A little perspective and common sense.

[IIIrd]

Originally Posted by huejahfink

@ IIIrd, Haha, sure!
or alternatively one that encompasses the ability to distinguish one technically correct and practical choice over another technically correct and practical choice based on a genuine emotional interaction.

I can understand why some would not want an engineer to get emotionally involved with their music "I don't give a sh*t what you feel, just make sure I get a nice hot record delivered by Friday", but others might prefer not to pass their music on to someone who would approach it purely from a cold technical standpoint - but an engineer that will 'embrace the vibe / message' and be open to emotional discussion might be exactly what they are looking for "I have an idea that might bring out the feeling of the piece more, do we have time to give that a try?" "Sure, go for it. (..............) Fantasic, I love the way you dipped the verses in level and tone ever so slightly, it seems to enhance the contrast between the downtrodden restraint of the verse and the violent expressions of rage in the chorus even more!"

Different strokes, eh? As long as communication is appropriate and clear between the client and the engineer (ie the engineer doesn't FORCE their emotional opinion), I don't see the problem with either approach.

Be careful you must...go down that road too far you might, objectivity lose you will,

[huejahfink]

...quite

[Odeon-Mastering]

Originally Posted by huejahfink

I can understand why some would not want an engineer to get emotionally involved with their music "I don't give a sh*t what you feel, just make sure I get a nice hot record delivered by Friday", but others might prefer not to pass their music on to someone who would approach it purely from a cold technical standpoint - but an engineer that will 'embrace the vibe / message' and be open to emotional discussion might be exactly what they are looking for "I have an idea that might bring out the feeling of the piece more, do we have time to give that a try?" "Sure, go for it. (..............) Fantasic, I love the way you dipped the verses in level and tone ever so slightly, it seems to enhance the contrast between the downtrodden restraint of the verse and the violent expressions of rage in the chorus even more!"

Different strokes, eh?

A cold technical standpoint and an engineer being emotionally detached does not necessarily mean that he/she will not embrace the vibe / message' and be open to emotional discussion and deliver results that will be pleasing (emotionally) to the artists themselves.
We are here to realise THEIR artistic vision.

[LunchboxHo]

Originally Posted by Odeon-Mastering

We are here to realise THEIR artistic vision.

But sometimes they are here because they want OUR vision....

[Odeon-Mastering]

Originally Posted by LunchboxHo

But sometimes they are here because they want OUR vision....

Actually that's what most artists/musicians ask for (mixing engineers are a different case)

Fair Enough ...
...but I am not an artist because I can listen to an unmastered track and have a vision about how it could sound after I have taken all the correct decisions in the mastering process.

[Electrode]

Originally Posted by LunchboxHo

But sometimes they are here because they want OUR vision....

I was planning on writing a longer post, because I think the OP was directly largely at me and something else I said in another thread... maybe later in the week.

I think "vision" is a term too loosely thrown around. A mastering engineer can't have a vision... without their music, we have nothing. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nadda.

Because you know how you like things to sound, because you have more than one tool to choose from, and because there is no manual per say... doesn't imply that this is a creative discipline. Not in the slightest. Basically every occupation that constitutes a single part in a larger overall process bares these traits. From structual engineers to sheet metal workers. Hand 100 of them the same design and they will all find different ways to go about it, using different tools and differing degrees of judgement. Perception differs between every person on this planet... But perception doesn't pertain to creativity or artistic. Merely the best way to go about the job...


The most basic definition of creativity is an act which leads to something new. Since we are going to let common sense and perspective prevail in this thread, what if I were to show 100 people on the streets a mastered, then unmastered version of Nevermind by Nirvana... would they say they differ enough as "art" to constitute the term "new"? I highly doubt it.

To argue that mastering is an intrinsic part of the creative process is flawed. If not for the simple reason that even if poor mastering does ruin the sonics of the song, any creative genius that was bred into it prior to mastering will still exist.

Lets be honest... all this talk of emotions, etc is absurd. If it were mentioned in regards to compression, EQ and mastering processes in any other forum on gearslutz we'd be laughed off the block.

