Mastering engineers: a relic of the past?

[pklima]

That's the question here. Substack post, free for 48 hours, no idea how many of those hours are up now.

Is Mastering a Myth?

In short, though, does not using mastering engineers just save money and time and sound no worse? Are mastering engineers just a vestigial part of the industry?

Unsurprisingly, I agree. I've been doing this for years just out of being cheap, pretty much what they say: listen on a variety of devices, stick reference tracks in a DJ mixer and crossfade between them and yours, and just do stuff in the box yourself. With streaming services making it kinda pointless to get louder than -14 LUFS, mastering got easier a few years ago, too. Though whether listening on a bunch of devices is faster than a few iterations of sending stuff off to somebody is arugable.

 

[lowphatbass]

I think it probably depends on what's being mastered. I've found that a good mastering engineer can pull a bit more "life" and detail out of a mix.

 

[silky smoove]

With streaming services making it kinda pointless to get louder than -14 LUFS

This is a common misunderstanding. While the services may turn a louder master down when it exceeds -14 LUFS, there is definitely a sound to material mastered louder even if the final playback is at the same level. If you're mastering a pop, EDM, dance, modern metal, or bro country track and master to -14 LUFS it may be a little lacking when compared to commercial releases. Some material sounds great at -14 LUFS, but not all.

As to the topic of the thread; When people hire me they tend to expect that I'm going to do everything from recording all the way through final mastering. When I suggest bringing on a mastering engineer it's usually met with confusion and insistence that I just do it to save money. I'm a great recording engineer, a good mixer, and a just okay mastering engineer which is definitely its own thing, and I make all of that clear to clients. If a project has the budget for a mastering engineer I always push for it but it seems less and less common these days.

 

[AGCurry]

My one experience with paying (not a lot) for mastering convinced me that it's worth it, but obviously it comes down to how well the mastering job turns out.

First, I think that the skills and techniques involved are quite different from recording and mixing.

Second, by the time I have mixed a piece, I've lost a lot of objectivity - I can't judge what other listeners will think about it - and it's valuable to have a fresh set of ears work on it. The master engineer can suggest changes to the mix that I may not have considered.

Third, I have significant hearing loss. I wear hearing aids but can't really trust them to tune my ears to "20/20" hearing.

 

[David Vector]

I definitely agree about the value of getting a set of experienced ears working in a treated space on high-end gear having a listen before calling it good. Even though the mastering engineer on my most recent album basically told me my mixes stacked up well with what he gets from professional engineers and that he really didn't feel the need to do much, it was worth spending five bills to me just to have that reassurance that I hadn't screwed anything up in any serious way from an objective outside party. I think that last step of "quality control" can be especially good when you do everything yourself like I do. Forest/trees and all that.

 

[Flamingo21]

Even though the mastering engineer on my most recent album basically told me my mixes stacked up well with what he gets from professional engineers and that he really didn't feel the need to do much, it was worth spending five bills to me just to have that reassurance that I hadn't screwed anything up in any serious way from an objective outside party.

That's interesting. Do you feel that with time and experience, you may not need them as much in the future?

 

[David Vector]

That's interesting. Do you feel that with time and experience, you may not need them as much in the future?

I think I'll probably always feel more confident putting something out there when I've had that extra "quality check". Especially given how much I change things up from one album to the next (this last one was very synth-based, whereas the next one is more guitar heavy). I think anytime you change things up, even when you've done it a lot, there's the potential to go off track. Working alone, you can get so close to something, you might not hear flaws as clearly as someone who's never heard it before.

Conversely, you can also obsess about small flaws to an excessive degree that nobody else listening to your music would, but that's a whole other thing, hehe...

 

[seamonkey]

Not like LP, Tapes, or even CD's, ... There's not really a lot of limitations to the media that you would master down to these days. The output media is as good as the input media.
Even youtube turns out to be as good as any streaming or download format.

Mastering is like a BETA test.

With all the bandwidth and cheap but accurate storage, maybe the next recording phase will be more like stems where a bunch of isolated tracks can be released and allow the end listener to mix it themselves. I'd like to hear individual tracks sometimes, and then a final mix from a critical listening master musician.

 

[silky smoove]

Even youtube turns out to be as good as any streaming or download format.

Excellent point. I always laugh when I see people complaining about YouTube's compression and then point to Spotify for a better listen of a specific song. Grab a copy of MeterPlugs Loudness Penalty and you'll see that they're +/- 1db of each other in terms of integrated LUFS.

 

[Krisfield]

I follow a Mastering Engineer on Youtube called Streaky. He describes himself as quality assurance stage in the process. Quite often he'll send mixes back to the mix engineer to make those adjustments the mastering engineer can't get too. Makes sense to me to add another set of ears in the recording process if the final product is going to be to a standard. The artist has the sign-off and completed though.

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

I've had very good success with an AI-based mastering plugin called Ozone. There are others out there. Doesn't mean mastering engineers are extinct. But for the majority of us in the "homebrew" recording club, AI will satisfy most of our needs. My final products have seen substantial improvement since using this plugin.

