putting your money in mixing or mastering?

[jivewhiteboy]

so, i've recently decided that i'm going to record my second album myself. up till now i've done my demos myself and mix them myself. i've come to realize from having my last album mastered that the amount you pay for the mastering the amount of time and effort put into the process (duh, obvious).

but, the question i have...is it better for the final product to put more money into having a professional mix or master the final recorded product. what process can make the final product better.

thanks in advance,

brian

myspace.com/jivewhiteboy

[xhavepatiencex]

I would say a mix, though that will be more of an investment. There are good reasonably priced mastering options. Check out carl saff, he rules.

[Waltz Mastering]

Mixing and mastering are equally important to have executed to the best of there ability. Mixing is more time consuming and will cost more than mastering.
A good solution might be to mix and then make stems (4 stereo pairs - drum, bass, vocal gtr) and have the mastering engineer take it from there.

You can't really have a great sounding master with out a good mix and it helps to have professional mastering to have a great product.

A client sent 2 track mixes of an ep to master this week and also sent stems for each song. Usually I like to just deal with the 2 mix but in this case was able to get better tonal balance and punch working with the stems which worked out better for the project.

So maybe see what kind of mixes you can pull off yourself and if all else fails make a call or if you question some balance issue's, make stems.

[jivewhiteboy]

i'm going to ask some questions...i don't know a lot so don't chastise me if they're stupid.

so, say my ability to record bass isn't the most adequate. for example, up til now when recording a demo i do the bass direct into the mbox.

the bass sounds ok, but if i wanted it to have a fatter tone would the guy mixing or mastering be able to put it through a preamp or something to have that desired effect. if so, is that a good way to do it.

[@?,*???&?]

Absolutely, 100% mixing. Mastering a great mix is almost unnecessary. The closer the mix is to done, the less mastering there is to do. Other than the obligatory level bump, mastering doesn't touch any number of things you'd do in the mix stage.

[chris harris]

If you're referring to your music as "product" then you need to spend at least $30,000. I'd give at least $10,000 a piece to the recording, mixing and mastering engineers.

[Dakota]

i'm going to ask some questions...i don't know a lot so don't chastise me if they're stupid.

so, say my ability to record bass isn't the most adequate. for example, up til now when recording a demo i do the bass direct into the mbox.

the bass sounds ok, but if i wanted it to have a fatter tone would the guy mixing or mastering be able to put it through a preamp or something to have that desired effect. if so, is that a good way to do it.

That one falls pretty squarely under what a mixer would do.

And yes, a mixer using skills and gear to sculpt and biggify homebrew tracking, that's valid and happens a lot nowadays.

[drumsound]

I agree with the above that a good mix engineer will be a huge benefit. And also the Carl Saff rocks and is VERY affordable. I'd try to have it mixed and mastered by someone with more experience than yourself.

[jesse_baccus]

what are your and your audiences' expectations for the record?
is it something you are trying to shop to a label?
will you have distribution?
how much of the investment are you trying to get back?
consider what you are trying to do with the release, and to what level of standards it needs to be held at. what you're doing with it will reflect how much of an investment you're willing to make.

if you're shopping to labels, pay for a mix engineer, who will be able to understand and apply the sonic ideas and movements you're getting at in your music.

if you're doing a self release, predominately want to use it for promotion, and feel comfortable creating a good representation of yourself, then do your best, and pay for mastering to give it that standardized sound.

stems are excellent for flexibility in mastering, but you need to tell your mastering engineer its coming, and remember he is not remixing it for you, and if you want something done in the mix, make sure its done before it gets to that stage (last minute creative epiphanies excluded). i've had stem sessions gone wild, and ended up with individual control of most of the mix sessions, to the point where its not mastering anymore.

a great place to start when getting a record started is budgeting. your budget along with expectations will dictate the actions you should take,... personally if i were on the other side of the glass i would probably pay for mastering over mixing, if not just for the final QC of the product you're about to press, another point of view is important.

