Are you seeking to open a commercial studio or are you seeking to setup a personal studio?

well i already have a project studio

well i already have a project studio...now i m planning to extend it...i m gonna put pro tools HD|3.... get some nice mic pre amps... i already have Genelecs in my studio... i m getting genelec 5.1 setup pretty soon too... so i just wanted to know 15K for the mastering equipment is it fine for a medium level project studio or do i have to put some more... and wht kind of equipment i can buy with this money

So you're going to be offering mastering services to people? I'm no expert but from what I know, if you really want to do it right, $15K won't be enough. Just depends what level of quality you want to offer. For example a single Massenburg Mastering EQ is $11,000. On the other hand there's tons of lower priced high quality gear around and you can certainly put together a respectable system for $15K if you shop smart and learn your gear well. I wish I had some specific gear recommendations for you but I don't have any experience with mastering setups. Good luck! 8-)

$15,000 is about 10% of what most mastering engineers have invested in their equipment and room and about 2% of what the top rooms have invested.

The one thing you need right off is a good room to monitor in. One that is acoustically treated and setup properly by an acoustical engineer. Just having Genelecs is meaningless unless they are properly setup in the room. This is especially true for surround mixing and mastering.

Are you going to use the same room for mastering as for recording? If so you may not hear all of the problems in the recording since you will be using the same equipment for listening to your recordings and mastering. This is especially true if your room is not acoustically setup.

The one good thing about going to a mastering engineer and not trying to do it yourself is that you have another set of trained ears listening to your material. Someone who is not tied to the project and does not know the history. He or she will be unbiased and will not be influenced by problems that you have encountered while doing the recording. They also will have the experience to do the mastering efficiently using the best equipment available.

If you want to do your own mastering then I would start with the room, get a good computer with dual monitors, lot of ram, fast hard disks and a fast processor and a good DAW program like Wavelab. I would work with plug ins and when you can afford it get a good equalizer and a good limiter/compressor to use as outboard equipment.

Honestly I would take the $15,000 and invest it in recording equipment and leave the mastering to someone else but I maybe biased since I am a Mastering Engineer.

Best of luck!

Thomas is giving good advice, you can outsource your mastering to someone highly skilled for a very fair price, and then it's their worry to keep up with all the gear, etc. :)

Anyhow, this might be a controversial thing to say, but if you are recording the entire album yourself and you know what you're doing, you may very well not need to have it mastered. Depends on the material, but certainly for the average garage band if your mixes/levels are all in line and the album tells a story, that may be enough... 8-)

Thomas, just curious if you could give a very loose ballpark figure on a project. 12 songs, all acoustic guitar with voice. 12 different singers, 12 different guitars, all well recorded in the same room using the same setup. How much approx. would it cost to have that mastered into a really top notch album? If you don't want to put a figure on it, that's cool, I understand. 8-)

I know this will open a can worms for all the professionals out there, but I master with a $300 program called Reason. I have consumer speakers my friend gave me when he got surround sound and two pairs of cheap headphones. I know all three sets very well. Not a single person who I've shown my masters to, compared to the professional version, have ever noticed a difference. Sure, about 1000 mastering engineers out of a world of 6 billion would notice something, but no one has a mode-treated car with Genelec speakers in the doors. No one turns on their iPod and listens with mastering headphones...

Sorry if that came out a bit harsh - I really just wanted to put some perspective on the amount of money that is spent on mastering. If someone can convince me that I am wrong, feel free to let me have it! :-)

headchem wrote: I know this will open a can worms for all the professionals out there, but I master with a $300 program called Reason. I have consumer speakers my friend gave me when he got surround sound and two pairs of cheap headphones. I know all three sets very well.

Wow. Your rates must be great since your investment has been so minimal.

headchem wrote: Not a single person who I've shown my masters to, compared to the professional version, have ever noticed a difference.

Doesn't mean a thing. My girlfriend can't hear the difference between a 24 bit/192kHz recording and an MP3, and I bet the people that you've shown your masters to have similar credibility, or lack therof. Have you ever asked a good mastering engineer to evaluate your work? Are you willing to state that your work is of the same caliber as theirs? Apparently you are.

headchem wrote: Sure, about 1000 mastering engineers out of a world of 6 billion would notice something, but no one has a mode-treated car with Genelec speakers in the doors. No one turns on their iPod and listens with mastering headphones...

And rather than offer that as an excuse for calling yourself a mastering engineer (something I am not) and butchering your work calling it "mastering", I say that just demonstrates the problems in pro audio today. Everyone calls themselves an engineer. Everyone thinks they can skimp on the cash outlay and just do it themselves. It reminds me of the cover of Mix a few months ago: "Who cares about quality?" Obviously you don't.

