Well, here's the situation. I'm doing a home studio recording. Nothing too fancy. But still going to be about 15+ tracks. Something I can look back on in 10 years and go... cool. I'm trying to be adaquitely prepared for mastering down the road later this year. I'm looking for reasonable work and reasonable prices, since I'm not a pro musician going out to make money off this... yet.
So my questions are:
1. For decent mastering, what kind of prices am I looking at? (per song, per hour, per album, whatever it is). I write songs that are anywhere from 3 minutes to 10 minutes long.
2. What kind of mixes does a mastering engineer want? I'm mixing down to 6-8 buses generally, one or two for guitar, one for bass, one or two for drums, and one or two for vocals. Is this satisfactory? Or do mastering engineers want less?
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Breezes. What I want as the mastering engineer is the origina
Breezes.
What I want as the mastering engineer is the original stereo mix. I can work from stems but this (in most cases) turns into mixing session and takes a lot more time. Mixing decisions should be made before you master. If you mix into a computer send the files, if you mix to a DAT then send that but first make a copy!Talk to the engineer before and get the specifics.
Send detailed notes, the proper sequence, the exact name of the file for each song. Label everything well.
As far as the cost.. it's like everything else you will get what you pay for. If you want a professional who does it everyday expect to pay at least a thousand. You should listen to records you like, If you like the sound of those records ( not just the songs) see who mastered them.
Feel free to email or call me at 212/262/3300 if you would like to discuss this further.
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1. Some charge by the minute, others by the project. 2. Gener
1. Some charge by the minute, others by the project.
2. Generally two bus. Occasionally they may want a separate vocal mix.