[silverking]

Last I checked, the only "Artist" involved had his name in big letters on the front of the album, rather than small letters on the back of the album.

Last I checked, Mastering wasn't a "craft", "art", or "cult"...............it was a business.

Lots of folks help artists realize their vision, but that doesn't make those doing the helping "artists" too..........highly skilled technicians fo'sho', but "artists"??........nah.

Seems the more folks that quit suddenly fretting over what "Mastering" is being defined as on Gearslutz that go back to work in their studios actually take care of the business of Mastering music........the better.

To those who worry about posters on Gearslutz claiming that Mastering is pointless, essentially "dead", and that they do whatever Mastering is required themselves..........recognize that you're never going to hear from these folks other than on Gearslutz, and that nothing they say or do will impact the business of professional Mastering.

[huejahfink]

I'm not advocating that anyone should drag each of their clients aside, light an incense stick and discuss their inner child while they massage each other.

You don't ever feel anything when you work? I don't see why there should be a rule one shouldn't mention feelings when talking about music.

There are times when I think it is an appropriate area for discussion, even in the mastering context.
For me, if one were to never consider feelings in the context of emotional expression - that is far more absurd than the mention of the word "emotion" in a mastering context, or that the idea that to provide a technical service could never be viewed as artistic. Of course 'the artists' and the 'engineer' are different, but that does not mean that there is not the potential for an emotional or artistic perspective to come into play and it be appreciated by the client.

...oh but wait, I'm a big man doing lots of big-man-important-technical stuff. Of course I'm never allowed to feel anything or communicate with someone on that basis. I almost forgot....

[IIIrd]

Originally Posted by silverking

Last I checked, the only "Artist" involved had his name in big letters on the front of the album, rather than small letters on the back of the album.

Last I checked, Mastering wasn't a "craft", "art", or "cult"...............it was a business.

Lots of folks help artists realize their vision, but that doesn't make those doing the helping "artists" too..........highly skilled technicians fo'sho', but "artists"??........nah.

Seems the more folks that quit suddenly fretting over what "Mastering" is being defined as on Gearslutz that go back to work in their studios actually take care of the business of Mastering music........the better.

To those who worry about posters on Gearslutz claiming that Mastering is pointless, essentially "dead", and that they do whatever Mastering is required themselves..........recognize that you're never going to hear from these folks other than on Gearslutz, and that nothing they say or do will impact the business of professional Mastering.

Much ado

[jayfrigo]

Mastering is the last creative step of making a record, and the first technical step in replication. It is a bridge between the creative and the technical.

Professional mastering is far from dead. For the expanded number of DIY projects in home studios and the like, understandably there will also be DIY mastering, but this in no way diminishes the value of dedicated mastering facilities or the pool of talent looking to utilize these services.

[Jerry Tubb]

Originally Posted by jayfrigo

Professional mastering is far from dead.

According to my last ECG ...still had a pulse and brain waves!

JT

[LunchboxHo]

Originally Posted by Electrode

a
The most basic definition of creativity is an act which leads to something new. Since we are going to let common sense and perspective prevail in this thread, what if I were to show 100 people on the streets a mastered, then unmastered version of Nevermind by Nirvana... would they say they differ enough as "art" to constitute the term "new"? I highly doubt it.

To argue that mastering is an intrinsic part of the creative process is flawed. If not for the simple reason that even if poor mastering does ruin the sonics of the song, any creative genius that was bred into it prior to mastering will still exist.

off the block.

May sound weird, but....
i would submit that this is a highly situated notion of what constitutes "music.". With records: it's data, sequenced to vibrate speaker and headphone diaphragms so they *sound like*, say, people singing and doing things with instruments. Performance, in this world, is a sophisticated form of programming. Everything that occurs is part of creating a *technical representation* of sound, a kind of audio iconography. Nothing is conveyed, only represented. Engineers play a pretty important role in completing the representation.

[Riccardo]

Originally Posted by jayfrigo

Professional mastering is far from dead.

Originally Posted by Jerry Tubb

According to my last ECG ...still had a pulse and brain waves!

