Mastering Help

[peterp]

all right so ive been reading this forum for awhile, you know doing a lot of searches and just reading up and learning a lot from everybody on here. i dont know if i havent read enough (which i know the reading will never stop) or it just hasnt been asked of before, however, heres my story. im on a budget, which most people are when there first starting, cant quite afford to go to school yet even tho i want to, but what im looking for is what are some of the mastering programs out there, good books to read, dvd's, pretty much anything that i can learn from for right now to get a good idea of what exactly to look for or listen for when mastering. ive got a pretty good handle of our recording software, protools, im not going to say im an expert of it but i think for the most part i can get by for now. so im just trying to take that last jump and try to battle with the mastering aspect of it. i know the best thing to do is send it to a pro for that, but right now the pockets arent deep enough for that. so anything you can do to help will be greatly apreciated. every bit of info goes along way for me. thanks again

 

[lo-phi]

if you can't afford to have a pro master it, you can't afford to do it yourself. mastering is done in properly treated rooms with ridiculously expensive gear. even if you've got a nice interface and nearfields, chances are that your room is gonna muck up your sound anyways (also, nearfields aren't the proper speakers for mastering...). plus the software is expensive enough that you'd need to do quite a few for-pay projects to pay it off.

that said, "mastering audio: the art and the science" by bob katz is considered by many people to be *the* book on the topic. for a quick walk through of a mastering session, plus a look at some hardware / software, check out http://masterbymail.thebrainmachine.com/theprocess/theprocess.html , though i'm sure there are people here who can give you a much better description of the process - that's just a link i found a while ago.

 

[peterp]

yeah i totally spaced out that part about having a seperate room for mastering which i have read about,but like i said i read sooooo much, there is so much information sometimes i have brain shortages haha. so after reading "getting the most out of your mix" from the massive mastering website it looks like thats the route im gonna have to take for now until i can learn it for myself in about 10 years. so whats the going rate for mastering?

 

[MASSIVE Mastering]

...it looks like thats the route im gonna have to take for now until i can learn it for myself in about 10 years.

That's not the point - one of the most important aspects of the entire process is having an *unbiased* ear. I have plenty of experience mastering - But I never master my own mixes. To do so is little more than second-guessing my own mixing. If I would do something different during the mastering stage, why didn't I just do it during mixdown? Why would I suddenly hear it differently?

And if it means anything, don't pay too much attention to that "process" page... Goodness... I can't even imagine... I... Uh...

Originally posted by peterp so whats the going rate for mastering?

Depends on where you go / who you use. Keep in mind that (A) to a point, you get what you pay for and (B) Of the "too good to be true" low price places, most of the ones I've seen are (allegedly) scammers (for lack of a better term) who are trying to sell the *idea* of mastering to those who might not quite grasp it. So be carefull... I'm *still* looking for a decent "budget" place to send people to (my last good budget guy was basically put out of business by software pirating).

 

[peterp]

hey man thanks for the tip. i dont remember who said it on here, i read it a couple days ago, but knowledge is power and i just wanna thank everybody for the knowledge their willing to share with all us newbies, theres not too many people who would do that.