Mastering own mixes

Since I am self-taught and have had no idea what a finished mix should sound like, I've had to do a lot of experiments to see what can be done at the mastering stage. Obviously, there's a lot that hardware and real tape can do that plugins can't. So, little by little I've figured out things here and there that can make my stuff sound like finished tracks. I don't do the loudness war thing since I have never cared to learn how to do that and there's already thousands of people making loud masters throughout the world. Many engineers disagree with it but have to do what the clients and/or label want or go out of business. Plenty of mixes arrive brickwalled too from what I've heard.

I'm going to attempt to carve out my own niche and see what happens. For years I've participated in music forums where people were pointing out all the objective flaws in remasters of classic albums. It shouldn't be the case that some 1986 P33C pressing of a Kiss cd or the Karate Kid soundtrack is better than a master from 1997 or 2007. Or that the original Megaforce cd of Kill Em All is held up as the peak of sound for that album. But most all modern masters are compromised. Though I will say newer albums sound a lot better than stuff made 15 years ago. Speaking of 2008, has any album taken the title of worst master from Death Magnetic yet? My hope in 2008 was that Chinese Democracy having a DR10 rating or perhaps higher on some tracks might have led to some backing off of this loudness war stuff. With vinyl making a comeback, I wonder if anyone is sending dynamic mixes for them to be made out of. Previously I had read that vinyl made from brickwalled mixes was defeating the whole purpose.

+1

I do my own mastering as by the time I've finished a mix there's basically nothing left to do.

I have excellent reference monitoring with perfect predictable translation.

I've imbued all the magic, vibe and energy  at the writing, arranging, tracking and mixing stages.
I'm definitely not looking to add any "magic or tone" at the mastering stage.

For me it's a purely technical process of topping and tailing, adding any necessary meta data then a touch of mastering compression and limiting
if needed any any small corrective eq moves between songs (usually around 0.5dB .... 1dB would be a big move for me) just enough to balance tracks 
between themselves.

If there's an issue then back to the mix I go - why on earth would I compromise and make corrections to a stereo file - makes no sense to me.

I stopped sending out my mixes to mastering after I upgraded my gear to ATC monitoring, HEDD 192/Avocet converters and Thermionic Phoenix Mastering Plus bus compressor
and The Switf tube EQ - plus I do have 40 years experience with pro audio, so decades of experience do help a bit.

I prefer my approach now, sounds much better than when I sent out to mastering.

I'm not knocking the other approaches people have, I've just found a better approach for me.

This is what I encourage people to do. Are they going to go with a $50-per song mastering engineer? Not if that ME can't beat my quick-masters in a test-master. I've beat some $150 per song guys, too. I'm not magic. Some people are just shitty at their job but somehow convince people to pay 'em for it.

I'm good with doing all the metadata and sequencing stuff.

(Paraphrased) "Put that $50 per song in your pocket for marketing/promo and come back to me the next time you guys are trying to do anything. Here are 20 different promotional resources I've built up and curated over time for bands like yourselves."

Absolutely not all mastering engineers are good. 

So much of this business is about relationships & networking. I couldn't do what I do without help from other people and over the years I've developed relationships with some great people who can help make things happen. 

In particular, I can't and won't even name my $50 a song guy publicly. But he's a real guy in a real room with a card rate that's way higher. And to be clear that's not every project... like we're not doing singles or extended cut, 9 minute prog rock songs for that rate. 

Something that seems to work here is I'll give people a list with a few different names to pick from. People that I know are going to be solid and deliver... they aren't going fall off the planet or give us back something random. That comes up early in conversations and I like I said, is factored into the overall budget from day one. 

Large factor in maintaining that "curated list" is that I get all kinds of people with varying backgrounds. One artist might be making their very first record ever. Others are on album cycle #4 or 5 and kinda know what's up. 

For those people on their first venture the whole process can be daunting. Mastering? Who really knows what that's about. And then there's a 1000 names out there. Who knows if any of 'em are any good? 

