Will Mastering "Fix" Our Mix?

[KyleT]

Quick question for one of you who knows mastering - my band's recording at home and we're getting everything fine, the mix sounds great through my speaker/sub set (admittedly small) but the same mix through headphones or through my computer's speakers sounds like crap! So is this the type of problem that mastering corrects, to make the same mix sound good no matter what speakers it comes through, or do we need to first adjust the mix until it sounds good everywhere?
Thanks! Much love, guys.

[Greg Reierson]

I'd recommend sending a few mixes to a mastering engineer for his opinion. Fixing mix problems in mastering is no fun. Much better to take his advice and make changes on your end.

I'm sure many of us would be happy to evaluate a mix or two.


GR

[binarymilton]

You need to first adjust the mix until it sounds good everywhere.

(or at least, passable everywhere)

How does your mix sound compared to your favourite current song by your favourite current band? Does that sound good through your setup? Does that sound good no matter what the format?

[DavieB]

No mastering is not a magic bullet. If you know it doesn't sound right, then you got more work to do on the mix... Post a few samples and get some opinions...

[Ben F]

Definitely no.

The mix should be 95% there already, the master is the final polish.

[SDB_12]

Originally Posted by KyleT

Quick question for one of you who knows mastering - my band's recording at home and we're getting everything fine, the mix sounds great through my speaker/sub set (admittedly small) but the same mix through headphones or through my computer's speakers sounds like crap! So is this the type of problem that mastering corrects, to make the same mix sound good no matter what speakers it comes through, or do we need to first adjust the mix until it sounds good everywhere?
Thanks! Much love, guys.

Hi! Are you ready for the boring, but very true answer? Ok, ready or not...your 2 big problems that must be addressed here are:

1. Your room! You need to treat your room. You cannot accurately hear what is going on in your mix when your room is interfering. It's like trying to drive a straight stretch with hot chicks in bikini's on the side of the road winking and motioning at you to pull over. Too many distractions and reflections going on that influence your mix decisions, and make you want to veer off course....tutt

2. Your monitors! You need accurate monitors. If your monitors are lying to you, how can you trust them? It would be like trying to Photoshop a picture on a computer with a monitor that's colors are all faulty and extremely dull. If you are enhancing the coloring in your photo based on the dullness of your computer screen, as soon as you print that picture out or check it on a different computer, everything will be overly bright!!! Same goes for your monitors...if they aren't telling you what is going on in the mid-range...you can't properly adjust things. You're working blindly and guessing. It really is amazing when you hear an album on a set of monitors that are clear, accurate, and detailed. If you can't trust her, you can't be with her.

Sorry for the crazy analogies, but this stuff is mentioned all the time, and is very boring to most people, especially beginning engineers. I know I wasn't interested in room treatment when I first started out. Now it's number 1 on my list along with monitoring.

So to sum up, no, mastering will not FIX your mix. It will sprinkle some sugar on your turd. Ever been in a bathroom right after someone has crapped and it's sickening? Well a mastering engineer can spray some air freshener to help...but you are still going to get a hint of crap underneath the air freshener...so now you have, fresh crap... Ok sorry I'll stop...you get the point.

[Yiannis]

Originally Posted by SDB_12

1. Your room! You need to treat your room. You cannot accurately hear what is going on in your mix when your room is interfering. It's like trying to drive a straight stretch with hot chicks in bikini's on the side of the road winking and motioning at you to pull over. Too many distractions and reflections going on that influence your mix decisions, and make you want to veer off course....tutt

I am always saying this as an example to my friends to help them understant the value of acoustic treatment

Imagin a photographer working in a environment with bad/low light!

He has the best tools to work with!

Now think what will happens when he looks at his work in a well lighting environment.

Why on earth I didn't think yours?

nice onethumbsup

[huejahfink]

Originally Posted by SDB_12

It's like trying to drive a straight stretch with hot chicks in bikini's on the side of the road winking and motioning at you to pull over.

