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Mastering the tunes

post #1 of 4
7/6/11 at 9:36pm
Thread Starter 

Mastering is the final stage of music making. It is a process that adds a great deal of sonic cohesiveness and finesse to the record. Most of the records are sent for mastering once the recording and mixing is done. However, some may consider this technical process of less value. Mastering should not be forgone on any respects. The process offers a great deal of polish to the records. The advantages of mastering are immense:
The mastering makes the sound clear, loud and professional. This would ensure that the tracks are easily played on any commercial medium. The mastered tracks are radio ready.
When mastering is performed, the musical tracks are heard with a new perspective. In such a circumstance, the issues that are not detected by a recording engineer are found out by the mastering engineer.
Masteri

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post #2 of 4
7/13/11 at 3:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by berfil View Post

The mastering makes the sound clear, loud and professional.


deadhorse.gif

 

No...not always. Please listen to 99% of modern music to see why.

 

Technically speaking, mastering is the final process of technically and creatively enhancing and assembling the individual tracks of a recording project. It's often compared to polishing a diamond. In a mastering session the audio will be analyzed and judged whether equalization and compression and other processing would be beneficial or whether it is sounding glorious as is and would be better left alone.

 

To me, the art of mastering is a highly specialized field requiring very refined HUMAN skills in discerning and manipulating the very finite spectrum of sound in its infinite characteristics and parameters without harming the sound in any way.

 

Learning when to change something is just as valid as learning when NOT to change anything. Modern thinking seems to require that mastering make the music loud in order to sound clear and professional. This false belief is what is ruining music and if anything, a loud master indicates the lack of skill or balls of an engineer and/or the complete lack of knowledge by the people forcing the engineers to push the levels up.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

EDIT: 5,300 posts!

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post #3 of 4
7/14/11 at 7:43pm

I just started getting into MFSL and DCC recordings and have been blown away.  If you are looking to take the next step I think this is a good place to look, no matter how modest your equipment.  They are out of print so the prices are steep, but if it is one of your essential albums it will be worth it (in most cases).  A good place get started is the forums at stevehoffman.tv.  Tons of good info on there.

 

As I type this, I'm listening to the Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Master Sound gold CD for the first time. All I can say is WOW!


Edited by Radioking59 - 7/14/11 at 7:57pm
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post #4 of 4
7/15/11 at 1:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Radioking59 View Post

I just started getting into MFSL and DCC recordings and have been blown away.  If you are looking to take the next step I think this is a good place to look, no matter how modest your equipment.  They are out of print so the prices are steep, but if it is one of your essential albums it will be worth it (in most cases).  A good place get started is the forums at stevehoffman.tv.  Tons of good info on there.

 

As I type this, I'm listening to the Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Master Sound gold CD for the first time. All I can say is WOW!


Yup! Good place to start. I have a complete DCC collection and nearly complete MFSL collection. The DCC's are almost always spot on. The MFSL's are more hit and miss. Other good labels to check out are Audio Fidelity, GrooveNote, Sheffield Labs and a few others.

 

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