give them one of your mixes in the making to remix themselves. If they permit you to sit in, sit and watch, you'll learn so much just seeing how the pros do it and it will help give you the skill set you need.

In the old days of professional studios (and some still around) we all learned by apprenticeship and watching and working with the pros around us. That sort mentorship is what I think you need right now. And in the absence of working in a large professional studio, you can get this kind of mentorship by paying for one or more mix sessions. If the mix engineer you hire is not in your town and you cannot be there, and he is open and generous in his help, you can still gain a lot by listening to his results and examining his Pro Tools (or other) session after the fact. If he agrees to give that to you as part of the mentorship.