multiple mastering engineers?

[arf]

Originally Posted by delay

hello everyone,

just wanted to share my notice and wondering thereof, about the possible current or coming trend of albums having more than one mastering engineer, and therefore messing up the concept of mastering as it used to be where there was one guy in the end taking care of the album having a somewhat universal sound and tracks fitting one to another and all that.
few examples are the latest Jay-Z and Pharrel's (bad) solo album.
wondering what might be the reason for this, and hoping it wouldn't be a race for the loudest and the most distorting cuts. it unfortunately often sounds like so.

regards,
delay

I don't have the CDs you cite - are there different producers on the set? Producers tend to have their fav mastering guys. There still has to be the last engineer who assembles the "pre" masters into the final master. What's to be done if one or more of the pre-masters is wildly hotter than the others? Multiple MEs are fine but it just kicks the can down the road - at some point a unified playback is called for. Or not? Maybe CDs are becoming nothing more than carriers with graphics, and the concept of an "album" is less important.

[AMIEL]

I dont know whichalbums have multiple emastering engineers!!!!!!!!!
but is that is happenning is the most stuoid , idiotic thing on audio!!!!!

An album supposed to have a "sound"..mastering engineers try to match the sound of all the songs of the album...so with multiple engineers who match whom?
Very stupid!!
Yes I know is normal to send a couple of songs to different mastering engineers and then the producer decide which mastering engineer is better for the album.
Also is possible that the radio single was mastered my a different M engineer than in the album!!

Can u tell me which CD have that "multiple M engineers"? so i can send that Cd to the "guiness " for the most stupid thing of the year!!!

[AMIEL]

Yes! can be possible because of different producers on the album!! but if that happens ..and each producer got their on fav engineer..that mean thae they don't care about the artist as much they care about their own work and "reputation" ..I think that producers are somehow ******** and selfish...a good producer understand the concept of mastering!

Also...I don't think in the Rap-Hip Hop world are too many guys that believe in hi fi ...there is a lot of BS and show off ....so maybe for them s cool to have one mastering engineer for each song.....u know...more names!!!!!

[delay]

interestingly enough, the new Jay-Z album has only one mixing engineer (Dr. Dre) but 2 mastering engineers (as well as mastering studios, Bernie Grundman and Masterdisk).

anyway. actually i think in many genres, not only in hiphop/RnB, this doesn't change anything in the end as far as i'm concerned because the albums are mastered so evil hot no matter if it's 1 or 10 MEs doing it that it just kills to listen to them.
better the reproduction system you listen through less enjoyable it becomes; can't listen to those albums in the studio anymore. mp3/ipod generation?

[arf]

Originally Posted by delay

interestingly enough, the new Jay-Z album has only one mixing engineer (Dr. Dre) but 2 mastering engineers (as well as mastering studios, Bernie Grundman and Masterdisk).

Could be a shoot out was done and Dre picked his favorite mastering for each track.

[Darius van H]

I client of mine brought in a Jay-Z album a few weeks ago......dunno which one.....it was the worst thing i ever heard, regardless of genre.......i had to check my monitoring system several times to make sure something wasn't broken.

[Masterer]

Originally Posted by arf

Could be a shoot out was done and Dre picked his favorite mastering for each track.

Dre has used Brian Gardener almost exclusively for many years. Jay-Z has used Tony Dawsey @ Masterdisk for the most part. Dre is in L.A. Jay-Z is in N.Y. I don't think it's so surprising that these two guys had a part in this record, although it's less likely that there was a shootout and more likely that it was a matter of scheduling [probably started in L.A. and finished in N.Y.].

[Riccardo]

What are your feelings (schedules apart) about this?
I mean having several different mastering engineers on an album project with just one of them assembling the final project.

Do you ever feel this means the mastering role is sliding towards the production sphere because of these shootouts (i.e. chosing an apparent "sound" that comes with the mastering)?

Just thinking aloud but I'd like to hear what you all think about this...

[streaky]

Do you mean an album with 2 engineers from one studio, or different studios?

I've been on albums where they've mastered some tracks with me and some with another studio, whether due to location or time or whatever.

I've also done test mastering a lot where labels aren't sure where to go so they do a shoot-out like you said. This sucks really, it's too much pressure and as everybody knows you can't really base an album's worth of mastering on one track, it's how the whole project fits together and flows. But I'll do it if it gets me the work - sometimes the album goes elsewhere but that's the nature of the beast!

Or do you mean somewhere like Master Lab or Mastering Lab or whatever they're called where Doug Sax and the other guy co-master albums? I have an assistant engineer with me during most sessions, but not to the point where we co-master stuff.

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by AMIEL

I dont know whichalbums have multiple emastering engineers!!!!!!!!!

