Monarch Audio Mastering review?

[ShrapnelDubstep]

Alright, so I'm gonna be right out and say I fucking suck at mastering my own tunes.

For $20 these guys seem pretty good, you can check their examples on their site.

Basically, I've made a tune that I really like and I don't want to mess it up by using my awful mastering skills on it, so I was wondering if anyone has had a tune mastered by these guys before and are they as good as they seem?

http://monarchmastering.com/

Thanks for reading/responding and have a great day!

[outbound]

There's no info on the studio / engineers or equipment there? or am I just rubbish at finding the info.

There's also no mention of a sample either, if you've never had your tracks mastered before I'd send them to a mastering studio that will be able to provide a free sample (usually just a short section of the track) so you can compare and see if they are the right one for you. Plenty out there that offer this service (other than myself) just be upfront about it, explain the situation and that you are searching for somewhere but you want to try them out first.

[LogiSpark]

I discovered them when they liked my preview of a song I'm doing

https://soundcloud.com/monarch-audio-mastering

[mthrfnk]

I discovered them when they liked my preview of a song I'm doing

https://soundcloud.com/monarch-audio-mastering

They have over 250k likes on SoundCloud, I hate people who do that... just liking everything to get attention.

[fragments]

I dunno. They seem like they have a bit of an assembly line mindset. Pay us first (don't like that), upload your tracks and we will send them back to you. Done. I want an ME who is going to work with me one on one (either in person, by phone or at the least email) to achieve the sound am I after. I really don't like the idea of just sending some faceless people my money then they make all the decisions and send the songs back.

Also, the fact that they have big links every that say "GET ON BEATPORT" turns me off. But that's a really subjective personal taste.

[3za]

I discovered them when they liked my preview of a song I'm doing

https://soundcloud.com/monarch-audio-mastering

They have over 250k likes on SoundCloud, I hate people who do that... just liking everything to get attention.

I first read that as 250, and I had to check how many tracks I liked on SC to see if you hated me, or not
When it was only 221 I was very happy
Then I clicked the link, and facepalmed at my poor reading ability, but more so at their desperate self whoring tactics.

They have popped up about a month ago here, and the general consensus was fuck them!!!

[Crimsonghost]

There's no info on the studio / engineers or equipment there? or am I just rubbish at finding the info.

There's also no mention of a sample either, if you've never had your tracks mastered before I'd send them to a mastering studio that will be able to provide a free sample (usually just a short section of the track) so you can compare and see if they are the right one for you. Plenty out there that offer this service (other than myself) just be upfront about it, explain the situation and that you are searching for somewhere but you want to try them out first.

I just had a look over at your website, and although im not in the market for a ME atm, you definitely have well laid out and inviting site. Everything is very clean and feels very personal. I also like your tutorial section. I think its little attention to details like that that will make a client chose your services over someone whos spamming "GIVE ME MONYEZ FO SOUNDCLOUD PLAYZ!!!"

Kinda off topic, but just figured id say i like what you're doing.

[wolf89]

There's no info on the studio / engineers or equipment there? or am I just rubbish at finding the info.

There's also no mention of a sample either, if you've never had your tracks mastered before I'd send them to a mastering studio that will be able to provide a free sample (usually just a short section of the track) so you can compare and see if they are the right one for you. Plenty out there that offer this service (other than myself) just be upfront about it, explain the situation and that you are searching for somewhere but you want to try them out first.

This post sums up what I thought. It doesn't look like a site made by great mastering engineers who know and enjoy good audio. It looks like guys who'll just run it through some mastering plug in to make $20

[fragments]

^Yea. That's pretty much what I was thinking too.

[outbound]

There's no info on the studio / engineers or equipment there? or am I just rubbish at finding the info.

There's also no mention of a sample either, if you've never had your tracks mastered before I'd send them to a mastering studio that will be able to provide a free sample (usually just a short section of the track) so you can compare and see if they are the right one for you. Plenty out there that offer this service (other than myself) just be upfront about it, explain the situation and that you are searching for somewhere but you want to try them out first.

I just had a look over at your website, and although im not in the market for a ME atm, you definitely have well laid out and inviting site. Everything is very clean and feels very personal. I also like your tutorial section. I think its little attention to details like that that will make a client chose your services over someone whos spamming "GIVE ME MONYEZ FO SOUNDCLOUD PLAYZ!!!"

Kinda off topic, but just figured id say i like what you're doing.

Thanks I spent a long time on it and although I'm no great web designer by a long stretch I appreciate that you're feeling it.

With things like the tutorial section I find it's good to be able to provide something other than send me your track I'll make you sound awesome. When I get track's through I always explain how I found the mix, what decisions I took and why etc and this feedback has always been very well received and possibly one of the contributing factors to why I get as much repeat business and word of mouth being created as I do.

