How much space do you leave for the Mastering Engineer to do his/her thing?

[bgrotto]

I'm curious to get some other mixers' (and some mastering engineers') feedback regarding their approach to mixing. Do you guys keep in mind the fact that an ME will probably wanna add some top, compress some more, etc etc?

How much room do you leave for the ME's adjustments? I'm asking because I sometimes worry I mix too bright and don't leave my mixes flexible enough for the ME to work, but on the other, I think it sounds good! I've never had any complaints, but it's something I've been thinking about lately.

[rcm]

I make sure to leave him plenty of headroom in my mixes to work with. I only do 2bus compression for the character of the compressor (usually drawing about 1dB of compression and I never EQ the mix bus unless its a really special character EQ. I try my best to get the EQ right in my mix with individual track EQ so my mastering engineer has to do as little EQ as possible (more corrective stuff).

I always check to see how my mix will sound after it has been limited, which usually makes things feel a lot brighter.

[FireMoon]

A question... why do people feel the need to get things *mastered*, ie have someone else poke your work with a stick, and not necessairly a benign one these days?

OK, there was a time when a Mastering Engineer was a vital part of the chain inbetween a studio and putting a lump of vinyl out.It was a very skilled profession. However these days with CD... Just exactly what are you expecting?

If it's just another pair of ears fair enough, i can see that. However, i often come across people who think somehow an outside source is gonig to be able to spread some sort of magic dust over their work, where starting again, would probably be way more appropriate..

From what i can tell, these days, Mastering actually means..Can you make it AS LOUD AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE... this has lead to the incredible collapsing soundstage syndrome. That is, you put an album on, the moment you try giving it any volume, as apposed to making it simply loud, the whole thing falls apart in slew of squashed transients and the soundstage sounds like its been applied by an over the hill stripper applyiing slap..

[rcm]

Originally Posted by FireMoon

A question... why do people feel the need to get things *mastered*, ie have someone else poke your work with a stick, and not necessairly a benign one these days?

1)Extra set of ears.
2)specialized gear dedicated to two bus processing.
3)A different room than mine, with more accurate monitoring.

I have tons of recording experience, own great compression, and EQ and I certainly know the mechanics of mastering but every time I have had a track where I have done my own mastering and one of my mastering guys did a version, my mastering guys version has always been better.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by FireMoon

A question... why do people feel the need to get things *mastered*, ie have someone else poke your work with a stick, and not necessairly a benign one these days?

Just listen to a well engineered, well mixed premaster, and the same track after a good mastering engineer has poked it with his stick. That's why.

They've got gear and ears to make things sound better. It's like calling in a finishing carpenter after the house is built.

[johnbohn]

I know from my experiences that I tend to not mix "for the record". I mix on a song per song basis even if it's a record. I don't really mean to do this, it just kind of happens. This is not to say that I try to completely mix the songs totally different. I just take them as their own thing. If the band has a common theme with there song, there is a common theme to the mixing. If not... Mastering tends to even this out for me a little bit.

Also, I would say that some of the mastering guys here in Nashville do add a certain magical sound to certain records.

Plus, I really don't like do the self-master very much. I'll do it if necessary but if there's someone who can take a project of mine and do it for me, and generally make it sound better than my master would have, I'll take it. It lets me get onto the next project quicker too.

But to answer the original question. I base my EQ and compression choices on the project. In most cases, I think most mastering engineers are pretty open about what they need to make their jobs easier. Not in a demeaning way at all, but if you ask them, "Is there anything I can do with this to make your job easier," they are pretty forthcoming.

[FireMoon]

Sadly, over here in blighty, with a few very notable exceptions, the art of actually Mastering seems to have been substituted for "Make it as loud as possible". I've heard several CDs before and after Mastering this last year where they were, frankly, ruined by some cack handed person simply pushing everything to the limit and then a bit more, for good measure..

Interesting point about mixing songs individually. I must admit, i always take songs as batches and, from the very start, try to obtain a cohesive feel across them.

[Sigma]

none..mastering is over rated now ever since they did away with vinyl...any good mix engineer can master his own stuff today

[Sqye]

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about 4"

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[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by Sigma

none..mastering is over rated now ever since they did away with vinyl...any good mix engineer can master his own stuff today

...But a good mastering engineer will do a much better job of it.

It's all about the extra set of ears and the new monitoring environment for me. To be honest, I'd rather have a guy with great ears who I trust mastering with plugins than bringing a money rack of outboard processors into the same studio I mixed in and having me operate it. Invariably there will be some things I disagree with in the final master (after all, if I wanted it to sound different, I would have mixed it differently!) But I realize that my ears are not everybody's ears, and the way I like to hear things is not how everybody else necessarily likes to hear them.

Regardless, when the project has a decent budget, I think mastering is one of the best ways to spend it. That and a healthy stock of good single malt whiskey for the bar.

P.S. And to answer the original posters question, I usually leave as much room as possible. Maybe leave the McDSP AC1 on the master fader and that's about it.