Experienced people if they already have a relationship with someone? Man that's cool too! As long their person has a track record of sorts all good. And that does happen on a regular basis. It really all comes down to quality control. Mastering is that last stop. Not the place for a random game of grabass. 

While I don't hang out a shingle on it, I've cut plenty of masters including vinyl prep and get a fair bit of dedicated work in that realm every year... 

One tiny indie label that sends me things? I got the work over a much more expensive & dedicated mastering house purely because I could answer a phone and return a email in less then two weeks. Really! 

There was an album a handful of years ago with a tight deadline for promo & touring and their guy flat out disappeared after it was submitted. Zero communication. One of the guys in the band said I'm gonna call my buddy who makes records... their thing is in my hands a few days later. Few weeks later the label calls again can we send you more? Sure why not! 

i tried out some 50+ masterings engineers too. was always dissappointed, thats why i attempted diy mastering first time.
i was particularly dissappointed by their non-communication: most did ignore my notes and just delivered mastered songs without comments. no comment about the mixes or the finished master.
when i had recall notes again, they just performed them without saying a word.
so that to me signals a quick turnaround workflow to cash in more in the same time …

but i guess you have to pay the communication and go for 150+ ME.

Yes.

I advise my clients that it's OK to listen in their studio, but to also listen in multiple real world environments and play it alongside relevant commercial releases.  

Whether self-mastering or not, it's time to think outside the studio, as that's where the track will live from now on.

I hate mastering. Hate it. But I end up doing it constantly. There are variety of reasons, but mostly because I do music for TV/Film, multiple pieces get finished at 8PM, and have to be delivered by 9:00 the next morning. With multiple versions (often more than 10) of each piece of music.  Ends up being dozens and dozens of pieces - and because I demand a hardware chain - it's all bounced in real time. There is just no time or money to have them mastered by someone else at a different location. Also, the new record company is requiring hundreds of revisions and it would literally swamp me financially and time and organization wise. If I was doing one album a year, then yeah, I'd have them mastered by a legit (not a $25-50 per song) guy - mostly because a second opinion by someone you trust is always good. But that's just not happening for me at this stage of career life.

Several things have made my mastering life significantly easier, and more successful. In no particular order cause every piece of the chain at this point is significant.....

- Having the room I'm working in designed by a legit designer - Hedback - and not taking any shortcuts. Ok, ok, very few shortcuts.
- Mastering at -14LUFS. I love the fact that Spotify, etc. prefer the lower levels, and for me, the loudness wars are mostly a thing of the past.
- Just DOING it for thousands of pieces of music. It gets easier, but it also makes me hate it even more. LOL
- Having a killer outboard mastering chain that includes - Manley VariMu, Silver Bullet mk2 (helped me personally tremendously on the bottom end), Miad LCPQ 4040's, Avalon 2055's (occasionally), Locomotive 14B's occasionally, and the occasional SSL style buss comp when needed (Serpent and AudioScape), the Bricasti on StudioA when a bit more ambience is required, and occasionally the ZOD IDDI's - but they are usually on the mix chain, and that's enough. These along with the Fabfilter L2 on the back end gives me 95% of what I need. and hitting -14LUFS is mostly a piece of cake without destroying the music. I still have a ton of other stuff for specialty needs - but the VMu, SBmk2 and Miads do the heavy lifting.
- Moving to the JBL 708P's for more accurate monitoring. Makes life more fun and interesting, while still steering me the right direction.
- Moving to the Grace m905 - again - for accurate monitoring.

Are all of your music clients (not the TV/film ones) satisfied with -14 LUFS masters?

Or people who think modern music sucks.

I haven't had complaints.  Again, I don't claim to be a mastering engineer.  Just a producer / engineer that has no choice due to a wide variety of complications.  Listening in both cars / truck seems awesome, good on phone too.  And other systems.  I feel confident for one of the first times in life that my mixes / songs are in the zone.    Don't know any listeners turning off normalization.  But again, maybe I'm just ignorant.