JT

With all those visions most of the people round here are regularly having I am getting worried about what their daily "vitamin" intake actually consists of

[lucey]

A great mix can get greater. There is nothing small in the world of quality.

Emotions are the currency of music, everyone plays a role as they engineer. But getting "emotionally involved" is not the skill of the ME, it's making something that moves the most number of others. What I feel is not important, it's what YOU feel. That's a tricky thing ... subjective? Perhaps ... but there are objective things too. This is not debatable, always in the moment, a compromise between artists vision, the physics of translation, and musicality.

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

fwiw, the idea that you somehow get "better" [pre]masters by sending mixes to an "outside person" rather than doing them yourself is ridiculous on its face, unless perhaps you are not good at mastering or something.

They why don't the worlds best mixers also master? As a rule they don't. Why is that? Is it possible that specialization and teamwork creates greater wholes than control and singularity?

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

And the idea that you can only be good at mastering if that's all you do in life is also laughable.

Who is saying that? Most of the great engineers that I respect are also damn good musicians. Some great MEs were mixers once, some none of the above ... there's no hard rule here. No need to be defensive because you think you're great at two things, but most people are lucky to be great at one thing.

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

The fact that "most of the recorded history of music" was mastered by outside masterig houses is irrelevant to the current scene. The entire game has changed, including the tasks and equipment involved. You are not going to walk it back.

Welcome to the new world.

A youthful argument. Physics is physics. And skill is skill. And each person has limitations and talents. There is nothing new now except more shitty rooms and more good plugs and more people doing it all themselves instead of doing something great with the help of others who are great.

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

For that matter, 99.9% of the business that most "mastering engineers" on this board have these days would never have been considered for mastering at all in the era "before the flood", and, frankly, most of that stuff doesn't need to be mastered now.

Really? So a DIY mixer/musician is good enough to trust his work to himself, for first impressions and all time to come? That's not reality for most.

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

I mean, we literally have a bunch of total amateurs and novices sucked into having their "releases" "mastered" only to exacerbate the loudness war.

Who is doing this sucking? What powers this person possesses!

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

We also seem to be looking at a lot of "mastering engineers" who are wannabee mix engineers or frustrated musicians or something, looking to play a huge role in "shaping the songwriting".

That would be wrong, and overstating the argument.

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

But there are plenty of competent people whose business is entirely, or almost entirely about mastering, and plenty of them are good at it. So using an "outside" mastering house works really good for a lot of people, I think.

Yes

Originally Posted by editronmegatron

I think there is creativity in the entire production process. However, by the time the mix is ready for mastering it should be done. Trust me, if you have a really good mix, you don't want to send it to some guy who is going to get "super overly creative" with mastering it. [Not saying that cool stuff doesn't happen from time to time with experimentation, and I'm not trying to stifle anyone, but, generally, stick to the task at hand].
YMMV.

The "mix" is done, but if it was perfect it would be cut flat by a wise ME. 10 perfect mixes? Never. Even 1 is rare.

In my experience, there are many excellent, good and a few amazing mixers and I upgrade their work in the mind of the client, not because it's louder but because they are thinking details and I'm thinking overview. It's a different mind.

My sense is your experience is lacking in something that others have experienced ... not sure what that is exactly.

[huejahfink]

Originally Posted by lucey

Emotions are the currency of music, everyone plays a role as they engineer. But getting "emotionally involved" is not the skill of the ME, it's making something that moves the most number of others. What I feel is not important, it's what YOU feel. That's a tricky thing ... subjective? Perhaps ... but there are objective things too.

This is certainly fair comment, and when put like this I can see why there was potential for some others to treat my use of the word 'emotion' with disdain.

My point was not really about forcing ones emotional response onto others, and more about being open in some way to the emotional content of the record when it is relevant to decision making. Using a particular process on a track might make it a little sweeter NOT JUST because of a certain harmonic character it provides, but also because that harmonic character feels right for that song. And in that moment of consideration, is the spark that differentiates something that is purely technical, to something that can be considered artistic. It's a choice of perspective.

(IMO, YMMV etc etc)

[Peakly]

Originally Posted by lucey

...DIY is a lazy band aid...

