Where is Professional Mastering going?

[technomonster]

I always hope that the Masterer will make me rich.

Masterers are worth heaps because they can make something oridinary sound a million dollars literally.

[lucey]

Originally Posted by jmarkham

Mastering is going the way of the major labels. I don't believe it will
exist as a major factor in audio production twenty years from now.
The tasks will be rolled into the mixers process .. it already is for
many professional mixers already.

jeff

If by "many professionals" you mean starting level local music mixers with clients trying to "save money" ... that's correct. Fortunately there are many artists with higher standards than to have their mixer do it on the side, and there are mixers who understand that their work will sound better if mastered by the right person.

Personally speaking, if you're not putting 100% into your project I don't want anything to do with it. There's too much mediocre product out there such that even great music has to fight to be heard.

[joerod]

Originally Posted by lucey

If by "many professionals" you mean starting level local music mixers with clients trying to "save money" ... that's correct. Fortunately there are many artists with higher standard than to have their mixer do it on the side, and there are mixers who understand that their work will sound better if mastered by the right person.

I know I've been a bad dog with you Lucey, but you make perfect sense here...thumbsup

[Franco]

Originally Posted by lucey

If by "many professionals" you mean starting level local music mixers with clients trying to "save money" ... that's correct. Fortunately there are many artists with higher standards than to have their mixer do it on the side, and there are mixers who understand that their work will sound better if mastered by the right person.

Okay, so nobody's going to bring up Metallica + Greg Fidelman = Death Magnetic regarding this statement?

I wonder what would be a more likely scenario for the future. Will mixers like Greg Fidelman just learn what NOT to do at the mixing stage and send mixes with more headroom to MEs, or will they learn how to better apply the tools they've already got and bypass the ME? Can they let go of some of the "power" or learn how to use it better?

[DSD_Mastering]

Originally Posted by Franco

Okay, so nobody's going to bring up Metallica + Greg Fidelman = Death Magnetic regarding this statement?

What gets me is that this happens every single day. Why is everyone trying to jump on the bandwagon now?

ME's have been complaining about this for years. Now, why all of a sudden is it a big deal?

Regards,
Bruce

[Franco]

[quote=DSD_Mastering;3493624]Now, why all of a sudden is it a big deal?/quote]

Well, the title of the post is "Where is professional mastering going?" and I suppose it's going in all sorts of directions. I don't believe people will stop doing what they're doing (mastering at home, mastering @ high-end facilities, mastering @ unattended and more affordable facilities, mixers doing mastering on major label projects, and even not mastering at all).

It's possible that what happens to "professional mastering" will be the same thing that happened to graphic and web design (anyone with Dreamweaver and Photoshop on their computers can publish). Sure, that may not be the most professional of both practices, but what is most common?

[joerod]

This thread reminds me NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien, when he and a guest would be predicting the future while La Bamba is singing in the background "In the year 2000, in the year 2000..."

[lucidwaves]

Originally Posted by DSD_Mastering

What gets me is that this happens every single day. Why is everyone trying to jump on the bandwagon now?

ME's have been complaining about this for years. Now, why all of a sudden is it a big deal?

Regards,
Bruce

Maybe Metallica fans have golden ears? Anyhow lets not kick a gifthorse in the nuts or however the saying goes.

[mikey boy]

Hi, one of the biggest problems in the UK is mastering fees an example, there is a guy advertising in sound on sound, he will master an album for £1000 that is about $2000 unsigned which seems to be ridiculous. Unfortunately these days give a guy an L2 and he is a professional! I personally think guys like me will always require good mix engineers and a good mastering house. Listening to a lot of tracks over the last few years I can hear how the music industry is slowly declining because of the technology so widely available to everyone. We now see in the UK engineers advertising their services from a bedroom. How times has changed.

[trent]

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

A while ago, someone came here to a mastering workshop for college students I gave. A while later, I got a phone call from him, asking me to give some advice on equipment, as in what I use and why I use it. Then later, I found out he took an intern job at a reasonably local competitor recording/mixing/mastering studio (not a small place, but with a somewhat outdated mastering suite). He got the studio owners to buy the EXACT same analog setup I used at the time.

