Thank you. If you don't mind, I will be sending this video to my clients that just need a little reminder of what I actually do and more importantly don't do.
FINALLY! Thank you for reminding this buzzword-happy world that "mastering" simply connotes "optimizing a master recording for the end medium of presentation". There is a special skill set required for this process. When you've mixed a song/album it is quite likely far better for one's own productivity and sanity to entrust the work of creating a final master to someone who specializes in the process!
Wow! Apart from the very wise advice offered, Mr. Sam Inglis has the best, and most understated, sense of humour I have had the pleasure of experiencing in a long time. Sitting alone in my home office watching the video, I found myself laughing out loud several times ... The side note on Geri Halliwell was one of those moments (even if I really enjoyed the Spice Girls music with my two daughters when they were growing up). Thanks a lot to Sound on Sound!!
The only other thing I would add to this exceptional video, is that a pro mastering engineer also provides a fresh pair of ears, which is priceless, when as recording/mix engineers, we can get pretty burned out from having listened to songs and mix passes so many times... and through that familiarity, we tend to become less objective. To me, this is just as important as all the other tasks that mastering engineers do. Also important, is choosing a mastering engineer who understands your vision, who works in the style of music and production that you do. I don’t doubt that there are pro mastering engineers who do great work regardless of style and genre, but finding one who has experience with mastering in the style and production methods that you work in, will be your best approach. 🙏
Thanks now im starting a career as Mastering Engineers on craigslist. i just do nothing and tell the Artist that's because there mix was already perfect.
Thank you! I agree with you on all you've said. I started to experiment in mastering my own mixes in 1993 after a bad experience with a "new" mastering engineer for a CD release. Until that moment I only had "vinyl" mastering experiences and with full satisfaction. My first mastering suite was a Waves bundle including Q1, L1, C1, and S1. Reading the manual (a huge one) I discovered MS and implemented it. It was the kickstart of my mastering career... I now do professional mixing and mastering full time (I still do music as a side project :). On higher budget projects I still send to a trusted mastering engineer my mixes, though. My favourite one is Tony Cousins at Metropolis Mastering. But budgets are shrinking and more and more projects end up with me also mastering it. I do it all ITB and I am very satisfied since I do very little in mastering most of the times!.
“...And mastering studios contained compressors and limiters and de-essers...and brown corduroy sofas and ashtrays, because it was the 70’s...” 🤣🤣 I love Sam’s dry wit. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of his videos which I haven’t laughed out loud at, at some point, from one of his dry (but hilarious) comments. 😊🙏
I’ve used the following analogy to describe the music production cycle and it’s book writing Recording:Drafting :: Mixing:Proofing :: Mastering:Publishing
Hmm. Proofing doesn't make much sense in this context. Mixing is essentially mixing all the audio signals together. Think of a Mix Engineer as a Chef. Mastering Engineer as the Editor that corrects things in a mix.
@@eman0828 It's maybe not the strongest of analogies but it does work. In writing, proofing is really the editing process and when you look over what you have written to see if it is what you want it to be. In mixing, you are making sure that every element is not only what you want, but also can work with each other. In other words, it's just listening to it and hearing how everything comes together and does it create the overall mood/feel you want.
@@DerekPower The way I see it a Record Producer facilities and puts an Artists song into production. They are the project manager of the song. The Recording Engineer captures the idea while the Mix Engineers compiles that information while the Mastering Engineer edits and corrects problems with in a mix equivalent to proof reading and editing misspelled words and grammars.
Equivalent roles between the Music and Film industry 1. Music Producer to Film Director 2. Music Executive Producer to Film Executive Producer 3. Songwriter to Screenwriter 4. Recording Engineer to Sound Team and Video Production 5. Mix Engineer to Post Production 6. Programmer to Composer 7. Mastering Engineer to Editor including Post production. 8. Artist to Actor to Actress
@@eman0828 I really think we are in something like a violent agreement here =] The whole point of my original analogy was to illustrate that the mastering is more about finalizing the recording with the intention of releasing it to the world. In publishing, the book about to be published should have already been written and proofed and thus you are bringing it to final form: laying out the text, setting up margins, making sure everything fits in the prescribed book size. Mastering is very similar where it is more about making sure that final mix can translate into the real world: in digital, that conforms to whatever standards are there; in vinyl, that it works within the confines and limitations of the medium, etc. At that point, "what's done is done" and it's less about "adding something new" but more "making better what is already there".
