So what do you think of it? It could turn out to be a very interesting discussion if he goes into a more technical explanation. I personally don't see how it could *always* make the sound better.
It can't always sound better (!) and, "he" will not get into a more technical explanation or rather, he will never divulge enough of what's actually going on under the hood for us to really understand what's going on. However, exactly what it's doing is not the real issue here, there are wider issues at stake. So what do I think of it? ... On the one hand we have the marketing of this specific product and on the other hand is what's really at stake here. Dealing with the marketing first:
"AfterMaster preserves the original intention of an audio event and brings greater clarity, depth and amplitude to all of the audio elements without changing the integrity of the underlying recording."
OK, this is complete BS! How can AfterMaster possibly preserve the original intention? Have they developed an algorithm which can read my mind (as a producer/mix engineer), ascertain what my original intention is and then preserve it? Of course not! If it "brings greater clarity, depth ..." then the advertising is contradicting itself. What if my original intention for all or part of a track was less clarity and/or depth? A typical musical and production tool is contrast, the very last thing I want is "greater clarity and depth" in part of a track which was designed to have less clarity and/or depth in order to contrast with another part of the track which has more. In this example, EITHER it's preserving my original intention OR it's bringing greater clarity and depth but it cannot do both! Also, it's a physical impossibility for it to "bring greater amplitude"! Masters peak at, or extremely close to, 0dBFS, which is the absolute maximum amplitude limit of digital audio. Now maybe their process is decreasing crest factor and increasing RMS (as per standard dynamic range compression) but that's a greater average level NOT a greater amplitude! ... It's also troubling that they appear to be deliberately confusing and therefore misrepresenting their products/services. On the one hand they have traditional top class mastering suites/studios and mastering engineers. On the other hand they have ProMasterHD, an automated software mastering process, plus consumer units which appear to contain essentially the same software on an embedded chip. They are using the credits/accolades/discography of their mastering studios and mastering engineers to promote their software/hardware mastering solution, implying that the hardware/software they are selling is responsible for the accolades. If this were actually the case, they obviously wouldn't need the huge expense of mastering studios and engineers, they'd just run their mixes through their mastering software!
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There's a wider and more complex issue at stake here though. It's complex because it encompasses the impact of technology: On the creation process itself, on who has access to the creation process and on the income of the recording industry and therefore on the investment in creating recordings. Starting around 25 years ago, personal computer technology massively widened accessibility to digital audio for both the creation and the distribution of recordings. Aspiring artists no longer had to compete for a record deal to get distribution and consumers could get what they wanted for a fraction of the price (or no cost at all). Record labels virtually stopped trawling through thousands of cheap/crappy demo tapes looking for talent to invest in/develop as the cost/risk was too high compared to the returns. To get noticed by labels (or sell their content independently), the aspiring talent had to create (pay for) their own finished recordings rather than just make a demo tape. This almost always meant no mastering, simply because much aspiring talent didn't even know it existed and those who did, couldn't afford it. Technology and enterprise gradually filled the gap, "bedroom" mastering engineers sprang up offering mastering for a hundredth of the price of the revered experts in their 6 or 7 figure mastering suites. And, units came on the market which semi-automated the mastering process, the first and most successful being the Finalizer (20 years ago). I know people who charged $20 to master a track and just ran it through a Finalizer preset in their basement, a 10min job, no skill required. They bought out a 96kHz version of Finalizer in 2000, presumably for audiophile recordings/masters
Technology has improved in the last 16 years and the last couple of years has seen some innovations. Rather than just slapping a preset amount of shuffling, aural excitement, EQ and compression over everything it's fed, the new generation "mastering" processors attempt to apply processing more "intelligently". And, AfterMaster aren't the only game in town. Landr is an interesting competitor for example. It's an online automated mastering service based on an AI engine, it learns and improves. This newer generation doesn't just slap on mastering processes regardless of what they're fed, they analyse what they're fed, in the case of Landr, it references across it's database of analysed tracks and intelligently applies what it thinks are appropriate amounts of appropriate mastering processes. What you get out of it, depends on the quality of the mix you give it to master and in most cases the results are better than not mastering at all and often also better than most of the "bedroom" mastering services out there. Their weakness is of course that they're easy to fool, is what they think is "appropriate" really the best which can be achieved or is it even acceptably appropriate? When I'm mastering, I'm listening to the lyrics, the composition and the production, to work out what the "story" of the song is and the intention of the artists. I discuss with the producer what they want and their intentions before I start and then during mastering I come across relatively obvious errors and weakness which I fix/improve. I also come across errors/weakness which aren't so obvious. I don't mean very quiet, subtle errors/weaknesses, I mean it's hard to judge if they are in fact errors or if it's intended to be that way. The only way to find out is to pick up the phone and have a chat with the producer. If it is intentional, I'll try to emphasise it in some way, so that it appears intentional and less like an error. If it's not intentional, I'll do the opposite and try to hide, disguise or eliminate it. This is something an automated process cannot currently do of course. The best they can do is apply some generalised notion of what is "good" or "appropriate".
Having said all this and thoroughly trashed AfterMaster and it's ilk, I do believe we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the role of mastering engineer! Ultimately it comes down to simple economics. Record labels do not make the profits they once did and will no longer pay $20k+ for a top mastering engineer to master an album. The top mastering engineers get more like $5k to master an album today. Most aspiring artists only make a few thousand (or less) on an album these days and the price of an online subscription is the most they can afford for mastering, especially in light of the fact that consumers simply do not value high quality/fidelity. For this reason, even though they're relatively poor, these automated mastering processes are effectively seen as "good enuf" by many and as they improve and recording revenues/profits decline further, so they will become more attractive, even for record labels and eventually, even the major labels. Maybe 1 or 2 top mastering engineers will hang on, to cater to those very few blockbuster sized artists/albums but the mastering industry will effectively be dead. Most of the established, good mastering engineers I know are very pessimistic about the future, quite a few don't believe they'll still be in the music industry in 5 years time.
G