JLO's album "On the 6" has both Herb Powers and Bob Ludwig doing the mastering duties(not a bad combination if you ask me).

And for this record it worked great.

[illynoise]

I've recorded stuff on a cassette 8 track that compared with some of Jay Z's recordings.

I haven't heard his new stuff, but with Dre I would hope that it would sound better than the "Black" album did.

[Masterer]

Originally Posted by illynoise

I've recorded stuff on a cassette 8 track that compared with some of Jay Z's recordings.

I haven't heard his new stuff, but with Dre I would hope that it would sound better than the "Black" album did.

Don't get your hopes up too high.

Besides, Dre's records haven't souded good since his first solo LP many years ago.
Listen closely to Eminem's last couple of records. The music might be cool but the sound isn't.

[AMIEL]

I can not really say that Rap can set a standard on High quality sound!!
I will look in so many places to hear a real amazing sounding mix!

[illynoise]

Originally Posted by Masterer

Don't get your hopes up too high.

Besides, Dre's records haven't souded good since his first solo LP many years ago.
Listen closely to Eminem's last couple of records. The music might be cool but the sound isn't.

I personally listen to Whodini's "Friends" when I want to hear a good reference mix master. It's very old, but I think they recorded that over in London Jive/Zomba's studios if I remember right and I always thought it sounded great.

I think the Cronic 2001 sounded pretty good, no?

[DefJeff]

Usually I always respect and agree with Masterers opinion. But not on this one. Dre's Chronic 2001 is probally the best sonicly sounding hip hop record EVER!!! Many industry professionals feel the same way and use it as reference, myself included. Please do not take this post as disrespect. It is just something that I FIRMLY believe in and had to post my 2 cents.

As far as Em's records...horrible! And Em knows it. From what I heard, Em has been so disappointed with the last couple of records, that when he put out Encore in '04 he wanted the mix engineer to master it right at his studio, 54 Sound.

I thought most (Dre's productions) of the Wash Soundtrack was a great sounding record as well.

[Masterer]

Originally Posted by DefJeff

Usually I always respect and agree with Masterers opinion. But not on this one. Dre's Chronic 2001 is probally the best sonicly sounding hip hop record EVER!!! Many industry professionals feel the same way and use it as reference, myself included. Please do not take this post as disrespect. It is just something that I FIRMLY believe in and had to post my 2 cents.

As far as Em's records...horrible! And Em knows it. From what I heard, Em has been so disappointed with the last couple of records, that when he put out Encore in '04 he wanted the mix engineer to master it right at his studio, 54 Sound.

I thought most (Dre's productions) of the Wash Soundtrack was a great sounding record as well.

Feel free to disagree my man. Thank goodness for free speech!!
Many industry "professionals" use Jay-Z's records as a reference as well. Those things sound like crap [I dig the music though, it has nothing to do with that]. I haven't listened to Chronic 2001 in quite a while but I remember being disappointed. Dre has a hand [a big hand] in Eminems records and 50 cent's records and lot's of folks think they sound great [I hear it all the time]. They do not [in my opinion of course] sound great.

As for Eminem being disappointed with the sound of his records, [I'm assuming from your "...wanted the mix engineer to master it..." comment that he was most disapointed with the mastering aspect of the records] He has only himself to blame. He's a well established artist with tons of experience and clout and money. He's hands on and in control. All he has to do is say "hey, this sounds like shit. Fix it or we'll send it somewhere else" and that problem is solved. No excuses. It's his record. He approved it. That sound IS his sound.

I recently had a big west coast rapper fly himself and his engineer [and about 90 analog reels, bless their hearts] all the way across the country to have me master his record because he couldn't stand the way his record sounded after two tries with his "normal" mastering engineer.

I charged him my normal rate so he paid to have the record done twice [and the travel] which must have hurt a little even for him, but he was commited to being able to listen to his own record without cringeing.

Artists have control [especially established artists] and should be held responsible [or given credit for] the sound of their records. If Eminem didn't like the sound of his record he should not have approved the master and sent it off to the plant.

Sorry if this went a little off topic. It's a pet peeve of mine.


Oh, BTW. I love the sound of the first "Chronic" record. That's some quality shit yo.

[AMIEL]

I listento 50 pennies and i want to vomit!

