Offering my services out there for my fellow board members (Mastering and consulting)

[JasonBay]

Found this quote sometime ago and always go back to it,

Easy!.. Here is an analogy....
You know when you wash your car, and chamois the water droplets off... it looks nice...., But then, you crack open a 3rd beer and decide to wax the fucker...... and then, put a final polish over the whole body..... Now it stands up against all the show cars.........

The waxing and polishing part is mastering.

But I agree, you should always try and do the best job you can in the mixdown, because it will make the mastered product sound that much better.

Mastering should always take it up a "grade" level if you will. If you give me a "C" sounding track then by the time I'm finished it should be a "B" sounding track, so on. Mastering can't really "fix" any issues (I can try, but most likely I would suggest the artist going back to mixdown and trying to fix any issues I might here).

[Remco]

Well, what do you think they're doing to the tracks on the album? They're mastering them!

Obvious, but that said, if you have one track only, it dont needs to be masterd.
If you got a album youre tracks has to be mastered , so you don have different soundlevels when another track plays from the cd etc.

Price for mixing a track is not for nothing way more expensiver then mastering a track , its more work involved, its the funumental basic of a track without proper mix, mastering them is hell, but thats basicly wht you said

[JasonBay]

Obvious, but that said, if you have one track only, it dont needs to be masterd.

You can still get amazing results from sending it to a mastering engineer though. There's more to mastering than just making sure the levels are the same. There's a reason a people go to them and pay for them.

Or to even use your logic, if everyone is mastering their singles for DJs to play, your unmastered track won't sound as good as the other ones he's playing so it won't have as much impact.

[Remco]

I think if the mixing is done proper that wont be a issue to be honoust, but thats just my opinion

[JasonBay]

But there's still stuff that mastering can do that you can't achieve in the mixdown phase

[djbigchamp]

Mastering makes a big difference...esp if your spinning the tracks. Quick story: My buddy and a friend that he was helping record all took us out for his birthday, bought bottles, vip tables, all that shit, and "as a bday present" he asked the DJ to play a new track they just finished. the place was packed, the track came on, and it sounded good, but nowhere near as loud, or polished as the other tracks the DJ was playing. some of this was because of the mix, but mastering is what allows your music to sound loud and full, and competitive with other music. suffice to say it was a bummer of a night, but lesson learned: master your shit.

[seitz]

Same here. But I've read that a couple of artists don't really bother with the mastering. For example, I read a Tommy Trash interview and they asked him what he does to master his music and he said he just puts T-Racks3 on mastering preset 1. Can someone explain this further? The whole mastering concept?

alot of people do this...laidback luke...porter robinson....even i do this....however i think your mistaking when they do it....everyone who does this does it to be able to play something live before finishing the final version at a normal volume....sure its good but its not AS good as a mastering job which they all do when they want a single/or album released for buying

[Remco]

why would i even bother.... How many real hits have you guys made? And i dont mean simple beatporthits....

[seitz]

How many of you are a real pro? And with pro i mean, have scored a worldwide number 1 hit , not a beatport hit, or, how many know personaly a real pro? Let me geuss , none of you

by that logic most edm "stars" would be taken out of consideration


also, i do personally know many "pro's" even by that standard.....GG

[Remco]

LOL smh yeah, youre in the game for 2 years already huh big dog fo sho