I, however, will not try to talk you out of what you're doing. I'm able to admit my inadequacies and work harder to get better. I nearly melted down mixing football for TV yesterday, but came out ahead because I took the time to reevaluate my working methods and realize where they needed to be improved. You obviously don't have that capacity. That's my competitive advantage over people like you in the job market.

Keep it up. It creates opportunity for those of us that care about audio quality.

Shezan, please don't listen to this guy if you're interested in doing things the right way. Listen to others here who can give you far better advice than I can.

Hey guys, well imho if you have the budget, there are loads of stuff you need to buy to open up/extend a mastering studio.

("Quality-Premium") AD/DA, EQ, Compression, Dejitter, Denoiser ( for restoration ) and probably better monitors ... I think its better to have a minimal signal flow with some good ad/da, eq/compress and some decent monitors for starters.

Weiss is well known to produce quality equipment and their gear is being used in most "top-notch" mastering houses. Their stuff is quite expensive though and out of reach for my budget.

Link : http://www.weiss.ch/gambit.html

If you add acoustic treatment to the budget as well, the budget is getting a bit higher than estimated.

Take care

There's a huge difference between mastering and creating an acceptable "final mix".

headchem wrote: I know this will open a can worms for all the professionals out there, but I master with a $300 program called Reason. I have consumer speakers my friend gave me when he got surround sound and two pairs of cheap headphones. I know all three sets very well. Not a single person who I've shown my masters to, compared to the professional version, have ever noticed a difference. Sure, about 1000 mastering engineers out of a world of 6 billion would notice something, but no one has a mode-treated car with Genelec speakers in the doors. No one turns on their iPod and listens with mastering headphones...

Sorry if that came out a bit harsh - I really just wanted to put some perspective on the amount of money that is spent on mastering. If someone can convince me that I am wrong, feel free to let me have it! :-)

Sorry to disagree and this is not a FLAME but

What you are doing is not in any sense of the word "MASTERING" but you and everyone else who does cheap "insert what ever word you want to call it" can do a lot of damage to the reputation of the whole mastering community.

If you ever get the chance to go to a real mastering studio and listen to what they are doing on their equipment with their monitoring system you will start to understand that what you are doing with a $300 program and a non treated room with some consumer speakers is not mastering. I'm sorry to say but you can't even properly judge what you are listening to let alone make improvement that will make the material sound better.

You may be able to do some of the things that a mastering engineer can do like fades and spacing of songs but to call what you are doing mastering is ludicrous and if your clients can't tell that what you are doing is not mastering then they deserve exactly what you are providing for them.

If you are happy doing what you are doing then do it. But if you are providing this as a service and charging for it then your clients are not getting a true mastering job on top quality equipment in a really great monitoring environment and you are calling yourself something that you are not - a mastering engineer.

Sorry to be harsh but those are the fact of life.

For $15k, you can build a bedroom mastering studio and master no budget projects, but they'll probably do it themselves anyway, so there's no market there. If I only had $15k and had to make a decission about what to spend it on, I'd look at plunking it into what you are already doing instead of doing a lot of things badly. I always felt that doing one thing better than others rather than doing a lot of things not as good as others is the way to go. When I look around at the people in this biz that last and make money, they do one thing and they do it well. The others come and go like interns who want to hang out with warrant. I'm not saying you can't do it, but who in their right mind would pay you for it? This isn't a dis, just approaching it like a client might.

Mastering with reason isn't mastering. I'm sorry. That's like saying i'm a composer and I use garage band, my grandma can't tell the difference. Or, i'm a filmaker because I shot a video of my nephew on my camcorder.

Shezad,

Listen to Michael. If you've only been engineering for two years and you have 15k then just upgrade your studio tracking and mixing wise. Unless you are really focused on mastering. Back in the day studios used to start people out mastering b.c if they screwed it up it wouldn't be the end of the world, they could go again. Now it seems that it is the most misunderstood part of the process. Mastering is as complex a process as mixing and/or recording. Here's what I tell my clients who are new to the recording process: "Not everyone can afford great tracking and mixing, but everyone can afford great mastering." The going rates for the big guys is about $10 a linear minute in my town, or some might charge a flat $100 bucks a song. I've been a tracking engineer full-time for 4 years, mixing for about 2, and about 8 years working part time and I have never and most likely will attempt to master.

To start out, I have the feeling that some people think that I was only talking about a good final mix, and not about mastering. To clarify, these are the devices and processes I use when mastering within Reason 3.0:

multi-band compressors, stereo imagers, high frequency harmonic enhancers, master reverb, dynamic filtering, upward expanders, plus all the usual devices: compression with side chain input, EQ, limiter, volume maximizer with soft clip. I'm currently working on a Reason patch to emulate the sound of the Vitalizer hardware.