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by delay

hello everyone,

just wanted to share my notice and wondering thereof, about the possible current or coming trend of albums having more than one mastering engineer, and therefore messing up the concept of mastering as it used to be where there was one guy in the end taking care of the album having a somewhat universal sound and tracks fitting one to another and all that.
few examples are the latest Jay-Z and Pharrel's (bad) solo album.
wondering what might be the reason for this, and hoping it wouldn't be a race for the loudest and the most distorting cuts. it unfortunately often sounds like so.

regards,
delay

It could be a race for the loudest cut, or simply ignorance on the part of the artist/producers. If you are looking for a holistic, unified album, the last thing you should do is use more than one "mastering engineer". And someone had to prepare the final master, so you wonder if he/she took the other mastering engineers' work and cloned it so as not to deteriorate the sound?

I recently had to take over a previous mastering engineer's job on an album as he had taken sick. The producer asked if it would be possible for me to "emulate" or "better" the other engineer's work on the remaining pieces but keep the previous songs which were already mastered. It was not the way that I would prefer to work, but I realized his desire to save money and not pay for work twice, even if I could have done a better job than the other engineer. Fortunately, I was able to do that, and I devised a way to listen to the other masters in total context with my new mastering, but without adding even dither to the already-mastered material. He was very happy and felt I was able to match the style and sonics but still be creative within the level restrictions of the previous mastering. It probably took me an extra hour just to set up my equipment for this way of working, but I figure he saved maybe 2 hours of mastering time net.

Since every engineer has his own gear and style of working, and it's going to have some sound signature, in general I would NOT recommend EVER having more than one "mastering engineer" on an album. And it invites trouble. What is the final mastering engineer going to do to resolve level issues without screwing up the data and sound integrity of one or more tracks? To that end, I've been archiving 24 bit 96 kHz PRELIMITER masters of my own work as well as raw transfers (unmastered) for the benefit of compilation engineers working on the material later on.

BK

[illynoise]

[QUOTE=Masterer;994258]Feel free to disagree my man. Thank goodness for free speech!!
Many industry "professionals" use Jay-Z's records as a reference as well. Those things sound like crap [I dig the music though, it has nothing to do with that]. I haven't listened to Chronic 2001 in quite a while but I remember being disappointed. Dre has a hand [a big hand] in Eminems records and 50 cent's records and lot's of folks think they sound great [I hear it all the time]. They do not [in my opinion of course] sound great.[QUOTE]

I went back and listened to that album again, last night. It does "sound" great. Although I'm not as into the music and I am into the sound of it. I think that Chronic 2001 is a much often copied album sonically. That's what we hear that's what we like syndrome.

I agree with you on the Jay Z stuff, but fans do not care about the quality of hip hop as it relates to sales, otherwise mixtapes wouldn't be so popular. I might have mentioned this before, but Nellyville sounded terrible to me, but it sold what 5-10 million copies?

[steffen]

OMFG, sorry for bumping this thread..... just got the kingdom come cd.
plz tell me that this is not the billboard No1, top artist, major release, mastered by
2 multi/platinum engineers album that my ears are still bleeding from.

steff

[donsolo]

lol @ u

what about that white stripes album?

[streaky]

Funny you should mention the latest White Stripes album...it caused us a lot of problems when cutting the lacquers for the 7"s. The A-Sides were mastered somewhere in the US...can't remember where...and they were loud and compressed to the point of just being dull!

The problem for us lay with having to EQ the B-sides at the label/artists' request, so they matched the A's both in level and EQ, rather than make it sound how we wanted it to sound, in the purist sense.

and Steffen, that Jay-Z waveform shocked me that's some serious squaring...tutt wonder how many copies the album sold despite that...

[steffen]

Originally Posted by streaky

Funny you should mention the latest White Stripes album...it caused us a lot of problems when cutting the lacquers for the 7"s. The A-Sides were mastered somewhere in the US...can't remember where...and they were loud and compressed to the point of just being dull!

The problem for us lay with having to EQ the B-sides at the label/artists' request, so they matched the A's both in level and EQ, rather than make it sound how we wanted it to sound, in the purist sense.

curious if they cut the lacquers from the same master copy. i´d also be interested to hear the full story behind this since it´s hard to believe that this loudness campaign was a ME´s decision only.

Originally Posted by streaky

and Steffen, that Jay-Z waveform shocked me that's some serious squaring...tutt wonder how many copies the album sold despite that...

yep...and it sounds like that :-(

Kingdom Come
Release: November 21, 2006
Label: Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam Recordings
Chart Positions: #1
Last RIAA Certification:6x Platinum
US Sales: 6,540,760
Worldwide Sales:12,480,300

so it´s enough to spread ear cancer all over the planet
steff

[streaky]

Yep we took the A sides each time from the album master that the other studio had provided, or from the actual commercial copy in a few cases, then just cut straight from disc or played the track real time into Sonic then cut from there. We cut 2 sets of lacquers, one for the UK label and one for the US label, both from the same source.

