main difference between mastered and non mastered

[analogica]

Thaths my question,

Which one is the main diff between something before mastering and

after, more punch on lows??? , everything is easily to understand ???

Please answer what you consider a great mastering, not the super

squashed, megalouder, radiobomb....

Maybe I can find some audio files with just EQ or mastered outhere

thanks guys

[ddp]

Originally Posted by analogica

Thaths my question,

Which one is the main diff between something before mastering and

after, more punch on lows??? , everything is easily to understand ???

Please answer what you consider a great mastering, not the super

squashed, megalouder, radiobomb....

Maybe I can find some audio files with just EQ or mastered outhere

thanks guys

The main difference between a mastered and non-mastered is that a non-mastered mix is not finished.

Mastering is the very important final process of completing a recording.

A mastered recording will makes sense sonicly with the rest of the tracks on a recording. Usually this includes compression, as well as some use of eq.
This is a gross oversimplification of the process.

If something is worth releasing it is worth having is mastered correctly by a pro.

[zboy2854]

I think of mastering as essentially the final stage of quality control. So once something has been mastered, it can be played back on a wide range of systems and sound consistent on most or all of them. For an album, it means all the levels of the various songs are proportional to each other and have a sonic consistency.

However, note that if the mixing is really well done, mastering may involve nothing more than the engineer saying, "yep, sounds right", and simply doing transfers or leveling. On a recent project I worked on, the label ended up liking the mixer's reference mixes with his own reference "mastering" limiter on it better than the final mastered job done by a well known mastering engineer, and the mixer said that has happened more often than one would guess over the past couple of years. In that case, all the mastering guy had to do was match levels and transfer.

[Companda]

I think of mastering as essentially the final stage of quality control. So once something has been mastered, it can be played back on a wide range of systems and sound consistent on most or all of them. For an album, it means all the levels of the various songs are proportional to each other and have a sonic consistency.

However, note that if the mixing is really well done, mastering may involve nothing more than the engineer saying, "yep, sounds right", and simply doing transfers or leveling. On a recent project I worked on, the label ended up liking the mixer's reference mixes with his own reference "mastering" limiter on it better than the final mastered job done by a well known mastering engineer, and the mixer said that has happened more often than one would guess over the past couple of years. In that case, all the mastering guy had to do was match levels and transfer.

Spot on really. +1.

[Niv]

basically mastering takes off the edges a good mixing job has left, its like the police coming and destroying a good chaotic party. dfegad

second to that mastering is a sacred word in nerd circles that can´t write any good song but having spend whole african countries year budget on their comp collection. they may not become artists but readers of bob katz silly mastering bible. i bought that shit of a piece and it did say me nothing new that i hadn´t found out myself n two years of a little bit mixing around. yeah i´m a geniues and you´re not, but so what?!


summary: mastering is a markering trick beneath all others. it flattens the world of musical differenciation while pretending it would support it. its done by boring people most of the time.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally Posted by Niv

basically mastering takes off the edges a good mixing job has left, its like the police coming and destroying a good chaotic party.

...blah blah snipped....

summary: mastering is a markering trick beneath all others. it flattens the world of musical differenciation while pretending it would support it. its done by boring people most of the time.

Damn - now where's that "clueless f@ckwit" icon when I need one.......

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by Blue Bear Sound

Damn - now where's that "clueless f@ckwit" icon when I need one.......

thumbsup

Mastering really is, conceptually speaking, the simplest part of the recording process. It's a shame it's come to be known as a sort of black art voodoo ritual.

I think part of the problem is folks who aren't mastering engineers - and have no business claiming to be - offering their services as such for very little money (which they can afford because their overhead is so low: using cheap plugins in the bedroom of their apartment), who end up overcomplicating the process to intimidate the client into believing that the shitty job they did was what mastering is really about.

It's utter bullshit, and it makes the amateur musician and home recordist expect, pay for, and end up with the lowest common denominator.