Not always. The opposite is often true.

Mychal

[mastermat]

Originally Posted by Ben F

Interesting observation Brian.

There is the world that is Gearslutz, and there is the real world of mastering.

Not too long ago mastering was almost a 'secret society' that harnessed the illusion that mastering was a 'black art'. Now most information is available freely on forums such as this. However, it's a long slow stair walk to gain proper experience, yet many people think that they can get a lift to the top instead. Listening is an art in itself, as you gain experience your idea of what is good processing and what is bad processing refines. Unfortunately this does takes years of listening, yet many people disregard this and will constantly argue about what they hear being the same as professional mastering without having the humility to accept that an experienced engineer may have the ears to judge.

Sometimes it's better to sit back and learn rather than shoving your opinion down others throats. You never stop learning with audio.

words of wisdom!

[fuse]

You guys are forgetting one major point of the DIY guys. Most of them are indeed guys in their twenties. And we all know in that age you tend to be very certain of yourself and still have the illusion you can conquer the world.

So in that regard its understandable that those young people think that mastering is easy and they can do it themselves. But all of them have a hard time getting even near the results a seasoned ME can get (because of lacking of proper knowledge and tooling). If you help them by letting them make a comparison of what they can do and you can do its relatively easy to persuade them. The odd DIY guy who gets it right and if he can repeat it for other tracks simply has a talent for it.

[Peakly]

Originally Posted by fuse

You guys are forgetting one major point of the DIY guys. Most of them are indeed guys in their twenties.

What?

I'm assuming the initials stand for Do It Yourself. Are we supposed to believe that doing something, and carrying it through various phases of development, is a recent invention of 20 year olds? Or that there are more DIYers at that age than at other ages?

I know lots of guys who like to do things themselves in more than one area, and they are every age. One guy I can think of off the top of my head barely graduated from high school, but through engineering apprenticeships and various jobs got to the point where he designed a plastic spray bottle on his own time at his shop at home. He sold the rights to it for 2m. He's around 75, and still gets calls to do independent things for companies. He is without a doubt a do it yourselfer.

I know musicians that are DIYers, and most of them are very creative and have great ears.

Mychal

[Electrode]

Originally Posted by fuse

You guys are forgetting one major point of the DIY guys. Most of them are indeed guys in their twenties. And we all know in that age you tend to be very certain of yourself and still have the illusion you can conquer the world.

So in that regard its understandable that those young people think that mastering is easy and they can do it themselves. But all of them have a hard time getting even near the results a seasoned ME can get (because of lacking of proper knowledge and tooling). If you help them by letting them make a comparison of what they can do and you can do its relatively easy to persuade them. The odd DIY guy who gets it right and if he can repeat it for other tracks simply has a talent for it.

Or are you forgetting one major point for the professionals? That they are old, outdated and have a lot more to lose? ...hence the snide comments towards the DIY crowd.

I am all for professional mastering... but silly stereotypes lead no where.

[Electrode]

Originally Posted by LunchboxHo

May sound weird, but....
i would submit that this is a highly situated notion of what constitutes "music.". With records: it's data, sequenced to vibrate speaker and headphone diaphragms so they *sound like*, say, people singing and doing things with instruments. Performance, in this world, is a sophisticated form of programming. Everything that occurs is part of creating a *technical representation* of sound, a kind of audio iconography. Nothing is conveyed, only represented. Engineers play a pretty important role in completing the representation.

It is a little bit far fetched... if we are going to be using common sense and perspective. Music has existed for millennia without any technical representation... remove music from history, and what happens to the technical representation of it?

Its confusing the medium for the message. Like a canvas manufacturer trying to stake a claim in the creative & artistic development of a piece of art "because without our canvas, you'd have nothing!".

when really, without their artwork for our canvas... we'd have nothing.

[LunchboxHo]

Originally Posted by Electrode

Its confusing the medium for the message. .