Now, on to the debate. :-) I know experts are passionate, and I really do appreciate your input.

jdsdj98 wrote: Wow. Your rates must be great since your investment has been so minimal.

Yes, they are! Business 101: If you want higher profits, don't raise prices, rather cut your costs.

jdsdj98 wrote: My girlfriend can't hear the difference between a 24 bit/192kHz recording and an MP3, and I bet the people that you've shown your masters to have similar credibility, or lack thereof. Have you ever asked a good mastering engineer to evaluate your work? Are you willing to state that your work is of the same caliber as theirs? Apparently you are.

My girlfriend can't either, despite my attempts at teaching her... :-) For that matter, neither can 99% of my target audience. If I marketed my CDs to mastering engineers, sure, my masters are horrible. Luckily, I've decided that a target demographic of mastering engineers is too limiting and too demanding an audience.

jdsdj98 wrote: And rather than offer that as an excuse for calling yourself a mastering engineer (something I am not) and butchering your work calling it "mastering", I say that just demonstrates the problems in pro audio today. Everyone calls themselves an engineer. Everyone thinks they can skimp on the cash outlay and just do it themselves. It reminds me of the cover of Mix a few months ago: "Who cares about quality?" Obviously you don't.

No one but mastering engineers cares about that level of quality. No one but mastering engineers can even hear that level of quality. Mastering the business of subtlety, and subtlety isn't noticed by the average ear. I'd bet $15,000 that your masters beat the socks off of my masters, but I'd also bet that people like our girlfriends wouldn't be able to tell the difference. People like our girlfriends are the consumers. The cost of improving a master from 'good enough' to 'professional grade' increases exponentially. $15,000 just so some professional mastering engineers will say, "that's a good master!"? I have better ways to spend my money.

jdsdj98 wrote: I, however, will not try to talk you out of what you're doing. I'm able to admit my inadequacies and work harder to get better. ... That's my competitive advantage over people like you in the job market.Keep it up. It creates opportunity for those of us that care about audio quality.

I feel like this is a bit of an old school vs new school issue. It's not that I settle for crappy quality, I just have some relatively new technology (Reason 3.0) that allows me to get 'good enough' masters when previously I couldn't dream of having the cash for pro mastering gear. I think the devices and processes listed in my previous post is a decent list of gear. All I lack is a treated room and expensive monitors. But if I listen to reference material on my consumer speakers, and try to emulate the sound, will the result be close enough? I know answers to that question in this forum might be biased since if it is close enough, your jobs are suddenly threatened.

The same way musicians in the early part of the twentieth century felt when recording became possible. Their unions banned members from recording thinking it would put live musicians out of jobs.

I’ve always wondered if there’s been any research on whether or not there is a significant psychological advantage to professionally mastered music when compared to ‘good enough’ mastered music to justify the costs of pro mastering. I haven’t charged anyone yet for my ‘good enough’ mastering services, but I feel like this cost-effective-for-the-quality method could fill a consumer demand in semi-professional recording.

I really don't mean for this to be a flame or an attack on the usefulness of mastering engineers. The way technology is going, I think this is an important topic for everyone interested in mastering to discuss. I am perfectly willing to be convinced that my $300 methods really stand between me and a sucessful career. Let's hear the evidence! :-)

Sorry for the split up posts, but there was some special character in one paragraph that wouldn't let me post, so I split it up to try and find the problem.

headchem . . . if you are happy with the results you are getting fine.

This threads topic although is , how can this guy spend his 15k efficiently and there is no such process as side chaining in mastering.

Move over "limiter/volume maximizer/compressor/expander" in which you are referring as separate things are the same piece of gear used in different settings !

If you want to do a new vs old and cheap vs expensive or even software vs hardware talk i suggest you do it in another thread maybe ? :>

You may also consider that most people here are not trying to flame you to death but instead, help out based on the years of experience they have from working in the field.

Cya

Headchem-- Depends on your market. Do you really think "So" would have sold as much as it did if it hadn't been mastered to that level of quality? This is just my opinion but I say there's no chance.

To me there's absolutely no question whatsoever that a motivated mastering engineer with masterful skills can *always* make a project better than it was. Whether or not your specific audience will notice is dependent on your audience, but if you want to make albums that other producers rave about then there's no question that a good mastering engineer is one key component.