Excellent, I'm well aware of the glory in having an experienced set of professional ears, not to mention fresh, listen to your mix, but if they don't use all the things you say, from your experience, they don't use, what do they use when they have to fix a problem?
There are a lot of Audio Engineers out there that they claim that they mix and Master your song but really they are just Mixing Engineers. It's like trying proof read and edit your own mistakes. A great Mastering Engineer only does Mastering because they can acutally tell you what's wrong with your clients mix.
If I may add: Having a qualified outside person making the final tweaks to a project one has spent days, sometimes even years trying to bring it to the best of results, is invaluable. A mastering engineer will have no emotional attachment and a pair of fresh, highly sensitive ears which are invaluable tools at the end of a project, when ear fatigue is nigh. A friend of mine made a rather beautiful comparison: mastering is like the varnish on a painting, making all the different painting styles and paint types cohesively fit together and allowing for observing the whole as well as the intricate details. Thanks for this very useful chunk of info. Long time SOS reader here. From 2009 to 2012 I bought SOS regularly on paper, then I moved to a remote area and I've only discovered this channel last week. It can't be overstated the influence SOS had on me back in those days, as I was also seriously started getting into Logic and Ableton, coming from a Cubase crack and a TASCAM digital 8-track. I can honestly say the basis of my knowledge on home recording, engineering, mixing, etc. in those first years has been Sound On Sound magazine. So thanks heaps for getting me started over a decade ago and keep up the rather splendid work
Good times when every artist, before releasing vinyl, had to look for an experienced mastering engineer with analogue equipment. I remember when I was young, while listening to vinyl, I would read the liner notes to find out where it was mastered.
Interesting stuff - i'll watch out for any Geri Halliwell interference while listening on my corduroy sofa. But srsly ide not considered the continuity of sound between tracks. Cool video, thank you
Thank you for that interesting summary of mastering. As a mastering engineer, I sometimes do no processing on peoples mixes but generally I do a little bit. Sometimes I do a lot of 'repair work', many of these jobs I first suggest they remix it and provide direction as to what needs to be changed but invariably the customer has no budget to remix it so I repair it as much as I can.
Thanks for intelligently articulating the topic, without verbosity...by far the best I have seen, though I would have liked a little more detail. But then I must not expect you to give away your trade secrets, the insights you developed along the way that constitute the magic of good mastering.
I can't tell how valuable a thing you have mentioned at the end, that a good mastering enng, will do nothing to a good mix. This is sometimes not valued, but it is one of the most important traits of a "Real" good Mastering Enng.
@@temizu6084 "If the mix sounds good, then it sounds good" A regular producer / mix engineer doesn't have that taste nor room to tell what's ready for the radio, car, streaming. You pay a mastering engineer to ASSURE you that whatever he sends back, even without any major changes, is what HE thinks is radio ready. They sell their "taste" that gives the "radio ready" verdict, regardless of how equal or different it is compared to the pre-master. . Their job isn't to send you some magical version back, his job is to remove your "release ready" concerns.
@ewanstefani, that's not a bad thing, but they still take care of the loudness and a touch of glue in the end. Anyway, their job is to remove your concerns about "what is release ready". Whatever he sends back, if he's a true pro mastering engineer, then you accept it and move on to the next new song. That's how the big artists/labels/producers work.
I mean it's not all that different than going to the doctor for a second opinion, and the second doctor confirming the first doctor's opinion and assigning no extra treatment. But having the reassurance that everything is right is good
So, therefore it follows that the best thing a mixing engineer can do is nothing; because the band members should have been already playing at the right levels. And the best thing a recording engineer can do is choose take 1, because the band should know the song well enough to play it right the first time. And the best thing the manager can do is nothing, because the band should be so good, they practically sell themselves...