[Niv]

Originally Posted by zboy2854

whatever limited experience

let me bet simply my record collection would shit on such argumentation.


mastering is the most overrated process of musicial creation ever, and its given the name just to compensate that. and it needs the whole equipment to shine a bit on the whole product. and thats all about the black cult voodoo, spending days in listening through shitty music and looking for left "mistakes" to flatten. no one really cares besides the little voodoo club circle people of ugly engineers. and the industries, sure.
even ****in packaging is more challenging.

and talking about mastering is like turning mouses into elephants. it just needs a warm needle to break the whole business.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally Posted by Niv

let me bet simply my record collection would shit on such argumentation.


mastering is the most overrated process of musicial creation ever, and its given the name just to compensate that. and it needs the whole equipment to shine a bit on the whole product. and thats all about the black cult voodoo, spending days in listening through shitty music and looking for left "mistakes" to flatten. no one really cares besides the little voodoo club circle people of ugly engineers. and the industries, sure.
even ****in packaging is more challenging.

and talking about mastering is like turning mouses into elephants. it just needs a warm needle to break the whole business.

Keep posting, skippy... you've clearly now progressed beyond "clueless f@ckwit" and are heading for "master of all f@ckwits".........

idiot........

[nickynicknick]

Originally Posted by Niv

let me bet simply my record collection would shit on such argumentation.


mastering is the most overrated process of musicial creation ever, and its given the name just to compensate that. and it needs the whole equipment to shine a bit on the whole product. and thats all about the black cult voodoo, spending days in listening through shitty music and looking for left "mistakes" to flatten. no one really cares besides the little voodoo club circle people of ugly engineers. and the industries, sure.
even ****in packaging is more challenging.

and talking about mastering is like turning mouses into elephants. it just needs a warm needle to break the whole business.

What would happen if Niv was right? although i don't really understand is grammar too well, in my old crustiness, I think he may have a point. Really how bad would it be these days if nobody mastered. It really wouldn't matter...a lot of platforms that people listen from has it's own form of brickwalling or multibanding mix engineers are doing a lot of mastering work at the mix stage anyway...and radio (if that matters any more) your better off sending something unmastered...BTW have you really listened to satellite radio...sounds gawdawful... you know, I think I'm gonna start a thread.....gettin' my hard hat...uh....mouthguard....oh yeah safety boots,extra layer of skin.....OK! here I go.......

[Niv]

science? art? cute.


sure every record was mastered. but i love umastered demos the most. so what? hang me for that?

[smoke]

Originally Posted by Blue Bear Sound

Keep posting, skippy... you've clearly now progressed beyond "clueless f@ckwit" and are heading for "master of all f@ckwits".........

idiot........

You have a certain attitude in all of your posts, man. What gives?

Relax.

[Niv]

Originally Posted by mappee

Sometimes making 10 or so different performances balance on a CD is very tricky.

yeah could make the cd interesting and giving it depth. who should want that?


mastering engineers are gods contribution to help people over the fascination music can have by letting them cut and destroy it. they are like housewives running around and cleaning up everything.

[PDC]

Let's draw the line then. Define the desired differences.

I know that I could do what many big name mastering guys are doing to music. Even the big man in Maine is doing the loudness war thing, producing nice square wave files.

Why don't we have some big shot engineer produce a great mix, and then have people master it, post the link and we can all hear the differences.

[Niv]

Originally Posted by mappee

a good mastering engineer will make them sound like they are not from different planets.

you lemmings just dont ****in get it. what the hell is wrong about different planets? basically mastering turns 10 good songs into 1 usual.

[Niv]

Originally Posted by PDC

Why don't we have some big shot engineer produce a great mix, and then have people master it, post the link and we can all hear the differences.

what a hobby

get a life before yours is "mastered".

[Riccardo]

Originally Posted by PDC

Let's draw the line then. Define the desired differences.

I know that I could do what many big name mastering guys are doing to music. Even the big man in Maine is doing the loudness war thing, producing nice square wave files.

Why don't we have some big shot engineer produce a great mix, and then have people master it, post the link and we can all hear the differences.

Just quickly pointing out that being a service business "the man" there is giving the client (artist or record co.) what he or she asks for.

[PDC]

I agree. The MEs do what they are told. Anyone can distort a mix and make it loud. So, why have them?

[Riccardo]

Originally Posted by PDC

I agree. The MEs do what they are told. Anyone can distort a mix and make it loud. So, why have them?

Absolutely true!

[Riccardo]

Originally Posted by PDC

Anyone can distort a mix and make it loud.

Making it loud without distorting is difficult





Some artists/record co will actually pay to have it loud and distorted even against the mastering engineer advice.................