Ozone 9 Features

A good roundup of options: The 17 Best Mastering Plugins in 2021 (For Any Genre!)

 

[hbarcat]

. . . does not using mastering engineers just save money and time and sound no worse?

With few exceptions, no.

Are mastering engineers just a vestigial part of the industry?

I sincerely hope not.

. . . listen on a variety of devices, stick reference tracks in a DJ mixer and crossfade between them and yours, and just do stuff in the box yourself.

It's knowing what "stuff" to do that makes good mastering engineers so valuable.

The purpose of mastering is to make the music sound better.

That seems obvious, but what's "better" is always subjective. An expert masterer will have developed an intuitive feel for what makes the music sound as good as it possibly can, given the circumstances of the expectations of the intended audience and the playback format.

Having learned to record, mix, and master my own music and music for some of my musician friends in the 80s and 90s on reel to reel tape and analogue gear, I now appreciate the power and convenience of modern computer software throughout the process.

But I also appreciate how this capability leads so many people to believe that anyone with a cheap DAW can click on a few presets and achieve a great sounding master. When I slowly migrated to in-the-box, I quickly figured out that better results were possible by manually selecting processing parameters, compared to using the primitive presets.

This is still true today. While the available presets are vastly better, it's because the processing is so much more sophisticated. Which means you can get even better results by manually adjusting each process - but only if you have the experience to understand exactly how these processes work.

 

[silky smoove]

I've had very good success with an AI-based mastering plugin called Ozone. There are others out there. Doesn't mean mastering engineers are extinct. But for the majority of us in the "homebrew" recording club, AI will satisfy most of our needs. My final products have seen substantial improvement since using this plugin.

Ozone 9 Features

A good roundup of options: The 17 Best Mastering Plugins in 2021 (For Any Genre!)

The trick with Ozone is understanding that its AI will always target -14 LUFS. Maybe that's appropriate but certainly not for all material. The AI does a better job than most novices, but even at that level it pays to educate yourself on how the limiter section works and manually adjust things to an appropriate LUFS for the genre manually.

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

The trick with Ozone is understanding that its AI will always target -14 LUFS. Maybe that's appropriate but certainly not for all material. The AI does a better job than most novices, but even at that level it pays to educate yourself on how the limiter section works and manually adjust things to an appropriate LUFS for the genre manually.

Ozone lets you set the LUFS specification you desire to control the algorithm. Read about it in this tutorial.
Mastering basics with iZotope's Ozone 9 Elements: Maximizer - Blog | Splice.

 

[silky smoove]

Ozone lets you set the LUFS specification you desire to control the algorithm. Read about it in this tutorial.
Mastering basics with iZotope's Ozone 9 Elements: Maximizer - Blog | Splice.

I use Ozone all the time as a "volume comparable to commercial mixes" tool in my studio. I'm well aware of how to use it to adjust the integrated LUFS on a track and how to use its "learn" feature as well. My point is that most people hit the 'Mastering Assistant' button in Ozone and assume it's done. That's a bad way to operate and is the way most use Ozone.

 

[buldog5151bass]

It depends on how high quality a product you want. I can cook fairly well, but I'm not a chef. I'm a decent bassist, but I'm not Geddy Lee.

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

I use Ozone all the time as a "volume comparable to commercial mixes" tool in my studio. I'm well aware of how to use it to adjust the integrated LUFS on a track and how to use its "learn" feature as well. My point is that most people hit the 'Mastering Assistant' button in Ozone and assume it's done. That's a bad way to operate and is the way most use Ozone.

I believe the mindless approach you describe reflects not understanding how an algorithm works. Ozone does position itself as a "starting point," but understanding how to tweak an algorithm (even by point-and-click options) can be a bit intimidating for many. Especially if they're not really on top of basic EQ and other controls. Controlling the sound of music is a massive challenge. Takes a long time to get your arms around the pieces, and it's easy to forget much of it if you're not constantly working through the process. One-click solutions are an understandable lure.

 

[silky smoove]

I believe the mindless approach you describe reflects not understanding how an algorithm works.

I agree. Between that general misunderstanding and the globally bad idea that since the streaming services set the final output of music uploaded to them to "around -14 LUFS" that you don't need to master any hotter than that, it all leads to people that see -14 as the default in Ozone and a button that does the work for you, and the result is poorly mastered material. Wow, what a run-on sentence

It's a case of lowering the bar to the point of accessibility and then people never going beyond that limited understanding. There's much more to a good master than just hitting the mastering assistant in Ozone and calling it a day, but since it's an option I've seen a LOT of people fall into the trap of thinking that once they hit that button they have a good master.

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

There's much more to a good master than just hitting the mastering assistant in Ozone and calling it a day, but since it's an option I've seen a LOT of people fall into the trap of thinking that once they hit that button they have a good master.

Ironically, even that result is probably much better than their usually 'wing it' efforts!

 

[silky smoove]

Ironically, even that result is probably much better than their usually 'wing it' efforts!

Well, you're certainly not wrong, haha. I've heard similar things of the various online mastering services like Landr, and... the names of the others escape me. Probably better than a novice just winging it, but far from what I would consider a good master.