The problem with this is that all the things you say everyone needs a "mastering engineer" for should be the job of the producer. There's simply no need to create a new job when there's no master and no engine to work on.
I do my own production and while I understand that it is probably fairly substandard, I found that I could produce a better result with a couple of plugins than I could using mastering software. It just made what was already questionable sound like mud and I won’t live long enough to figure out how to use it.
As a freshly-graduated audio engineer who's been cutting his teeth on up-and-coming artists who often don't provide me the best mixes, I find that what is expected of me when I play the role of the mastering engineer is increasingly including mixing work and becomes a total abstraction of what a mastering engineer is supposed to do. I must admit I was surprised when you said mastering engineers, in the typical sense, don't use tape emulators or saturators -because I find that transforming a mix tonally, to be in line with what one might expect from the end product, with these plugins feels like the majority of what I do. Food for thought on my part -might be sending a lot more tracks back to the drawing board before I touch them from now on.
@4:37 : True they will identify what need to be fixed BUT every mastering engineer do not feel music the same way. For exemple, one might feel too much bass, while an other will feel not enough, and so on the same track ! This depend way too much of room, speakers, experience and taste. So it's really hard to find someone that have the same feeling on our music, I don't want to get a mastering engineer that will put too much mid freq on my music, just because he think that's the way. I love my music a certain way, so I need to find someone that can get the same feeling. That's the most important thing to get for a mastering engineer that will be good to our music.
The current trend seems to be more and more of the following. Importance of mastering: 55%, importance of mixing: 35%, the remaining 10%: the actual music, the mood, the groove, the originality, the innovation. Perfectly mixed and mastered music doesn't mean anything to me if that 10% isn't there (or hardly). The other 90% is just bling bling, the music version of multi-million dollars worth of special fx in a hollywood blockbuster movie. As an example: most of Beatport's chart music sounds boring to me, everyone does their formulaic thing and calls it a day. But they're fantastic because they're on the Beatport charts, right? And the mix sounds REALLY great. And have techno producers even heard of 3/4 or 7/4 songs? I find all of that almost depressing in current electronic music, all fluff and no substance. Play it safe ...
I think the levels of importance are more like this: initial recordings are like 80%, then 15% mixing and 5% mastering. Mixing isn't going to save a sloppy recording.
I think Geri Halliwell actually snuck in my studio and laid down a vocal and I can’t seem to remove it. Anyone know of a mastering engineer specialising in GHV removal?
As much as I would like to hear that my mix was so good that it didn't need mastering, I would hope that if the mastering engineer decided not to do anything to my mix he would not tell me because I still have to pay for it.
this is precisely why the very idea of even using a mastering process is even absurd ... when the format of recording and distribution are the same ...
So mixing engineers, don't always do the mastering on tracks? Thanks for explaining that part. That's the problem with all these video's round the world. You can be confused very quick. The mixing engineer, does he deliver stems, with fx in it, as you said the mastering engineer doesn't do that? Good educational video, thanks.
Correct. The mix engineer does the final blends, tuning, adding effects, etc and prints a stereo mix and sends that to the mastering engineer. The mastering engineer really is there for the final polish, or maybe to try to make a cohesive sounding album out of a collection of songs. Albums tend to have a "tone" which helps to make flow from one song to the next. I think he gets it a little wrong in one aspect ... most MEs that I know sometimes do use "widening" , mostly in the form of M/S processing, and usually very slight at that.
"these products WON'T listen to your music, identify problems, and sort them out!.." iZotope: "hold my beer!.." 🤣 Great advice and explanation, thanks for making this!
Izotope is fantastic. We paid a well known mastering engineer with several Grammy's for hard rock records charged us over $2k to master our 11 song record. He had it finished and sent back to us within 4 hours. The amount of time he spent on it was very insulting to say the least. It was overly Essy from 6-10K, and overcompressed. We hated it, gave notes and his contract only allowed 1 revision. After our 2nd revision, we had it mastered by a friend with Izotope Ozone. It literally sounded better, and we were out $2k. Also, the part where he says "mastering engineers never use stereo widening, or tape emulation/saturation?"... I'm pretty sure this guy is very old school... that is NOT the norm for extremely high end in the box guys these days.
