>how does one become a mastering engineer?

One knows ones shit! :)

1) Listen to lots of ALL types of music.
1a) Even music you don't especially "like".
2) Check out as many live performances as possible. See how things sound for real before recording & processing.
3) Apprentice at a mastering studio & learn from the engineers there. Put in long hours getting the hang of the equipment. Ask questions. Then ask more questions & practice more.
4) Practice lots on your own work or that of friends. Listen to your masters on different systems to see if you're on the right track. Try to envision in your head how you would like your music to sound, then figure out how to get it there.
5) If you have software at home practice there too & listen to the results in other listening enviornments.
6) I don't even know of any "mastering schools". I learned on the job, so can you.

This is the way most people do it.

1. Buy a computer, the cheaper the better.
2. Go to Radio Shack and get some bookshelf speakers. Put some of those cool vinyl flower decals on them.
3. Find a spare bedroom with lots of nasty reflections. Remove the "echo" with egg crates and Farah Faucet posters.
4. Get T-Racks.
5. Congratulations! you're an instant mastering engineer! ;)

I recognize sarcasm….

…but since your questions seem sincere, Don’s advice is sound. Time and experience are the best teachers. Copious practice and experimentation will help you find your own creative style. If you can find someone to mentor you, it will save you having to reinvent the wheel.

Unfortunately, many people have taken the route laid out by John, sarcasm aside. IMO there is far too much of this bedroom bullsh*t mastering occurring. It gives the biz a bad rep and turns many people who really could use the services of a good mastering facility off to the benefits of the craft.

Kurt,

You are absolutely correct. I don't know how to beat that dead horse anymore. Buying "mastering software" does NOT make you a mastering engineer. Period.

And use spell check, please. Communication skills allow you to translate your clients wishes to good finished masters. With all respect!

Haha.. I can just imagine Disney getting their latest soundtrack back from a really reputable mastering house with the note:

"LOL heres ur trackz iv increase the bass punch n stuff oh and also pls pay up i need the moneys to eat LOL j/k. NJOY!"

Ok Ok!! Geez, I skip the spell check once and I get a raft! :D hee-hee-hee sorry! BTW I fixed it.

Originally posted by falkon2:
"LOL heres ur trackz iv increase the bass punch n stuff oh and also pls pay up i need the moneys to eat LOL j/k. NJOY!"

And Disney replies "Head up! got da wav flamin givn it a kick oer 2 4 xra boom /peaze out--Laney
pe es $? 90daze..aways dat way :D

--Rick

a tip: go to Amazon.com and buy Bob katz Mastering Audio book. It is much better than the MEH by Bob Owsinski.

Originally posted by Alécio Costa - Brazil:
a tip: go to Amazon.com and buy Bob katz Mastering Audio book. It is much better than the MEH by Bob Owsinski.

Except that I probably got more out of Bobby Owinski's interviews in terms of overall mastering-life-lessons.

Being a mastering engineer is weird, and has very little bearing on gear, except that the monitoring chain and room are of paramount importance, and the rest (of the gear) will fall in line after that. It's also important to be flexible, easy to work with, and willing to set your ego on the shelf when you go to work.

That plus your chops, which usually require learing from someone good, and always require time.

Definately seek out work with a mastering house.
BUT, if you interview at a regular studio, never tell them you want to be a mastering engineer. They roll their eyes while thinking, "Oh great, another anti-social type who likes to sit in the dark alone and listen (really listen)to music." Interview over, "Next please."
Been there. :c:

This is for captain_analog only:

"Oh great, another anti-social type who likes to sit in the dark alone and listen (really listen)to music." Interview over, "Next please."

It's something for you to think about.
It's about something that was going on at full throttle in junior high and a little in high school. It's about something that continues to go on when you leave there and try to join into other groups as an adult. It's about the so called "in crowd" which is what I think that you are alluding to in your comment above. In this case the "in crowd" is the guys all ready working at a mastering engineer facility.

Article- Why are nerds unpopular?

http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

My apologies to the others in this string of postings. I didn't mean to derail the topic of conversation. Please ignore this specific posting as it was just meant to communicate something directly to captain_analog.

Just for the record, RO's ubb has a feature called "Private Message" which is akin to email. Very neat feature, almost standard issue in any online message board.