The medium *is* the message. I would submit that you are confusing signifier (data sequenced to vibrate speaker or headphone diaphragms to *sound like* music) for the signified (music); or, data sequenced to vibrate diaphragms so it *sounds like*, say, Roger Waters singing confused for Roger Waters singing. Records don't reproduce sound, they *represent* hearing. Psychoacoustic data is fixed and repeatable on record, but contingent and variable in concert. Recordists take the photographs listeners view. Sure what musicians do matter, but only insofar as it provides raw materials for the recordist's art. I submit it's a false humility at the core of this argument (i am so AWESOME at being humble.....).

[Electrode]

Originally Posted by LunchboxHo

The medium *is* the message. I would submit that you are confusing signifier (data sequenced to vibrate speaker or headphone diaphragms to *sound like* music) for the signified (music); or, data sequenced to vibrate diaphragms so it *sounds like*, say, Roger Waters singing confused for Roger Waters singing. Records don't reproduce sound, they *represent* hearing. Psychoacoustic data is fixed and repeatable on record, but contingent and variable in concert. Recordists take the photographs listeners view. Sure what musicians do matter, but only insofar as it provides raw materials for the recordist's art. I submit it's a false humility at the core of this argument (i am so AWESOME at being humble.....).

Interesting to ponder none the less.

It isn't simply "data sequenced to vibrate a speaker" though. The art of recording is an intricate process of transduction. Converting energy from one form to another. Sound vibrations to continuous voltage, voltage to a form of encoded voltage, encoded voltage to physically pitted microscopically thin aluminium layer (cd)... that at a later point in time is read by a laser and converted back into an encoded voltage signal to be converted back into sound vibrations... The initial stage of music recording still starts with one compulsory stage of transduction that is completely out of the hands of any recording engineer. The conversion of potential energy into physical motion by the musicians that initiates the very existence of sound.

When I hand someone a cd and say "have some music"... it isn't technically correct. The CD contains data for music, but isn't actually music... not until the point of transduction that turns it back into sound waves does it exist as music again. Sound is the medium. Sound (the medium of music) only exists in one single form by definition. There is no other technical representation of sound that humans can consume in the same fashion. Binary data is meaningless to humans in this sense. Voltage is meaningless to humans in this sense. They aren't the art. The sound is, and always will be. DAW waveforms are an attempt to convert the binary information of audio into something visually consumable by humans. The whole GUI of a computer does that... Computers don't need a display to function in the slightest.

...does that mean DAW makers have a creative stake in your music?



...where does it leave mastering engineers?

[heybub419]

[fuse]

Originally Posted by Electrode

Or are you forgetting one major point for the professionals? That they are old, outdated and have a lot more to lose? ...hence the snide comments towards the DIY crowd.

There is some merit in it and since its their jobs on the line its quite understandable.

At the other side I like very much the young(er) generation actively involved in music making (instead of just consuming it). They aren't burdened with all this knowledge and make their own choices so they go for their path of least resistance. Then again 'shortcuts lead seldom to the road of success'. They just ask us for directions to make it easier on themselves or get lost in the maze of ignorance.

I am all for professional mastering... but silly stereotypes lead no where.

I just recognized a pattern based on my clientele. The majority of the young people even have trouble with the basics of compression because they never took the time to learn that properly. I teach it to them and they recognized the value of that knowledge.

[Peakly]

Originally Posted by fuse

At the other side I like very much the young(er) generation actively involved in music making (instead of just consuming it).

Young people are making music, just like they always have been.

It seems to me every age is consuming it. The people I know in their 70s and 80s listen to music a lot, and they've got iPods and all the rest of that crap to make it play.

Mychal

[LunchboxHo]

Originally Posted by Electrode

Interesting to ponder none the less.

It isn't simply "data sequenced to vibrate a speaker" though. The art of recording is an intricate process of transduction. Converting energy from one form to another. Sound vibrations to continuous voltage, voltage to a form of encoded voltage, encoded voltage to physically pitted microscopically thin aluminium layer (cd)... that at a later point in time is read by a laser and converted back into an encoded voltage signal to be converted back into sound vibrations... The initial stage of music recording still starts with one compulsory stage of transduction that is completely out of the hands of any recording engineer. The conversion of potential energy into physical motion by the musicians that initiates the very existence of sound.

