Looking for a mastering engineer to start a pro relationship

[mechanicalmastering]

your test is a good one and i tried it years ago. i used the breeders 'pod', about as hifi a rock record as you can get. i heard a tiny, tiny difference in the converted file, if i really listened. it wasn't anything close to a significant reduction in quality.

Really? Exactly as I described? I find that to be pretty suspect, and I don't believe you, why didn't you mention that from the beginning? I call shenanigans. Even if what you say is true, I ran that test myself using a really nice boutique converter and the results were there, I used to use the sample to illustrate this very point to my students. Besides, just because you couldn't hear a noticeably significant difference, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have.

i uploaded the full original and converted files of my little sample just for you.

which one sounds terrible?

They BOTH do, hahahaha! Kidding, although I appreciate your all that hard work and effort on my behalf, and I truly do, but I'm not around an adequate set of studio monitors at the moment to hear your sample, and when I do get around some, I'm probably not going to care enough to remember.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

you are being a dick.

[Jeff White]

This whole exchange is hilarious! MASTERING NERD ALERT!

[Jitters]

So that's how Scott gets away with it! He lures you in with his reasonable rates and fools you by making your tracks sound better, but really he is making a killing by selling all those extra bits on the black market.

[jgimbel]

So that's how Scott gets away with it! He lures you in with his reasonable rates and fools you by making your tracks sound better, but really he is making a killing by selling all those extra bits on the black market.

Bahahahaha bastard.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i guess i have to come clean now. jitters is right. whilst posing as a mastering engineer on here for years, i've been secretly collecting bits of all your music through my nefarious DAD conversion process.

once a month i take all the accumulated bits and drive down to teaneck, NJ, where i sell them to a guy in the russian mafia. i don't know his name. we've never spoken. we just grunt at each other.

the russian mafia takes the bits to a secret processing plant, where a team of incredibly brilliant (if ethically suspect) scientists transform them into New Car Smell.

so now you know.

[Brett Siler]

Sure it "sounds" better, in a cosmetic kind of way, you're running the mix through some awesome hardware! Problem is, while obtaining all that awesome color you're also losing a lot of bits of information in the process. It's like, (and this is a really bad analogy), imagine reducing a 16-bit recording down to 8 bits, but you get to add some cooler sounding color/effect in the process,,, in my humble opinion, the trade-off is not worth it, not if there is another way to get that color that doesn't involve PUTTING A ZILLION BITS OF INFORMATION INTO THE AIR AND PRAYING THAT THEY WILL ALL FALL BACK IN THE EXACT SAME SPACES. Don't get me wrong, I am a ADVOCATE of hardware! Really! I love tape and outboard processing, and my studio is called Analog Sound. The drawbacks just do not outway the benefits, if there was a way of switching back and forth to hardware without losing information then please, let me know, because I would really love to hear it!

I don't understand, if the music sounds better, isn't it better?...

[Jeff White]

The music SMELLS better.

[the finger genius]

Sure it "sounds" better, in a cosmetic kind of way, you're running the mix through some awesome hardware! Problem is, while obtaining all that awesome color you're also losing a lot of bits of information in the process.

If everyone wants to combat me on this, does that mean that you guys DON'T believe that anything gets lost when you xfer from digital to analog and back to digital? You reeeally think that every last one of those bits make it back? Really?

Of course everything doesn't fall into place in the same manner. You're converting in the first place so that you can make some changes. Most people seem to agree that with good converters, 2 extra conversions isn't a big deal, and is generally worth it if there is some benefit to be had in the analog realm.

If it sounds better, it is better.

I find your point of view troubling. It makes me... uncomfortable.

[the finger genius]

once a month i take all the accumulated bits and drive down to teaneck, NJ, where i sell them to a guy in the russian mafia. i don't know his name. we've never spoken. we just grunt at each other.

Say hi to Ivan for me.

[Brett Siler]

The music SMELLS better.

Smell-O-Hearing. My monitors emit, jellybean scent.

[hank alrich]

The whole reason I appreciate my mastering engineer in the first place is that I am not looking to get all the bits back as they were prior to mastering. If that's what I wanted, I'd send it off without bothering to pay for that terrific analog chain in a beautifully tweaked acoustical environment while listening over a fifty-plus grand system, all operated by a guy with amazing ears and decades of experience.

This is a very entertaining thread. I need to alert my guy to the extra dough he could be making by undercutting Scott on those extra black market bits. Break the Hull Monopoly!

[chris harris]

Yikes!

I've been mixing OTB from a DAW for years now! No telling how many bits I've lost over the years. I've been handing my clients cosmetically pleasing mixes for years without ever considering how many bits I'm losing!!! Are these lost bits covered by insurance?

[hank alrich]

Sorry, sir, this is crash-inna-box; lost bits is down the hallway.

HTH

[MoreSpaceEcho]

I need to alert my guy to the extra dough he could be making by undercutting Scott on those extra black market bits. Break the Hull Monopoly!

note: i'm not scott hull. unfortunately for me. regardless, you and your guy stay the hell away from my turf. russian mafia make missing bits of YOU!