All kidding aside, I own a home studio and am in the process of "creating" my bands cd. I came to the realization quite a while ago that although I may have the ability to produce a decent quality cd mix - I don't - in any way shape or manner - possess the talent to master the product. It takes a particular type of human being to do this - and I (unfortunately) do not fit into this mold. Good luck in your endevors - I strongly endorse the suggestion that you find a studio that will consider taking you under their wing as it were......... some studios do still have programs for internships........

Rod

In vehement defense of the mastering b.s. bedroom engineers out there I have to say that our bands can't stand the pro mastering price tag per hour so perhaps we could discuss the costs of studio time and the folks who are willing to come down in price for the bands who want great mastering but are'nt famous.P.S.Maybe it's just me but costs at major studios are cloaked in secrecy which is the oldest trick in the book for keeping costs too high and impossible to compare with any ease.

Pro mastering costs what it does, because it is worth it. Don't expect these people to lower their prices to accommodate your lack of funds. If they were to do that they would soon be out of business. I assure you they structure their prices as low as possible. Years of experience, listening environments that are very expensive to construct, equipment that constantly needs upgrading (especially in the case of the digital gear) all play into the costs. You don't get something for nothing.

If you do not plan to release your material in the commercial marketplace then you probably don't need professional mastering. But if you are going to release, take a hint from the major labels.. get a pro mastering house to help you make the most of your recordings. But as far as the BS bedroom mastering guy, fuggedaboudit!

I understand the concern about cost - but if what you want is a truly professional product - you really can't do without it.

There are quite a few sites out there that master at what i consider a reasonable fee- and their fees are posted.

Do what i am doing and try a google search for mastering firms. Check them out before doing business - but you'll find that you can get some real decent deals out their without the need to sell your soul to the devil.

For the record - one of the resons that people who master can charge what they do - it's a specialty that only a few ever really get right.

Not much different than doctors - you pay less for a Doctor in a family practice - but i wouldn't want him operating on a tumor in my brain.

Good luck in your search.

Rod

Hey,

I have to agree that the best way to learn mastering is from an "experienced" mastering engineer. While a quality monitoring system (with proper A/Bing capability) is of paramount importance, your ears and the knowledge that you have gained from the work that you've done are the most important pieces of the mastering chain.

If you're just starting out don't worry about super high-end components, buy quality gear that fits your budget. Learn proper wiring standards to put it all together and then practice, learn to get the most out of the gear you do have. In time as you develop your skill, and your client list, you will be able to afford the high-end boxes the "A" guys use.

As for hearing the subtle changes often used in mastering, that will follow as you gain experience working in your mastering room. To me that is so important, a good mastering engineer has an intimate relationship with his room and has learned to hear the slightest changes that are being made.

Finally don't get discouraged, not every record needs the "Midas" touch of an "A" list mastering guru. Find and internship, work on your chops and listen listen listen. Oh, and try to have fun.

peace

We do no one a service by encouraging their delusions. It does absolutely no good to train your ears or to attempt to learn the mastering craft in a crap room. And I’m not talking about installing some bass traps and absorbers either. It takes much more than that! I’m speaking of real acoustic design. This is so much what quality mastering is about and so much what everyone else is missing. To critically listen and make adjustments, you must be in an accurate listening environment. Bass trapping and absorption will make a bedroom, living room or other small area more useable but it will not make it accurate! Accuracy requires space and design. Without that, the best $10,000 speaker wires, eq’s, compressors, computer programs, plug ins and "Golden Ears" are worthless. First, put a couple of hundred thousand dollars into the room and then you can go for all the other stuff! Otherwise you're just fooling yourself (and your ears). This is one reason why mastering is so expensive. Real Estate!!!

I thought Mercenary's post was a good one. I'm all for encouragement. Do the best with what you've got. If your room's not perfect learn to adapt and compensate. Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. With dedication and persistence you can accomplish your goal. Just because someone has a fancy kitchen doesn't mean they know how to cook. Be honest with yourself and know your shortcomings. Find a friend who's also into learning mastering and bounce your mixes off of each other so that you can help each other out.

