mastering help

[lee]

im nearing completion of an album that has been "in the work" almost indefinitely (two years). ive been occupied with other peoples projects but now i have free lots of time to finish mixing my own project. almost all the mixes are on tape and now im wondering if i can do them justice in mastering. i cant even come close to affording the high stakes of professional mastering, and honestly, i dont trust anyone to finish these off but myself.
i know that mastering is the process of achieving a nice amount of space between tracks; EQing to achieve a balanced spectrum; and boosting volumes to a "professional level". i think that i can do a sophomoric job of all these but a little advice from you guys would, im sure, make a much better sounding master.
what im working with: i have the mixes on tape, im running them back into my vs880 where i have a four-band parametric EQ, bass-roll off, expander, three-band compressor, and a limiter.
i hope that my lack of, and out-dated, gear doesnt deter anyone away from helping me.

also, if anyone is interested in seeing what they are helping me with, i have a link underneath that has a few tracks.

thank millions!

[@?,*???&?]

im nearing completion of an album that has been "in the work" almost indefinitely (two years). ive been occupied with other peoples projects but now i have free lots of time to finish mixing my own project. almost all the mixes are on tape and now im wondering if i can do them justice in mastering. i cant even come close to affording the high stakes of professional mastering, and honestly, i dont trust anyone to finish these off but myself.
i know that mastering is the process of achieving a nice amount of space between tracks; EQing to achieve a balanced spectrum; and boosting volumes to a "professional level". i think that i can do a sophomoric job of all these but a little advice from you guys would, im sure, make a much better sounding master.
what im working with: i have the mixes on tape, im running them back into my vs880 where i have a four-band parametric EQ, bass-roll off, expander, three-band compressor, and a limiter.
i hope that my lack of, and out-dated, gear doesnt deter anyone away from helping me.

also, if anyone is interested in seeing what they are helping me with, i have a link underneath that has a few tracks.

thank millions!

Nope. I'd still rather send it to a professional to be mastered. The final PMCD will be made with less errors than I can do on my own system. My question to you is what do you plan on doing with the final master anyhow? Are you going to press and sell 1000 copies or is this a vanity project for the random website posting?

[Mark Alan Miller]

Whatever you do, if you do it yourself, on the same monitors, in the same room, you're not going to have the objectivty or subjectivity to do yourself justice.
That is, to 'master' on the same system in the same space that you recorded and mixed will only compound any anomolies that aready exist.
So, if you must DIY the mastering, at least do it in a different room, and better still, on different monitors (that you are intimiately familiar with if possible...)

I agree with Jeff on this, if you're going to release it in any moderately large scale way, you should really make sure you're doing all you can to make it the best possible 'product'. If you're only going to hand it our here and there, in very limited numbers, then maybe simply a general EQ look-see and level matching between songs is needed..?

Anyhow, with what you have at hand, if you need to DIY it, it seems portable enough that you could at least move to a nice big room somewhere, listen to a bunch of records that you know and love to 'tune your ears' and have at it. The worst case is you'll not make yourself happy, and you spent nothing. Then, if that's the case, save up some bucks and hire someone else.

Just some thoughts.

[justhitthebutton]

i have a hard time understanding why you can't trust anyone else with it. people who have years of experience mastering a myriad of types/genres of music, with gear to make you salivate. professional mastering engineers are the lifesaver to a great recording. something that a few plug ins can never come close to imitating. if you are true and honest about your project and only want the best, then i would seriously consider sitting on it for a few months and saving every last penny to pay a professional to master it. the recording sounds good. plenty of clarity and space to all the instruments and a good balance over all. if youre just gonna hand them out here and there, then yes, diy it all you can. just heed everyone elses advice. dont do it in the same room you have recorded/mixed in. you're used to the "sound" of your room and how it sculpts your mix. mastering it in the same room will only bring those inconsistencies out even more. but again, if youre sincere about your project and its longevity, then have a pro do it. youll be happier in the end.

[jmoose]

I guess what I don't get at all is that you say you "can't trust anyone else to master the stuff" but yet...you say that you'll do a "sophomoric job" on your art with some 'My First Fisher Price' kinda tools?

Ok.

What's your plan for the CD? Are you looking to hand a couple three copies out here & there or are you planning on having it sent off to a duplicator & get 500-1000+ CD's back all shinkwrapped & ready to go...so you can promote yourself, your music, your recordings & maybe make a living off it?

If it's the latter, then you should DEFINATLY look for a mastering engineer who can not only do your material justice with good tools, but knows how to prepare & check the PMCD that goes to the plant...in a scenario like that, can you REALLY afford to take a chance on the duplicator running 1000 "bad" CD's??? They usually don't check that stuff when you send the disc in and if the error rate is too high or something is wonky, you might end up with 1000 shrinkwrapped coasters & NO recourse.