[Ed1234]

Originally Posted by Niv

you lemmings just dont ****in get it. what the hell is wrong about different planets? basically mastering turns 10 good songs into 1 usual.

No, I'm afraid you don't get it. Having a collection of tracks at wildly divergent volume levels doesn't add depth, or create a world, or add interest; writing, performance, production and mixing acheive that. Having an album of tracks without some dynamic standard pulls your attention away from the songs, and destroys the albums cohesion. Yes, in the case of radio that dynamic standard is going to be more rigid and often lead to overcompression, and yes, some mastering engineers screw up albums in a similar sense, but the basic principle is clear - mastering helps pull an album, a body of sonic work, together.

Perhaps your subjective taste dictates a different standard, which puts you in conflict with the production standards of most popular music, and that's fine. Go and create those kinds of listening experiences. But don't pretend that the principle of mastering engineers is to destroy diversity and depth.

[MarkRB]

I pretty much agree with 85% of what's been said on this thread.

If you are lucky you will get an experienced ME who can make your stuff as loud as everyone else's without ruining it. I've had tracks back where I have listened to the master and said to myself "WTH, it sounds exactly the same?" only to realise the ME has gotten the track to competitive levels and it doesn't sound like shit.

Loud is king these days, for better or worse.

On the other side of the coin there are 100 mastering engineers that will turn in something equally as loud by pretty much devastating the entire mix.
It is an art form (although possibly not as black as most MEs would have you believe), and a good ME is priceless.

It's another all too familiar case of "you get what you pay for". These days if I'm doing something where I don't know where it's going, I do my own master and say "please make it sound like this, but better".

[reddirt]

Guys , he has to be kicking back and laughing his nuts off at how he has managed to stir the pot.
It's so damned tempting to reply but when someone has a claimed POV such as that; it's obvious he's never worked with true MEs and if he continues to respond to reasoned arguments in the inflamatiory way he has then he is a f@ckwit / stirrer who shouldn't be replied to.
Let's not waste our time.
Cheers, Ross
P.S. A huge thanks to Steve Smart -301 mastering Sydney - for melding my last CD (a compilation of 10 different artists /10 different writers) into a cohesive, not overly squashed , radio (and any other medium) ready product.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally Posted by smoke

You have a certain attitude in all of your posts, man. What gives?
Relax.

I appreciate your concern for my well-being, I really do.... but I can assure you I'm quite relaxed.

But thanks... really...

[shortyprs]

It's been said a number of times in different ways, but its worth repeating: there is a big difference between mastering and good mastering.

In my area, there are tons of people who do mastering. By that, they mean, that they take their speakers, that aren't any better then my speakers in a room that isn't tuned as well as my room and squish shit until its a lot louder, add some air, some lows and mess with the mids to clean some clutter, then make everything relatively the same volume. Hell, I could do that and call myself a mastering engineer, but it wouldn't make me one.

A big case in point for me is that I'm tending to mix where I leave some tracks a little too hot for my taste. (Like a lead guitar or vocal track) Why? Because the average "mastering" guy will squish the hell out of it and the only way I can save some energy is to overdo it.

Another case is rock cymbals. I want to leave them out of the mix. I want to take them off the drums. Its bad enough that so many drummers only bang on 'em because they're there. The average mastering engineer smashes the transients so bad, they sound like shit in a phaser.

A real mastering engineer has a great space to listen in and a lot of specialized gear that I don't have and a fresh set of ears that hear things outside the box I stuck myself in when I was mixing (you know, the box that you crawl out of 3 months later when you listen back to your mix and wish you'd just.... a little (more, less, etc.)

The best projects I've done, I print the mix without any 2 buss processing and let the mastering engineer do their thing. Everything comes back louder, but with dynamics mostly in tact. Everything falls into place just a little better. I don't seem to have to work so hard to notice as many things (ala, a more average consumer) Oh yeah, and all the tracks have a proportionate level and flow.

A good mastering engineer is an indispensable tool. These days, the average mastering engineer is me if I gave myself 3 months to give a fresh listen and bought a couple more high end toys....except my stuff wouldn't be as loud and I'd like it better.

[earman]

Hmmm. I appreciate well-mixed and well-mastered albums, like most Steely Dan, Dark Side of the Moon, Sgt Pepper's, etc. Mastering is an art in itself. Some of it is crap and some of it fantastic.