When I hand someone a cd and say "have some music"... it isn't technically correct. The CD contains data for music, but isn't actually music... not until the point of transduction that turns it back into sound waves does it exist as music again. Sound is the medium. Sound (the medium of music) only exists in one single form by definition. There is no other technical representation of sound that humans can consume in the same fashion. Binary data is meaningless to humans in this sense. Voltage is meaningless to humans in this sense. They aren't the art. The sound is, and always will be. DAW waveforms are an attempt to convert the binary information of audio into something visually consumable by humans. The whole GUI of a computer does that... Computers don't need a display to function in the slightest.

...does that mean DAW makers have a creative stake in your music?



...where does it leave mastering engineers?

ha! This is the 2nd half of my argument: transduction works to create ac which is used to make the data, or its synthesized etc. Recordists program machine language; receivers transduce that language into something humans can fathom, let alone interpret as "music". BUT the "sound" produced by the latter always bears a fixed and repeatable psychpacoustic profile (keeping in mind that the decision NOT to add, say, eq is an eq move all the same). Sound -- the kind we traditionally assoc with music -- cannot have this profile. Moreover, if the transducer fails (say, a speaker shorts) the machine language recordists programmed remains precisely what it is, namely, unfathomable machine language, regardless of how it's made). It's not sound (vibrating air molecules) but data that can be used to represent sound. It's not Roger Waters, for instance, but vibrating diaphragms (the technique of transduction) moved this-way-and-that to produce acoustic phenomena that *sounds like* Roger Waters singing. One is sound, the other uses sound to represent sound, that is, it is a complex audio iconography. My point is not that anyone deserves credit but simply that mastering should be understood as a *constitutive* act in Recording Practice, a part-and-parcel of the process of communicating music through machine language and transduced copies of prototypes (copies without originals) -- again, keeping in mind that the decision not to master in the conventional sense is a mastering decision all the same.

It all boils down to the fact that every sound listeners can transduce is psychoacoustically situated. You can move closer or further away from your speakers, or walk right between them, but you'll never be any closer to the drummer than recordists allow through mixing. Every record is white noise modified to include enougj psychoacoustic data on playback that listeners are physiologically compelled to hear something else

You are the first to seriously engage this argument. Thank you! I'm enjoying this tremendously!

[lucey]

Along the lines just above ... music is vibration. Qualities organized in sound. Like visual art is essentially vibration. Everything is really vibration. Energy transfer is what we do. Each word, each contact in the world, we alter energy. Even seemingly solid matter is in a state of vibration and motion, see: modern quantum physics.

The subtle (and gross) input of everyone in the process of record making effects how the whole hits and effects emotionally the listener. Emotional connection is most of it, physical and intellectual connection is part of that ... connection is the basis of all art. Vibration is the language of this energy transfer, this connection.

Any mastering engineer who thinks they are optional, best do something else, because if you're good your clients know that quality professional mastering is not optional, and perhaps even that you are not optional.

Any release is competing against the Recorded History of Music. It's a universal language, and the history has defined known parameters and subconscious markers to each listener ... best to step up as high as you can to make the first impression, and leave a timeless taste.

[mastermat]

Originally Posted by Ben F

..... You never stop learning with audio.

words of wisdom!

I know I quoted this before but it can´t be said often enough!

[Jim Williams]

DIY mastering has arisen from two reasons.

First, now there are pro level mastering software programs that are affordable to anyone. I used to pay top $ to those famous guys because they had the software I couldn't afford. I have done vinyl mastering so I am trained in that, the know how was there but the gear was not so I had to 'rent" the mastering facility to produce CD's.

Second: results. I was constantly disappointed in the results from the top end mastering rooms. My air on top would go away, reverb tales would disappear, low end would change and loose depth, etc. I figured I could figure out why and correct those problems. It did take a couple of years of research, but I did figure out how and where those losses were occuring and I put a stop to it.

I used to use Future Disc, CMA, Quad Tech, Mastering Room, Grundman, etc. but no more. I get results that please me far more at home. I like the price I charge better too.