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non-entity said:
Don't quote me on this, but I think that mastering is overrated these days. .... But... since when was mastering such a big deal?
I disagree. It's even more important these days. It's become such a big deal since the mid 1990's when all these crap remasters starting popping up. Loud, distorted, horrible EQ choices, compression, limiting, etc.
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Originally Posted by
non-entity
Of course it's an important step, but in the end it's "just" the transfer from tape to a redbook-compliant file (or whatever, you know what I mean).
No. It's not just transferring from tape to redbook. It involves manipulating a finite set of parameters in an infinite number of way to produce a quality master file for redbook, vinyl, HDCD, SACD, etc. You have to consider the quality of the tape, any defects that might be present such as noise, breath plosives, sibilance, etc. A good mastering engineer will provide another set of ears that are objective and specially trained to listen for many defects which the production and recording team routinely miss and are completely unaware of.
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Originally Posted by
non-entity
What about everything before? Does it not matter where it was recorded? How? Which equipment engineers used? I read so often about "what's the best mastered CD?" and it seems to me like virtually nobody talks about production or engineering, as if it doesn't matter.
What about it? The mastering engineer assumes the role, ideally, of quality control. Ideally, the mastering room is equipped solely to master music, not to mix or record but strictly to master. Production and recording is very important but none of that matters if you have a tin eared mastering engineer at the end who will compress it to crap or add duophony processing. Likewise, the production and recording could be crap but if you have a talented mastering engineer at the end, a mediocre performance can be polished up and made to really shine. There are many famous recording engineers out there, you just have to do your research or hang out in the right circles. Ever heard of Roy DuNann or Keith Johnson?
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Originally Posted by
non-entity
If the mastertape is bad, not even the best mastering engineer can make the output sound great. If the desired end product would be a CD, and if the raw material is tape, then the tape would be kind of like a fluid and we could think of the CD like an empty vessel. If there's not much fluid, nobody can completely fill this vessel. So, what does the mastering engineer do? Yeah, he or she decants and makes sure that nothing gets lost.
That's the thing...few master tapes are ever great. A vast majority of control rooms aren't tuned properly enough to show the flaws that are on the original master recording. One example I know of is the master tape for Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me". The original stereo mix has a ton of problems one of which is the distorted strings. Every single stereo release has this problem. If you heard Steve Hoffman's unreleased stereo version, you would notice that the soundstage is three dimensional and that the distortion problem is gone. Another example is Bill Evan's Portrait In Jazz. A couple of the tracks have a high pitch tone running through the entire song. Almost every single CD and vinyl release has these tones present except for 2 (and both mastering engineers who caught and fixed that problem are below). These are both old albums but even modern records suffer from these problems and many other problems which are much, much worse.
Now, let's say the master tape is perfect. It also takes a well trained and knowledgeable mastering engineer to recognize that such a tape needs no major work and then proceed to transfer such a tape with the cleanest signal path in order to degrade the sound the least amount possible. Some master tapes, like some from Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Elton John, etc, don't need anything except a good, flat transfer.
So what does a mastering engineer do? The answer really depends who you ask. Some mastering engineers (Bob Norberg, recent RVG remasters) muck up the sound beyond belief. Others (Joe Tarrantino, Alan Yoshida, Steve Hoffman, Kevin Gray, Bernie Grundmann, Doug Sax), as Fatcat28037 mentioned, pretty much ensure you will be getting a quality product with the best sound they can provide. When I see one of their names on a CD, I know I am in for a sonic treat.
To me, good mastering is just making sure that the original master mixes sound the best they can without mucking up the original sound - no loudness processing, unnecessary no-noise, bad EQ, bad compression/limiting or fake stereo if the source is mono. Good mastering should be as unobtrusive as possible. When I am working on a master/remaster my goal is that the listener should never even be aware of what I did unless he/she directly compares with another person's work.
Just my 2 cents.
EDIT: Listen to Head-fi podcast No. 2 for more information:
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts/36807