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Post by wiz on Mar 25, 2016 16:46:33 GMT -6
Cheap mastering doesn't have to be crap. Expensive mastering isn't always better.. Last album I sent out songs to 3 mastering engineers... One of the best in the world.. The best in Oz and the guy I had used for 10 years. I went with the one that sounded best.. regardless of price... He was in the middle with pricing, 1/3 of the best in Oz... and only slightly more than the guy I had used for 10 years. Bob Olhssoncheers Wiz
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2016 18:10:30 GMT -6
Honestly, if i have to have a piece of my music mastered, actually not anytime soon, most probably I would go with people i know, actually two of them i would trust instantly. Of course i am very sure, that Bob O. is such a guy, i have wiz's CD and IMO the finished product sounds really very good. Also, his rates are very reasonable.
The other one would be Jaakko Viitalähde from Finland. I would like to explain on his example, when i would trust an ME instantly. I loosly followed his career now longer than a decade from being a DIY nerd at GroupDIY to more than 10 yrs. of beeing a self-employed ME. (Jumping in the cold water with no backup job.) He is most probably one of the "1%" that were mentioned. His self-built gear is really awesome stuff. The bought gear is very reasonable and hi-class. The studio built like room in room into a farmhouse, everything one would ever need to do a good mastering job. But what is most important to me is, that i heard from customers i know, that they were satisfied with the job. And that he gives a satisfaction guarantee while having fixed reasonable prices per song. Which i think is a very strong argument and awesome. He would lose money if he had unsatisfied customers just from this. And i know he means it and makes revisions if needed, askes for stems if the mix is not fixable etc.. And obviously can do a living with it and has seemingly no problems at all to fill his calendar. All of this IMO are good criteria for not beeing wrong with such choices. I also listened into some of his work in finished products and obviously everything is like it should be IMO. Also he seems to be comfortable to master all genres. These are all things i would try to check. How long in the business? Customer feedback? Gear? Studio? Does he work exclusively as an ME? Does he openly answer questions of potential customers/how good is communication (right from the start)? Does he master music in my genre or are all his clients from a narrowed genre where my music does not fit in? If he could not do the job or meet a deadline, does he honestly tell you so timely and help with recommending a colleague ME who can?
Most things seem pretty obvious. But if people are in a hurry to finish a product or meet a deadline, and worse - if the budget is low or too low, people tend to ignore good advice. The "600 dollar wasted" job is such an example. No satisfying product and the money gone nevertheless? If the service is obviously done in a non-professional manner, with obvious errors, i would ask for refund. Why not? Because it was cheap? This is no excuse, just bad business practice in favor of the customer. If someone pretends to do a pro-job, but doesn't, and refuses to revision to satisfaction OR refund, i personally would call it fraud/deceit. Sure, this might be different in different countries as of different laws, but e.g. in Germany even an agreement upon a job in oral form is a legally valid contract with all consequences...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2016 18:26:27 GMT -6
PS: If in doubt i would also look up the ME in discogs for the credits to see, who his customers are. Also, from the amount of credits you can loosely see, how busy he really is and if he has satisfied customers that came back to have him do more work, which is a good sign....
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Post by rowmat on Mar 25, 2016 19:29:27 GMT -6
Cheap mastering doesn't have to be crap. Expensive mastering isn't always better.. Last album I sent out songs to 3 mastering engineers... One of the best in the world.. The best in Oz and the guy I had used for 10 years. I went with the one that sounded best.. regardless of price... He was in the middle with pricing, 1/3 of the best in Oz... and only slightly more than the guy I had used for 10 years. Bob Olhsson cheers Wiz I don't disagree. However the last two mastering jobs that were done using different clients preferred mastering people both ended up sounding worse than the pre-mastered mixes. If price is a reason for using some other mastering facility then I have no issue with that as long as the end result is of high quality. We already have someone who produces consistently good results where we can attend the mastering sessions and discuss any issues during mastering. The other alternative is DropBoxing someone some files and hoping they do a good job. If they don't, then you either have them do it again or find someone else. Instantly the few hundred dollars saved by the client becomes a load of extra work and frustration for everbody and time we could have spent more profitably elsewhere ourselves. Being able to personally attend mastering sessions avoids all that and is IMO worth it to get it right the first time.
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Mar 26, 2016 9:55:39 GMT -6
Since I never hesitated to ask Bob Ludwig or Doug Sax to do a revision when I was mixing in the '70s and '80s, I consider revisions to be an integral part of my mastering work.
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Post by Johnkenn on Mar 26, 2016 11:15:46 GMT -6
We have 'recording schools' spitting our hundreds and hundreds of 'audio engineers every year who expect to walk into our vocation and get to the top of the pack quickly. When they don't,. they buy $5000 worth of 'studio gear' and start new 'recording studios' and half of them can't make it doing this, so the half who did manage to glean enough work away from unsuspecting morons looking for a 'deal' farm out their 'mastering work' to these guys who then buy a $199 software package and become 'mastering engineers'... and pride themselves on happy face EQ curves and loudness maximizers so they just 'flat line' the music and get it Skrillex loud. That's the state of our profession. Oh, and they all watch Pensado's place and CLA videos and figure that very soon they'll be replacing Dave or Chris. And start thinking that cool looking compressor will make my stuff sound so much better! Well I fall for that shit over and over and over.
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Post by rowmat on Mar 26, 2016 14:58:11 GMT -6
Since I never hesitated to ask Bob Ludwig or Doug Sax to do a revision when I was mixing in the '70s and '80s, I consider revisions to be an integral part of my mastering work. We suggested to the client that they talk to the guy about their concerns and either have him 'try again' or refund them their money but they didn't want to go down that path. It seems the whole thing is complicated by the fact that they are friends with the mastering guy, he offered them what they felt was a special deal, and after hearing the result neither they, or ourselves, think he has much of an idea about how to treat acoustic music. If it was just a couple of minor issues here and there with the mastering then I'm sure they would have asked him for a revision but it was obvious he really either had no idea, or just pumped it out like it was a bunch of roll and roll covers. Maybe his forte is hard rock and EDM, I dunno?
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Post by rowmat on Mar 26, 2016 15:10:31 GMT -6
PS: If in doubt i would also look up the ME in discogs for the credits to see, who his customers are. Also, from the amount of credits you can loosely see, how busy he really is and if he has satisfied customers that came back to have him do more work, which is a good sign.... I don't even know who their mastering guy was. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure they didn't tell me who he was by name or I would have checked his credentials and work history. Maybe they did but he didn't 'ring any bells' which, in hindsight, should have probably rung some bells! They just said he was a really nice guy who ran a recording studio and also did mastering. It was obvious at the time they had made their mind up they were going to use him so all we asked was if we could hear the album after it was mastered. In the end our concerns mimicked theirs.
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