Yep! And I’m gonna spend money and work on my Ford Pinto until it rides as nice as a Town Car… :roll: Seriously, do you really think that someone in a spare room, with low ceilings, a small volume room, limited gear and experience is ever going to be able to do what Joe Lambert, Michael Fossenkemper, Don Grossinger, Doug Milton, Bob Ludwig or Bernie Grundman can do for a song? I suppose we will have to agree as Gentlemen, to disagree..

I think I must very repectfully disagree with Mr Foster. I learned the skills I later turned into a mastering career from EQing live music tapes from audience recordings. Having a 10 band per channel Soundcraftsman EQ was hot stuff. Later I polished those skills doing live sound mixes at small clubs for a wide variety of music styles & performers.

When I finally got into a mastering studio, the room acoustics were not perfect either. I learned the room & compensated. I did some good work under less than ideal conditions.

Having a good room helps a lot. It removes lots of guesswork. But I don't think it is absolutely mandatory. You really DO have to KNOW your room & what it does acoustically. Precision mastering requires practice & knowledge. I know a number of mastering rooms that do not have perfect acoustics but good engineers make them work.

You may not get that Pinto to ride like a Town Car, but it may be a terrific Pinto. Maybe next time you can move up to that Town Car. They all evolved from a Model T.

Sorry to bring up an old thread but maybe I could get some opinions from the more experienced...

I occasionally get some jobs 'mastering' classical music, which I love to do. I trust my ears and that takes me pretty far, but I would definately not call myself a mastering engineer, not having the foundation of working in a mastering room.

So my question is how do you think one is to get real experience in high-end work? Am I jaded, or is interning to really learn the art a dead concept (in NYC anyways)? I've learned alot from sitting in on some friends sessions, but $300/hour lessons are a little steep for me

Michael

hey, I am trying to climb Everest on here. No top mastering enginer to teach me. However, lots of curiosity, will, reading nice books, asking lots of guys. Funny, but I had a JUNIOR mastering nominated a few years ago to the equivalent of USa Grammy. It was done just with a Q10, Tc Master x and a Power dither TDM.
I wished had a better room, more accurate monitors ( in the way to go already) and better tools. I think besides gear, talent and gifted years are more or as important as.
I have seen in a few times lots of PRO facilities do lots of shit to my mixes. Erros like misteeing compressor attack time and will the stupid goal of following the loudest´s CD on the charts.
I totally agree with Don.
If I need to wait until someday I have a manley or an avalon or some top guy close to me to try to improve in this area, I´d bettet give up and do with anything else.

Attached files

Gifted "ears" and gifted "years" is what I meant.
Thanks
:)

Kurt wrote :

Yep! And I’m gonna spend money and work on my Ford Pinto until it rides as nice as a Town Car… Seriously, do you really think that someone in a spare room, with low ceilings, a small volume room, limited gear and experience is ever going to be able to do what Joe Lambert, Michael Fossenkemper, Don Grossinger, Doug Milton, Bob Ludwig or Bernie Grundman can do for a song? I suppose we will have to agree as Gentlemen, to disagree..

Kurt! I will agree with Don on this!
This is also a talk about becomming a mastering engineer, I think your posting describes that this is not your field. ;)

Kurt! everything can get better.
The importent thing is that you are deticated to your work, and your are willing to improove.

Regards

Originally posted by Henrik Ammitsboel:
Kurt! I will agree with Don on this!
This is also a talk about becoming a mastering engineer, I think your posting describes that this is not your field.

Heinrik,
You are correct. I am not a mastering engineer although I have done some mastering for clients at times and often when I have sent a project out to be mastered it has been returned with a note from the M.E. saying there wasn't much of anything left for them to do (everything was eq'ed correctly and levels were where they needed to be).

I feel that a true M.E. should have much better hearing than I do and although Don (who I would differ to anytime, after all he's the one working at Europadisk) says he has worked in rooms that were less than ideal with good results, if I were going to send out a project I had done, I would still want a facility that had great acoustics as well as gear and engineers.

My comments were aimed more at supporting all the fine M.E.s here and their facilities and to point out that the bedroom mastering approach is flawed, rather than to imply that I am a M.E.

I know that I use automobile analogies often but I just can't help it. It seems to be the best way to communicate what I am trying to say. A VW beetle is a great car, they work very well and are easy to operate. But VW beetle would be absolutely no good for towing a semi trailer. Well it's sort of the same thing. I am an unabashed fan of great talent, great songs, great gear, great rooms and great ears. To me, nothing else will suffice for my work and I wouldn't waste my time settling for less. When I talk on the subject of audio, it is this that I communicate.

