Mastering - is it as important as it used to be?

maccored

I know the basic answer is yes, but considering mastering was introduced for vinyl and the grooves etc etc .. is it as necessary now to have it professionally done rather than send it to someone with good ears and a half decently set up monitoring room?

I've heard stuff mastered by people like Bob Katz, and then the same material mastered by an amateur in the states and I actually preferred the amateur's attempt.

judas101

It can be overdone but is very important.

Personally, I like a bit rough/unpolished finish.

curly.bert

Mastering is a bit of black art, but I couldn't stress its importance enough. It's not that expensive to get a decent engineer with good gear to give your tracks a proper polish. I notice a lot of people are using 'star' engineers like Streaky or Katz and paying a small fortune for it. I 'm not even sure if they actually do the work themselves, or subcontract it out to some lackey (I have heard this anecdotally, but have no evidence beyond that)

Anyway, I can tell you from someone who listens to a lot of records for a living, badly mastered material usually goes in the bin. Some amateurs don't know how to use EQ or understand what multiband compression might do to an audio file - come to think of it, some professionals don't know either!

I received a track during the week that was obviously mastered by an amateur as the dynamic range on the track was completely destroyed by heavy compression. It sounded like someone was punching my ears through a paper bag. Into the bin it went - I'd be pretty sure anyone who receives the track will do the same.

For what it's worth, Richard Dowling (www.wavmastering.com) in Limerick does great work at a reasonable price. His clients include internationals acts like Kylie Minogue, Dangermouse, Jools Holland, Interpol as well as local heroes Ham Sandwich, Ladydoll and Stiff Little Fingers.

wax

These days with so much access to cheap/free music editing software bands often think they may as well give it a go to master their track themselves. They know the basics like putting reverb on vox and compression/gating on drums etc. but not much else. I believe that its well worth saving up and getting fresh ears to finish your track.
A good engineer can really help a mediocre band but a bad engineer can destroy a good band.

curly.bert

wax wrote: »

A good engineer can really help a mediocre band but a bad engineer can destroy a good band.

+1