29 Mar
2010
29 Mar
'10
4:33 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 10:56:46PM +0800, Ray Rashif wrote:
On 29/03/2010, drew Roberts <zotz(a)100jamz.com>
wrote:
Ding-ding-ding-ding!! That's what I suspected all along, and my reading so far
confirms it.
So far, it seems like what is today called "mastering", is what back in the day,
used to call MIXING. Keeping the levels consistent. Making sure all the frequency ranges
are well-represnented. Hauling out any annoying peaks or resonances. Resolving conflicts
between sounds in a frequency range. I believe this should all be done with faders and EQ
and compressors IN THE MIX.
And, yes, to do it properly, it helps to have years of experience and lots of expensive
equipment. But that used to be called MIXING, and it happened before printing to 2-track
30ips tape and handing that to the mastering engineer (who would hand the mastered tape to
a cutting engineer, who'd make an acetate test pressing and hand that back to you).
So far, from everything I've read recently (and remember from way back then),
mastering was just making sure the needle didn't jump out of the grooves when ths
vynil LP was pressed-- squeezing the dynamic and frequency ranges to deal with the
limitations of vynil.
I suspect that once the CD era came along, mastering engineers found themselves more or
less out of a job, until the home and project studio explosion, when people would walk in
with all kinds of crappy mixes done by amateurs on lousy equipment, and the mastering
engineers found a new source of income in trying to fix these lousy mixes at the mastering
stage. Which I could imagine would definitely not be easy, and would require a tremendous
amount of skill and expertise (and patience).
And then of course we got into the "loudness wars" era, where everything is
supposed to have all its sounds between -2 and 0 db. "Make it sound louder than
so-and-so's record".
But back to your point, I agree: if the mixes are well-done, mastering should just be
maybe applying a final blast of compression using the engineer's favorite
compressor-of-choice. Done, that'll be US$500 please.
It seems to me, again from the reading I've done, that if the mix sounds good on
shitty iPod earbuds and 1cm-diameter laptop speakers, then it's mission accomplished,
since thet's what everyone is going to listen to it on anyway. Unless of course
you're mixing for clubs, in which case mix it on a bangin loud club system with a
subwoofer to make sure it works there, or for film or theatre, in which case it's best
to mix it on those systems, etc etc..
So AFAICT our audience will be listening on iPods and laptops (I'll check with the
guys to to make sure). If so, I think I'll go that route: get the mixes as good as I
can get them, then run it through JAMIN set to grab just the highest peaks in each of the
frequency ranges, and call it done.
-ken
On Monday 29 March 2010 04:32:55 Ken Restivo
wrote:
I consider mastering a whole different game. It doesn't come with
knowledge, but with knowledge and more experience, and a facility
worth more than I can earn in a year. You've got to have at least 2
different rooms and a car stereo, not to mention a number of different
monitors and speakers ranging from $10 to $1000++.
So most of us actually do submasters, or leave it up to someone who
has been mastering for the last 20 years (more than $500).
And the best part is, for really good mixes, the only thing to master
would be the level, so the engineer just inserts one of those
plug-ins, pushes the fader up, and tells you it's done. First-hand
experience.
So, why not, I guess I'll do that. For much
less than the price of a
single
mastering session, I could probably buy some decent monitors, and learn
how
to use JAMIN (and whatever else) properly.
With your ears? Or am I mis-remembering a recent thread? ~;-)
>
> Thanks again all.