@@brooksbohmbach1 you must've paid a scammer. Last time my team paid 1K for just one song mastering, the result was fantastic and even won in a blind test with the team and friends. That's in fact how we always do, we blind test the mixdown against the final master and if the mixdown gets more votes during the blind test or 50/50, then we request revisions, but it rarely happens. Yes, the blind test is always level matched. I also own Ozone 9 Advanced and tried to match the big master from the pro, but couldn't get it as loud and beefy without distortion. I did usd the "AI Assistant" feature for an auto-master out of curiosity, to see if the AI Master would win in a blind test against the pro master, but it lost. Almost every team and staff member in the room chose the pro master. I'm not saying one could not master on a pro level with Ozone, but he needs to be good at what he does and can't really rely on the AI feature.
@@costinvaly1 definitely wasn’t a scammer. It was a referral from the producer. Grammy winner in fact. I can’t name names, but I can 100% guarantee that we weren’t treated the same as the major artists on his roster. Which were dozens and dozens. I was truly sad.
@@brooksbohmbach1 @Brooks B Give me the name of that mastering engineer at least, he masters over 50 artists or more per year (if he's as big as you said), so he won't know who exposed him, but at least we'll get to stay safe when we come across his name. So if your story is true, please share his name. BTW, a true mastering engineer like Joe Laporta, Mike Bozzi, etc. they never screwed anyone over regardless of the level of the artist they were working with. Most big ME's I came across all shared the same philosophy, which is: "If the final product has our name on it, we definitely give it our best because it's enough to mess one up, and our name will suffer with it." That's why I'm bugged when I hear your story because usually, Pro ME's would go above and beyond to keep their name intact, and they also sell their taste which ultimately decides what "sounds finished and radio-ready." If the results you received were that bad, then again, it makes your story really hard to believe that you truly paid a pro. Every single pro I came across all had an incredible taste (that's mostly what you pay for) and sent back songs that sometimes weren't super different from the mixdown, just louder and with a kiss of top end and glue. Still, no one complained because what we pay for is his taste to assure us that "it's ready for the streaming platforms, car, and radio." They never disappointed me. And honestly, if I would run into your issue, I'd make sure the mastering engineer would know what I think, and I'd insist on figuring out why my master sounds the way it does. Also, all you had to tell that master engineer before you asked for the last revision, was "I ran the masters through a blind test with my team and also regular friends, and they all picked the pre-master." The mastering engineer can't really say "my taste matters, theirs don't" because a ME's taste is usually objective, not subjective.
Amen on everything but particularly the "arms race" that mastering plugins (and chatter) have become. I can Finalize (master) a track with nothing more than a Clipper :-)
I'm old school. A finished mix just that, FINISHED. And an entire album should be FINISHED in the recording studio. A good mastering engineer needs to do NOTHING except prop the FINISHED mix for the given distribution medium. Bill P.
It seems like 99% of the vinyl in my old collection were mastered by only 1 of 2 people: Bob Ludwig or Ted Jensen. Why were there not more mastering engineers in the 70s and 80s?
"they don't use saturation plug-ins..." I've got some news for you... you have any idea how many Grammy Winning ME's have been using Neve 542's, bouncing to actual tape machines, or using Saturn 2 ?
Music wasn't always recorded onto 2" tape. You skipped over a period of time when music was delivered on Compact Disc and that was when a good deal of music I produced and recorded got totally destroyed by the so-called 'Mastering Engineer' who was really an acquaintance or relative of one of the guys in the group who has a computer in their bedroom. Leave it to them to take all that was beautiful about your recording and bury it, while bringing out front the ugliest elements and putting them right in your face. Then there have been cases when the music does survive and manage to sound good, only to have some unknown guy get the credits. If Mastering Engineers don't use Muti-band Compression or EQ, then what the hell do they do??
Sam looks at me the same way tired elderly teachers did in High School. I have the tendency to give him the same reply as then; 'I'm sorry mister Inglis. It's not your fault sir, I know I'm a hopeless case. Just tried to make you laugh sir, but I guess setting fire to your desk may not have been the likeliest way to achieve that.'