If a person sets a goal, they will achieve it if they want it bad enough. Setting a goal of lowered expectations will only result in lesser results. I firmly believe that anything is possible so why not aim for the best? I don't understand people who are willing to settle for less. And if they want to criticize me or get upset with me because I am saying something they don't want to hear, that's their problem, not mine. I feel I am here to give the best advice I possibly can, not to encourage people to do things half assed or to validate their bad choices. I personally feel that to do that is a disservice to all. Kurt

Kurt, I think we agree on this! :)
No one should settle for less!

I just think it's fine to start out with what you can affort, and then build your way up as you affort more and better.

In your other reply you just wrote a statement that totaly disagreed with this.

I'm an upcomming mastering engineer from DK and i get what i can affort right now, it's a compromise of new and custom gear build by myself.
I have a strong believe in myself and my ears in what I'm already doing. I also feel that I'm learning fast, and it is all comming to me I just have to grap it ;)

For now I don't belive in setting goals for yourself.
When on work my focus is on getting the sound better and better.... I then loose track of time because the audio is just making me high :p
And that makes me better and better to do my job.

I have one goal for know, and that is to satisfy myself with optimising my skills and gear!
I think that clients will come more often when they hear what I can do.

But you should be carefull that your goals don't mess up what your allready doing.

Regards

this is an old thread returned....

all of the MO's here started at some point with considerably less than they have now. In fact the only ME that I know of that came out with a huge setup is Emily Lazar, but not all of us come from money. Kurt likes car analogies so i'll use one. before one becomes a formula one racer, they learn to drive on go karts. work up to cars, then to stock cars, then to nascars, then to formula one cars. You learn from the ground up. There are 3 kinds of mastering engineers, ones that think they can, ones that hope they can, and ones that know they can. you have to decide where you fall into and go from there.

The ones that think they can usually have the basic tools but no experience and are not really listening to what they are doing. The ones that hope they can have begun to listen to what they are doing and realize what their limitations are and what they need to improve on. the ones that know they can have the experience and know what they need to do to get to where they need to go and what they need to do it with. ME's are a work in progress, constantly trying to improve.

Originally posted by Jon Best:

Originally posted by Alécio Costa - Brazil:
a tip: go to Amazon.com and buy Bob katz Mastering Audio book. It is much better than the MEH by Bob Owsinski.

Except that I probably got more out of Bobby Owinski's interviews in terms of overall mastering-life-lessons.

Being a mastering engineer is weird, and has very little bearing on gear, except that the monitoring chain and room are of paramount importance, and the rest (of the gear) will fall in line after that. It's also important to be flexible, easy to work with, and willing to set your ego on the shelf when you go to work.

That plus your chops, which usually require learing from someone good, and always require time.

Doh!!! Damned arthritis! ;)

listen listen...I'm nomaster but I have the ears of a bat ...so I have been told and I can pick out frequencies in a mix but even that is not enough.....the important sound is from the initial layout recording and mixing...I would suggest they start their way up the ladder...I'm at the bottom but hey I make a great footstool...like a shlumberger...mabe even a foot soul...like a prada...walking in all types of crap but still looking goooooooood...few less o's and I'm getting worshipped falsely

i'm sorry, what were we talking about :confused:

Mastering is both art and science. You can get the science in school or by reading books but the art must be learned and practiced every day.

What I tell my interns is that you should spend some time every day doing mastering for yourself, you should then take the mastering you have done and play it for your knowledgeable friends and for me and ask for their opinions.

You should also listen to what you have done against some of the best mastered songs mentioned in another thread on this board.

When you think you are ready then you should try mastering for someone as a favor and not charging them for it. This will give you the experience of working with a client present without time constraints or hassles.

After you have done this numerous times you may be able to do your first mastering session for hire and let the client dictate how long they want to work on the project by how much they are willing to pay.

Doing this a few times and again asking your knowledgeable friends about the results and again listening to what you have done against really well mastered songs will start you on the road to becoming a professional mastering engineer.

Add in a couple of years doing mastering full time and lots of experience with lots of different styles of music and you can start to call yourself a mastering engineer.

FWIW