As for the loudness 'campaign'...I couldn't possibly comment, there have been (and will be) countless debates and posts on this forum alone about it - all coming roughly to the conclusion that not all labels or artists or producers want it loud as possible, just most of 'em!

Anyway where did you get that info about Kingdom Come? Is there a website with that stuff on?

[steffen]

Originally Posted by streaky

Anyway where did you get that info about Kingdom Come? Is there a website with that stuff on?

just did a quick google

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z

[CarstenDaembkes]

Originally Posted by streaky

Funny you should mention the latest White Stripes album...it caused us a lot of problems when cutting the lacquers for the 7"s. The A-Sides were mastered somewhere in the US...can't remember where...and they were loud and compressed to the point of just being dull!

The problem for us lay with having to EQ the B-sides at the label/artists' request, so they matched the A's both in level and EQ, rather than make it sound how we wanted it to sound..

Interesting you cut those 7"s.. As far as i know, Howie Weinberg mastered the CD Album and i guess you got those files.. Jack & Meg wanted to go back to the studio after their tour to once again record the whole album, one-take-style, to finally release a full length exclusive vinyl version, but a shame that didn´t happen up to now..

So you also cut "Blue Orchid"? Were those files clipped digitally?
(Haven´t analyzed the CD)
A thing that Jack "Analog" White wouldn´t really have liked to happen..

Still i think the 7" just blows away the CD, it rocks..
So i guess you did a good job though..

[CarstenDaembkes]

Back to the subject..

Who actually "forced" Big Bass Brian & Tony Dawsey to do this? Jigga himself??

Would it have been different if only Tony would have done the whole album master?
Did he actually have to "cope" with Brian´s tracks?

The "Black Album" was kinda squashed, "Blueprint 1" been nice, Beanie Sigel´s last album too, in my opinion..

Sorry, i know all this have been and is still discussed a lot, but hearing and seeing this "Loudness Kingdom" thing really shocked me..

"Anything": RMS @ -4 with nearly no dynamic range??? This definitely sucks..

[streaky]

Originally Posted by CarstenDaembkes

Interesting you cut those 7"s.. As far as i know, Howie Weinberg mastered the CD Album and i guess you got those files

So you also cut "Blue Orchid"? Were those files clipped digitally?
(Haven´t analyzed the CD)
A thing that Jack "Analog" White wouldn´t really have liked to happen..

Still i think the 7" just blows away the CD, it rocks..
So i guess you did a good job though..

Thanks mate

Yeah I didn't want to name drop Masterdisk at risk of sounding like I was slanging them...obviously not - can't possibly judge a cd on the mastering alone and everyone's got their sound - Howie Weinberg's not where he is because he's no good at mastering after all! He's a legend in his own right and I hugely envy his client list!

Like I said before the main job was to match the EQ roughly on the B side we mastered from scratch with the A side that was already done elsewhere, loudness being one of the issues. And obviously Jack was happy with everything already so we just went with the flow! Can't have a B side that sounds weak can we! And he came back for all the Raconteurs vinyl so he must have liked what we did thumbsup
As for clipping on Blue Orchid & My Doorbell ...well on the VUs the needles were basically steady at plus 2...but to be perfectly honest they sounded pretty good in their funny kind of lo-fi, recorded it in a week kind of way!

But even for me as an ME and the general purchasing public it's not down to how the waveform looks but how good the band are, and so many artists whose albums have been squashed have sold billions of copies - Jay Z, Green Day, FOo Fighters, Chili Peppers and so on and so on - it's all about the tune not the RMS...

[CarstenDaembkes]

Originally Posted by streaky

Thanks mate

Yeah I didn't want to name drop Masterdisk at risk of sounding like I was slanging them...obviously not - can't possibly judge a cd on the mastering alone and everyone's got their sound - Howie Weinberg's not where he is because he's no good at mastering after all! He's a legend in his own right and I hugely envy his client list!

...


But even for me as an ME and the general purchasing public it's not down to how the waveform looks but how good the band are, and so many artists whose albums have been squashed have sold billions of copies - Jay Z, Green Day, FOo Fighters, Chili Peppers and so on and so on - it's all about the tune not the RMS...

I think there shouldn´t be any worries of sounding like slanging Masterdisk or Howie Weinberg, because they/he did an awesome amount of excellent masterings, many of them belong to my favourite records.. Too many to name them..

Recent ones i really liked was the 2nd Gorillaz Album and The White Stripes CD was decent too..

And we all know that squashed albums sell very well too and that it´s all about the tune, and i don´t give a single **ck if it´s clipped or not unless it sounds dope, BUT.. checking a new Jigga album and instantly HEARING bad distortion and then SEEING this mess is a different thing..

3 db less would have made this album a lot better, sonically..