I don't really like to say bad things about competitors as that can come off as a little bit petty, but Monarch seem to have put a lot of money into promotion and 'acquiring' fans/likes (read into that what you want ) And fair enough it may bring them a temporary rush of people buying into it and sending their track off for it to come back 'uber awesome!' but without a personal connection, any explanation as to what gear they are using or any real proof that they can get any better results than the producers themselves (again experience, monitoring etc) I don't see these guys lasting long.

Before I finish this post though, an excerpt from their FAQ:-

"3) Unlike most other studios who just apply the same mastering settings to every track that comes their way, we focus on each track individually making sure that we tailor our mastering process to each track specifically. We definitely have a distinct mastered quality in all of our masters though ensuring that multiple tracks will still have a similar quality but will still have a unique tailored master."

This screams complete ignorance to the mastering industry altogether. Basically saying most studios have a set process-chain/procedure which is simply untrue, there isn't one (decent) mastering engineer that I know of that would go about their work in such a useless way. Yes there are guys who will whack it through an ozone preset for a fiver but they are hardly 'most' & I wouldn't class them as a 'mastering studio'.

[Medway Studios]

Also don't like to put down competition but I had two clients this month come to me as they were unhappy there, one of the attempts was pretty dire I have to say, very over processed.

[safeandsound]

Cannot comment on this company... all I know is that there are plenty of "mastering" places out there that make you raise your eyebrows somewhat. You have to use a bit of common sense and make some basic investigations as to what a mastering engineer has been up to in their professional audio engineering career. There are many cues that express "quality" over and above competition.

Predominantly:

Engineer experience
Quality of monitoring
Room
Equipment
Clients list

SafeandSound Mastering
http://www.masteringmastering.co.uk/mas ... ineer.html

[3za]

Cannot comment on this company... all I know is that there are plenty of "mastering" places out there that make you raise your eyebrows somewhat. You have to use a bit of common sense and make some basic investigations as to what a mastering engineer has been up to in their professional audio engineering career. There are many cues that express "quality" over and above competition.

Predominantly:

Engineer experience
Quality of monitoring
Room
Equipment
Clients list

SafeandSound Mastering
http://www.masteringmastering.co.uk/mas ... ineer.html

Add spamming forums to that list brah

Edit: Why the fuck is this thread still going? and why the fuck am I back on this forum?

[safeandsound]

Anyone who is ready and serious will make the right decision after due research.

[mromgwtf]

After listening to their examples I can clearly state they are fucking horrible.
The lows and highs are really boosted sounds like they fucking threw a soundgoodizer on it

I could do a 10x times better master and how would I do it? Do LESS.
I wouldn't simply use dynamically controlled harmonic enhancer feeding a 32 bands de-expander with sophisticated limiter using a complex gain envelope generator, no, I would just use an EQ, a limiter, DONE.
In mastering LESS = MORE.

Mixdown is what matters.

[Cyndicate]

DO NOT! I repeat DO NOT use this so called "masternig" service. They do not do anything to your tracks. Anyone that says they made their track sound great does not know the first thing in music/mastering.
I sent them a track and when I recieved it back, all they did was push the volume up 6db and put a limiter on it. Yes, use your ears, but even your eyes will tell you they did it wrong. When looking at the waveform in Ableton and Logic, my track did not look like a sausage(Dada Life quote). No other professional mastering service will tell you your track MUST not go above 6db of headroom. Why would Monarch say this? Again, b/c they just push it up 6db and put a limiter on it so it doesn't clip.
I do my own mastering to play new tracks in the club and see how people react and my mastering was 10x better than theirs. So, long story short, do not waste $20 on them and go to someone professional like Inner Portal Studio. You will be much much happier!!!!!

[Cyndicate]

I discovered them when they liked my preview of a song I'm doing

https://soundcloud.com/monarch-audio-mastering

They have over 250k likes on SoundCloud, I hate people who do that... just liking everything to get attention.

......the 250k likes are just "bought" likes. No way could they get that many. Also, read the comments that ppl post on the tracks/examples and they are all the same people saying the same thing. It's ALL FAKE!!!! When I started writing comments about how they suck and are a fake company, they blocked me.

[CubeX Dubstep]

i just got my ep mastered by them and it sounds amazing

sounds like all the complainers are from other mastering studios or are people that had bad mixdwns to begin with

lol at the 12 year olds who think that they are going to sound just like skrillex for $30

as they say, you cant polish a turd lol

i give monarch a solid 8/10 (would give higher but they are kind of expensive)

[Dub_Fiend]

sounds like all the complainers are from other mastering studios or are people that had bad mixdwns to begin with

Or

Sounds like someone is trying to justify spending $30 on a cookie-cutter mastering studio and then finding out they're shit or you work for them lol

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

i just got my ep mastered by them and it sounds amazing

sounds like all the complainers are from other mastering studios or are people that had bad mixdwns to begin with

lol at the 12 year olds who think that they are going to sound just like skrillex for $30

as they say, you cant polish a turd lol

i give monarch a solid 8/10 (would give higher but they are kind of expensive)

lol at 30 dollars being expensive. U have never used a real mastering place before obviously.