When do you have to start mastering your music ?

mumble · Post by **mumble** » Tue May 12, 2009 4:54 pm

When your regularly playing out ?

FSTZ1 · Post by **FSTZ1** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:07 pm

well,

I realize that eventhough I can produce good mixdowns that are playable at the club, etc...

there is no substitute for professional mastering

paradigm_x · Post by **paradigm_x** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:12 pm

Its a very interesting experience - well worth the £25 or whatever macc charges just to see what a pro does with it - how far off you are if you like.

also, if you are setting up a dig label i would say essential.

otherwise, itll be when you get signed, but label will (should!) sort that out.

If you have a few tunes youre super happy with and want to pimp them around some labels, it cant hurt to get em mastered first.

megaladon · Post by **megaladon** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:27 pm

Paradigm X wrote:Its a very interesting experience - well worth the £25 or whatever macc charges just to see what a pro does with it - how far off you are if you like.

also, if you are setting up a dig label i would say essential.

otherwise, itll be when you get signed, but label will (should!) sort that out.

If you have a few tunes youre super happy with and want to pimp them around some labels, it cant hurt to get em mastered first.

I keep wondering about that, if you'd see less of an effect on a rubbish mix because it's got peaks and jumpy shit all over the place- making it hard to work with?- or with a well mixed track because there's not much work left to do? Which might get a bigger boost volume wise? (yes I know volume is not everything, but it's nice) Sending the very first track I did, and a more recent one (not that I'm exactly a pro mixer now) to compare might be worth it.

notch · Post by **notch** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:29 pm

I would never recommend mastering your own tracks.. Just good mix downs:)

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:31 pm

i tend to spin out my best mixdowns as i'm a poor bastard
mastering should be done when you plan to release it in any format

kapital · Post by **kapital** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:37 pm

When spinning your own tunes at clubs or on radio shows or whatever....do you strictly deal with wavs?

pengwavs · Post by **pengwavs** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:38 pm

... when you want people to take you seriously, like pa and labels n shit

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:48 pm

Kapital wrote:When spinning your own tunes at clubs or on radio shows or whatever....do you strictly deal with wavs?

generally yes

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:49 pm

pengwavs wrote:... when you want people to take you seriously, like pa and labels n shit

labels generally pay to have your stuff mastered

FSTZ1 · Post by **FSTZ1** » Tue May 12, 2009 6:27 pm

Paradigm X wrote:Its a very interesting experience - well worth the £25 or whatever macc charges just to see what a pro does with it - how far off you are if you like.

yeah

I realise I am pretty far from having a professionally mastered sounding mixdown

and while I'd like to eventually learn and buy the gear to get to the point where I can master my own tunes...

I'd rather just pay Macc who has the expensive equipment and the knowledge

no brainer IMHO

pets bud · Post by **pets bud** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:03 pm

So when you send your music out to be mastered, do you keep the effects in there or do you strip your tune and let the engineer add their own shit?

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:13 pm

petS buD wrote:So when you send your music out to be mastered, do you keep the effects in there or do you strip your tune and let the engineer add their own shit?

you send it without anything on the master channel (limiters compressors etc) and with headroom left for the ME to work with

ascii · Post by **ascii** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:18 pm

petS buD wrote:So when you send your music out to be mastered, do you keep the effects in there or do you strip your tune and let the engineer add their own shit?

You keep all the channel FX, side chain compression, reverb etc.
But you keep the master clean of any FX, and make sure you leave at least 6Db headroom.

24bit 44,100Hz wav/aiff with at least 6Db headroom simply.

Mastering is the art of taking a mixdown and making it sound slamming, someone who will modify individual layers in a track/recording is an engineer. (correct me if i'm wrong?)

edit: beaten to it!

pets bud · Post by **pets bud** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:25 pm

So they don't touch your original work? All they do is add limiters, compressors, and eq?

ascii · Post by **ascii** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:28 pm

petS buD wrote:So they don't touch your original work? All they do is add limiters, compressors, and eq?

Yup, but they have some very nice outboard gear to do that which will beat any software you or I have hands down. Leave it to the pros, is blatantly the best port of call.

pets bud · Post by **pets bud** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:31 pm

ASCII wrote:
petS buD wrote:So they don't touch your original work? All they do is add limiters, compressors, and eq?
Yup, but they have some very nice outboard gear to do that which will beat any software you or I have hands down. Leave it to the pros, is blatantly the best port of call.

So is that what Pro Tools is for or can you make beats with it too? Don't have much xp with what pro tools does.

ascii · Post by **ascii** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:38 pm

petS buD wrote:
ASCII wrote:
petS buD wrote:So they don't touch your original work? All they do is add limiters, compressors, and eq?
Yup, but they have some very nice outboard gear to do that which will beat any software you or I have hands down. Leave it to the pros, is blatantly the best port of call.
So is that what Pro Tools is for or can you make beats with it too? Don't have much xp with what pro tools does.

You can make beats with Pro Tools, but it is more aimed towards post production (mastering, film scores and editing etc). I have to say i'm not to fond of Pro Tools in terms of making music with it, but for recording audio it's brilliant.

Basically it does 99% of what everything any other DAW has, MIDI, built in synths, beatmapping... But it can be quite fiddly to start off with and digidesign hardware I find is kind of sketchy.

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Tue May 12, 2009 10:38 pm

petS buD wrote:
ASCII wrote:
petS buD wrote:So they don't touch your original work? All they do is add limiters, compressors, and eq?
Yup, but they have some very nice outboard gear to do that which will beat any software you or I have hands down. Leave it to the pros, is blatantly the best port of call.
So is that what Pro Tools is for or can you make beats with it too? Don't have much xp with what pro tools does.

pro tools is just what's generally used in most professional recording studios
it's just a different daw

kapital · Post by **kapital** » Tue May 12, 2009 11:03 pm

Deadly Habit wrote:
petS buD wrote:
ASCII wrote:
petS buD wrote:So they don't touch your original work? All they do is add limiters, compressors, and eq?
Yup, but they have some very nice outboard gear to do that which will beat any software you or I have hands down. Leave it to the pros, is blatantly the best port of call.
So is that what Pro Tools is for or can you make beats with it too? Don't have much xp with what pro tools does.
pro tools is just what's generally used in most professional recording studios
it's just a different daw

And it rivals Nuendo, no? One (if not only difference) is that Nuendo is used for vids as well, no?

And I'd like to hear how/why it became/is the industry standard, as opposed to Logic for example.

When do you have to start mastering your music ?

When do you have to start mastering your music ?

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