Besides, there are plenty of cats out there who can & will master a full length CD for under $1000...sometimes about $500 or so. It's not like the only "good" ME's are charging $4000 and everyone else sucks ballz.

If you really feel like you HAVE to do it yourself, then listen to the mixes on a couple three different stereos and make some notes about what your hearing on each one...are the mixes too dull, too midrangy...not enough low end or too much?! From there you can get an idea of what you should do with EQ's.

Beyond that...do no harm.

Be gentle with compressors & limiting. It's better to have the record be a little softer & sound good then have it sound like poo & be loud.

[dynomike]

Don't master it yourself.

Same room + same speakers + same dood = all the problems of the mix, x2

Here's an idea which has worked for me:
Get someone else to master. Attend the session. Don't be a dick, but if the engineer is moving on to another track and you think it sounds totally whack, make a suggestion.

Mike

[Mark Alan Miller]

Okay, after those last few posts, I'll chime back in:

Unless you're not really releasing it, yeah, get it mastered. It doesn't have to cost thousands, but I'll say that it should cost hundreds. People who are good at what they do should, and usually do, charge accordingly...

I can say from experience with clients that didn't think they needed "real mastering" that most regretted it later... like later, after 1000 CDs were pressed.


Some more thoughts...

[drumsound]

The different space/different room advice is key here. I run a small mastering service for client's budgets that can't be stretched. I master in a room in m y house on different monitors than I have at my commercial studio.

Another piece of advice that I will give if you are to master your own record is to give yourself some time away from the mixes. On a long-term self-produced project I suggest 2-3 weeks. Don't listen to it anywhere during this period. Hopefully it will help you to have fresh ears when you master.

Good Luck!

[Mark Alan Miller]

The different space/different room advice is key here. I run a small mastering service for client's budgets that can't be stretched. I master in a room in my house on different monitors than I have at my commercial studio.

Eerie, man. That's exactly, yes, exactly what I offer and do!

[drumsound]

The different space/different room advice is key here. I run a small mastering service for client's budgets that can't be stretched. I master in a room in my house on different monitors than I have at my commercial studio.

Eerie, man. That's exactly, yes, exactly what I offer and do!

Funny thing is...I started my "Project Mastering Room" as a service and extra income source when I was working for someone else. Hence it being in a different space with different monitors.

[lee]

thanks for the lesson.

unfortunately, i really cant afford to go to a pro. im a 24 year old college student. i make enough to eat and avoid being homeless. and, yes, i was planning to run, at least, one or two hundred CD's. unless i can get a thousand dollar grant for "artistic endeavors", i have to do it myself.

i will honor all of your advice (different room: different monitors), but the "CD error" thing is kind of scarey. what would an engineer ask for to simply check for CD errors?

[dynomike]

i will honor all of your advice (different room: different monitors), but the "CD error" thing is kind of scarey. what would an engineer ask for to simply check for CD errors?

Jeff Robinson, and soundguy, are both "scarey" about cd errors.. most people aren't so much. If you have a plextor drive with plextools or whatever you can check for errors on the disc before you send it out for duplication. The plextor drives and mitsumi silver discs usually work pretty well. For more on this, I'm pretty sure "massive mastering" has a few pages on his site... a search should pull it up.

[jmoose]

Are you planning on running the 200 discs yourself or having a duplication place do 'em?

If you're gonna burn 'em yourself then don't sweat anything. Just burn 'em at a moderate speed. If your burner goes to say, 52x then do the discs at like 16 or 18x, use high quality blanks and you'll probably be ok.

FWIW, in addition to "real" error checking by machine...I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS listen to the whole CD before it goes out to the duplicator.

I've seen instances, rare...but it happens...where the disc 'error checks' ok on a computer but the burn speed/sample rate was wonky or there's some kinda skip in the disc that wasn't picked up.

The duplicators won't listen to it...you'll end up with 1000+ CD's that are all fucked up & zero recourse...you'll HAVE to pay for the disc to be run again.

Crack a beer, fire up the Playstation & spend an hour listening to the final thing front to back and save yourself the potential headache & waste of thousands of dollars.

[drumsound]

Great Advice Moose!

[majortom]

LEE!

Hey for what it's worth , I think all the advice you've been given is cool BUT, no one mentioned if they listened to your stuff...it's F"##'in great!, I love it.

This might just bring up the conversation of Are there times to leave it alone, does it NEED to be mastered??

I would hate to see you spend some hard earned $$ just to be dissapointed, so I'm gonna chime in with leave it alone...maybe just a bit of limiting and get your volumes equal, but man of all the links to myspace stuff here that I've checked out this is fresh open and very nice. I'll buy the first disk! Just let me know.