I'm sorry but you make having a poorly treated room sound like heaven

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by KyleT

Quick question for one of you who knows mastering - my band's recording at home and we're getting everything fine, the mix sounds great through my speaker/sub set (admittedly small) but the same mix through headphones or through my computer's speakers sounds like crap! So is this the type of problem that mastering corrects, to make the same mix sound good no matter what speakers it comes through, or do we need to first adjust the mix until it sounds good everywhere?
Thanks! Much love, guys.

It really depends what's wrong with it.

Sometimes there can be significant improvements via the mastering process and sometimes not.

For instance yesterday I mastered a solo Flamenco guitar album. The client asked me if he should add the reverb or it I should. I asked him what he had and it wasn't close to the TC 6000 algos we have here so I said to leave it dry.

Should have been fairly straightforware but when I listened to the tracks, they were very, very thin plus a bit noisy.

There was also cliick track bleed from headphones that were audible in a couple of the fades. The fix for this is to fade the file early and raise the level of the reverb so that it provides a decent tail for the end.

With some extreme equalization, noise reduction and a beautiful reverb unit, the masters came out sounding just great. Even I was surprised!

When it comes to pop music, if the mix doesn't sound great because it is "small" sounding, then mastering should be able to expand what's there and make it sound better, maybe much better. But if it's distorted or missing huge amount of important frequencies, then mastering will not be able to overcome this.

Having said all this, of course it is better to get it sounding at least 95% there before mastering but sometimes clients cannot go back to the mix for any number of reasons and then we have to see if there are any rabbits to be pulled out of the hat!

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by KyleT

... the mix sounds great through my speaker/sub set (admittedly small) but the same mix through headphones or through my computer's speakers sounds like crap! So is this the type of problem that mastering corrects, .

No. It means your musical balances are off.

I'd remove all signal processing and get a balance that sounds good everywhere. Then season to taste with signal processing while listening to the entire mix so you can hear how one thing affects the others.

[KyleT]

Thanks guys! We managed to get it mixed pretty much as well as we're going to get it, thanks to some of this advice. I think we're considering studios, because we're just not getting great sounds. Thanks a lot for helping us out!

[binarymilton]

Originally Posted by Andy Krehm

For instance yesterday I mastered a solo Flamenco guitar album. The client asked me if he should add the reverb or it I should. I asked him what he had and it wasn't close to the TC 6000 algos we have here so I said to leave it dry.

Should have been fairly straightforware but when I listened to the tracks, they were very, very thin plus a bit noisy.

There was also cliick track bleed from headphones that were audible in a couple of the fades. The fix for this is to fade the file early and raise the level of the reverb so that it provides a decent tail for the end.

Flamenco guitar with a click track!! Noooooooooooo!!

[jackthebear]

Originally Posted by Ben F

Definitely no.

The mix should be 95% there already, the master is the final polish.

Were you trying to shine it??

[PBM]

Originally Posted by binarymilton

Flamenco guitar with a click track!! Noooooooooooo!!

Maybe castanets? ...

Or nailed shoes? ... ...

[Andy Krehm]

Originally Posted by binarymilton

Flamenco guitar with a click track!! Noooooooooooo!!

Ha, ha! It never occurred to me when I was working on this how unusual that is! And I played both classical and flamenco guitar for a long time (many moons ago).

The performance still sounded good and I was pleased with the results after getting rid of the click bleed.

[mastermix]

Originally Posted by SDB_12

Sorry for the crazy analogies, but this stuff is mentioned all the time, and is very boring to most people, especially beginning engineers. I know I wasn't interested in room treatment when I first started out. Now it's number 1 on my list along with monitoring.

So to sum up, no, mastering will not FIX your mix. It will sprinkle some sugar on your turd. Ever been in a bathroom right after someone has crapped and it's sickening? Well a mastering engineer can spray some air freshener to help...but you are still going to get a hint of crap underneath the air freshener...so now you have, fresh crap... Ok sorry I'll stop...you get the point.

Those analogies are hardly crazy IMO!