Anyways, I don't even know what the moral of that story is. If anyone knows, fill me in.

Unglaublich! bitte tell me you asked him WHY he wanted to know that info...Intellectual Property is a commodity after all, and I fear you may have sold yourself out, albeit involuntarily. I be he CHARGED the other studio for his advice about which gear to by..
Was kann man sagen...? Nach dem zu urteilen was du sagst, nächstes mal, "Get it in writing!"...

[trent]

Originally Posted by DSD_Mastering

What gets me is that this happens every single day. Why is everyone trying to jump on the bandwagon now?

ME's have been complaining about this for years. Now, why all of a sudden is it a big deal?

Regards,
Bruce

Because of all people, heavy metal fans finally can hear the diference. The latest Metallica album was released in two formats, one at 44.1k Redbook, the other, for some video game apparently titled guitar hero or whatnot. Thing is, the Video game version doesn't suffer from the brickwalling the CD master did, (I think it was a stems release) and 90% of fans can actually A/B the versions. Not suprisingly, they've all started freaking out claiming "RIPPED OFF" because it is apparent a 'better' version exists.

It's rare that a #1 album is released in two formats simultaneously, let alone with such radical and obvious differences between the two formats. That's why it's 'Big News' (again). Truth is stranger than fiction, and the Loudness war is now front and center once more, even made the wall street journal!

Blah blah i know, but this situation of involuntary education seems to have rekindled the Loudness war once again.

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

...And here's a funny little story:

A while ago, someone came here to a mastering workshop for college students I gave. A while later, I got a phone call from him, asking me to give some advice on equipment, as in what I use and why I use it. Then later, I found out he took an intern job at a reasonably local competitor recording/mixing/mastering studio (not a small place, but with a somewhat outdated mastering suite). He got the studio owners to buy the EXACT same analog setup I used at the time. I found that slightly flattering, but most of all very amusing. I guess having his "own", pre-configured play pen was much more tempting than actually trying out different gear and learning what to do with it. And that's the way things seem to be going. Learning by doing. Certainly not the worst way to learn, but in a blind copycat fashion, and most of all in a fully operating and charging facility, it seems somewhat shocking. I'm guessing that those mastering their music there are paying per hour for the guy's tuition. And they won't know, because the company web site looks great; they have a long client list from 60 years of recording studio operation. And of course they have a great collection of mastering gear. I should know. It's mine

Anyways, I don't even know what the moral of that story is. If anyone knows, fill me in.

The moral of the story is that it takes a lot more than gear to make a good master!

When I was starting, I would not have been able to walk into a studio such I have now and really make any sense of it.

Even if an apprentice-level engineer is familiar with the gear, and that includes what each unit can do (which is probably a stretch), there is so much more to learn before being able to make consistently good masters! Like gain staging, order and just what one should do, or not do, with each unit that is available. Really it's the experience of doing 100's or 1000's of masters that gives one the knowledge to make those decisions.

In other words, it's hard to imagine that the apprentice, with your gear set-up, would be able to do top-notch work without doing it for a few years.

I'm thinking of taking on an apprentice so this post kinda got my attention. The guy in question is a good project studio mix guy who has done some of his own mastering so I'd say quite a bit above the level of an newbie apprentice.

I'm not sure if I should show him the way and why I use the gear the way I do and ask him to continue on in "my style" or show him the way and why and encourage him to come up with his own unique approach.

The conundrum is that I am the only one who masters here and as soon as someone else does it, with our studio name attached, my hard earned reputation could be jeopardized.

How do you folks in this position handle this? A one engineer mastering operation for 15 years now adds a second engineer who will be in the less expensive category and will likely not be turning out work that is as good as I do, at least not for a while!

[alvagoldbook]

I almost always have someone else master my stuff, just to give it a new set of ears.