Separation Mastering

[John Jeffers]

OK, so this mastering engineer named John Vestman does this thing he calls "separation mastering". Check it out:

http://www.johnvestman.com/separations.htm

In a nutshell, he wants you to give him stems of drums, guitars, bass, vox, etc., and he claims that he can produce a better master than can be acheived traditionally.

I'm skeptical for lots of reasons, but one of the main ones is that he uses the fucking blink tag on the page I linked, about halfway down the page. Never trust a guy who uses the blink tag!!!

[drumsound]

I don't like the stems idea. I think the mixer needs to commit to his ort her balances and the mastering engineer needs to work with those balances. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

[billiamwalker]

i doubt he's as goodas he says he is.



he's pretty much saying he can do better than ANYONE else.


if this were true he'd be the richest man the music industry because EVERYBODY in the world would go to him. werd

[cgarges]

In a nutshell, he wants you to give him stems of drums, guitars, bass, vox, etc., and he claims that he can produce a better master than can be acheived traditionally.

That's awesome. I want to send this guy some of my stuff that Chris Blair and Greg Calbi have done and see if the butchering of the mixes makes the clients happier than these old guys' "traditional" mastering techniques.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[wedge]

I read an article in EQ or some such mag a couple of years ago in which Greg Calbi actually championed this approach...

[cgarges]

I read an article in EQ or some such mag a couple of years ago in which Greg Calbi actually championed this approach...

Interesting. He seems to do fine with all the standard two-track stuff I've ever heard him work on.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[drumsound]

I believe Greg Calbi said he likes stems at TapeOpCon '04. But yes he does kick-ass work on stereo masters.

[JGriffin]

I've heard this approach generally mentioned as an alternative to making a whole slew of vocal up/vocal down/instrumental/less banjo/more gamelan mixes.

[I'm Painting Again]

People also send material back and fourth from mastering to the studio several times I've heard..

whats the world coming to?

good grief..

[knobtwirler]

I actually did this myself when I was trying to learn how to mix a few years back. i had the Drums, Bass, Guitar, and Vocal stems all going through different stereo compressors and EQ's to fix what I couldn't get right the first time. The resultant mix was the loudest mix I had ever heard, but even though I fixed things, it ended up still sucking. In the long run, I ended up remixing the song and getting it right the traditional way. Although it didn't enter my mind to do the Stems thing again, I wonder...NAh.

[MASSIVE Mastering]

I still like to work from a stereo mix, but stems can definitely "save" some mixes that would otherwise suck hard.

Usually stuff from novice engineers... The usual suspects - Too much verb (always comes out even more after a little compression) vocals that would otherwise get a little buried, etc., etc.

I have to admit also that it's nice to be able to suck a little 2.5kHz out of the guitars and nothing else if that's where the problem is...

But yeah, on a mix that just sounds really nice in the first place, all it really ends up being is more expensive for the client. But on the nasty ones, it can save time (saving money) also...

[RefD]

OK, so this mastering engineer named John Vestman does this thing he calls "separation mastering". Check it out:

http://www.johnvestman.com/separations.htm

In a nutshell, he wants you to give him stems of drums, guitars, bass, vox, etc., and he claims that he can produce a better master than can be acheived traditionally.

I'm skeptical for lots of reasons, but one of the main ones is that he uses the fucking blink tag on the page I linked, about halfway down the page. Never trust a guy who uses the blink tag!!!

hasn't use of blink tags been a death penalty offense since 1997?

i read that linked page twice and definitely got a whiff of something foul.

[Disasteradio]

hasn't use of blink tags been a death penalty offense since 1997?

I'm taking a couple of points off for lack of <marquee> and comic sans, but this dude's still going straight to hell.

[RefD]

hasn't use of blink tags been a death penalty offense since 1997?

I'm taking a couple of points off for lack of <marquee> and comic sans, but this dude's still going straight to hell.

nice Fairlight av, btw.

[@?,*???&?]

I don't really support the 'indecisive' nature of this scenario.

I do know some mastering guys are going over to this technique, but think about what mixing means?

Is the mastering guy also the mix engineer?

Me thinks not.