[jivewhiteboy]

thanks for all of the advice. this was really helpful.

as far as what i want out of this record. two thing...the challenge of recording my own record and bringing my skills to a new level and to make a good record. the songs are already good (pat on the back) and people seem to like my demos i make, so i'm not too worried about that. of course i would love to be on a good indie label, but that's not my main objective out of all this. i could make myself miserable thinking about that, but instead i'm at the point where i just want to enjoy myself.

the biggest challenge is going to be recording drums which is something i've never done. i'm sure i'll post some more questions in the future. so, thanks again.

[farview]

Mixing is where you need to spend the time.

If you are looking for great affordable mastering, www.massivemastering.com

[Brian]

I've mixed stuff and had the clientS come back to me and say, "the mastering engineer said there wasn't much left to do to your mixes" ( as opposed to "I couldn't do shit with this crap!") and they were VERY happy.
Bluesman's record was one, and a little known bad called Delta Hurricanes' first CD was another. I have safety masters somewhere.
The tunes on my webpage aren't really representative of any of my mixing work, just roughs of sonic capabilities of my rig. Some stuff is really old and some of it is very recent.

[carlsaff]

Most of the best sounding records I've worked on involved almost *zero* work from me. I've had the pleasure of working on mixes by some really amazing folks, and on such records, I mostly stand out of the way and let the mixes breathe as much as possible. There's much greater chance for things to get screwed up by me acting TOO much than for things to sound great through cautious, minimal interaction with the mixes -- sometimes as little as simple leveling and assembly.

Mixing should be 90% or more of what makes a record sound great. When mastering is more than 10% of the end result, the mixes were probably not where they needed to be when they left the studio. That, or the client wanted the record to be something it was simply never meant to be.

[chris harris]

Most of the best sounding records I've worked on involved almost *zero* work from me. I've had the pleasure of working on mixes by some really amazing folks, and on such records, I mostly stand out of the way and let the mixes breathe as much as possible. There's much greater chance for things to get screwed up by me acting TOO much than for things to sound great through cautious, minimal interaction with the mixes -- sometimes as little as simple leveling and assembly.

Leveling and sequencing are what I expect to do going into a mastering project. It blows my mind how many people will throw up a half a dozen processors or plugins by rote and start hacking up a mix that already sounded good to begin with.

Mixing should be 90% or more of what makes a record sound great. When mastering is more than 10% of the end result, the mixes were probably not where they needed to be when they left the studio. That, or the client wanted the record to be something it was simply never meant to be.

This whole post is great! I think that a big problem is that hack mixing engineers with weak skills/confidence have made it a practice to convince their clients that way more than 10% of the sound will come from mastering. Clients come to mastering expecting a huge improvement over what's already there.

Unless I've received specific instructions otherwise, I usually assume that the frequency profile of the material is where the client and mix engineer wanted it. I prefer to only use EQ to solve problems that slipped through at the mix and to ensure consistency from track to track (if that's appropriate). I assume that I'm there to enhance the sound and not to create "the sound".

[Brian]

I gotta say the last two posts say a lot.
The last thing I mixed that went on a record, the bands last, sadly, I mixed it very open, with all the extended range it was recorded with and I made sure to look at the meters a lot and made sure that I didn't lose any of the dynamics of the mix in any kind of compression, knowing it was going to be mastered before release.
The mastering engineer did exactly what you guys just stated, got the levels right and made it fit within the other songs/sounds in the project, all of which were recorded at 14 different Memphis studios on purpose.
If you want to hear what Memphis recordings and mastering sounds like, this project provides a pretty thorough reference.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/centralstandards3
Tracks 9 & 10.Heavyweight and back to Little Rock.
I'm not sure what happened with Black Oak"s stuff after they got "a deal" it was a great record.Jim Dandy STILL has a TON of talent.
Davey Milby is on Itunes with his "Prosperity Road", although we were VERY rushed, he was moving out of state, his stuff is awesome.