On the other side of the coin, if you are making indy albums on a tight budget then you will obviously derive more dollar value by just doing a really good mix and using your mastering budget for marketing instead. There's no question about that. It all comes down to what you're trying to achieve. 8-)

You're right Aztec, this probably should have been a separate thread... It was one of the spur-of-the-moment $15,000?! That's crazy, so I'll see what these people think if I suggest $300... I think it is good, though, to try to put this $15,000 into perspective for the more philosohhpical thinkers out there.

If the admins don't mind, I'm going to copy my long posts and put them in a new thread, if anyone wants to continue this discussion. So everyone responding to me, please use the new thread I'm about to make...

Sorry to distract all the big spenderz! ;-)

headchem wrote: No one but mastering engineers cares about that level of quality. No one but mastering engineers can even hear that level of quality. Mastering the business of subtlety, and subtlety isn't noticed by the average ear.

I'm not a mastering engineer, but I care.

Here's a hypothetical example. I'll take a song, professionally recorded, and bring it to two mastering studios; I'll bring it to your 'Reason 3.0' studio, and I'll bring it to a professional mastering studio. You do your best (since it's free, that's all I can hope for) and they'll do thier best (since I'm paying them, I expect they will). Take your version, and take thier version, crush it, compress it, put it on an iPod with $2 headphones, whatever. Show these two versions to someone, back to back, and ask them which one sounds "better". Don't ask why it sounds better or what specific quality the better one has over the other, just if one is better than the other.

I want the better one.

There is a certain quality in good mastering that you can hear, even if you can't say "ah, they used this type of EQ and this much compression". That doesn't mean it isn't there. All those 'subtleties', that you say people can't notice, make a difference to the end consumer. If I'm spending $20 on a CD, I want it to sound as good as it possibly can. Hell, if there were too versions out, one with a crappy mastering job and one with a great mastering job, and there was a $10 price difference, you bet I'd spend the extra.

There's two major differences between pro and am, equipment and ears. You gotta have both. It the level of the finished product will fall to the lowest common denominator: crappy equipment + good ears = crappy master. Fantastic equipment + mediocre ears = mediocre master.

headchem wrote: I am perfectly willing to be convinced that my $300 methods really stand between me and a sucessful career. Let's hear the evidence! :-)

How many of your masters are charting?

How many of your masters have sold enough units to actually earn your clients clear and worthwhile profits?

If that number is sufficiently high enough for you to feel you are riding on a succussful career then your $300-Method is perfectly valid.

What a bunch of pompous opinionated answers (answers is a euphemism) can you get?

Of course that is why you are here or perhaps in Pakistan?

The bottom line is you are on This forum to learn. You are in Pakistan to make money. I don't think I have ever purchased a hit record produced in Pakistan? You may be a beginner and you might be terrible as a mastering engineer but somehow I don't think anything that you master in Pakistan will have much influence on the American or European markets? To some in Pakistan, you may be considered a God?

Read what you can find and try to learn from it. Many of the above postings are valid in their own way and for their market share.

The process of mastering is an art and does not really have much to do with gear sluts. Through trial and error you will probably learn the art of mastering if you ever figure out the long-distance directions to Carnegie hall! (I will give you a hint --- practice practice practice)

You may become of the finer studios and mastering engineers in Pakistan? You will certainly find out when your bookings start to increase and your popularity along with it, provided you do a good and professional job.

Don't let these Caucasian "so and soes" burn your dreams. Try to make your room acoustically as good and as financially as possible and invest wisely in both hardware and software. There is no magic piece of equipment to purchase and no magic mastering engineer to consult with as you can tell by these highly opinionated answers you have just received here. As you can see by the previous postings everybody is extremely passionate and opinionated about their experience and know-how.

Like I always have said. It's not what you got, it's what you do with it. No amount of money will change that.

Good luck and happy mastering!

Ms. Remy Ann David

With over 35 years in major market recording arts and sciences, custom console designs and construction, recording studio and broadcast studio control room design and installations and maintenance, in major radio and television networks, a few major music award nominations, etc.. In short, nothing significant.

Who according to some people on this forum don't think I know a thing.

HA! What fools. They just don't believe that you could ever elevate yourself professionally to their level. How pompous can you get?

Sorry about their trite answers. They should be ashamed of themselves. "We are Americans and you will never be as good as us" and all that kind prejudice crap.

Boy for someone with "35 years experience" Remy you sure know nothing about people. The racist stuff is a nice touch. :-?

I haven't purchased any hit records in Pakistan, either. Then again, I've never been to Pakistan.

I don't understand what's going on here?

Regarding Reason 3.0's mastering suite, here's what I've found with it:

It's usually an improvement over typical stock plugs - especially Reason's native ones. However, when I rewired Reason so that I could use the UAD-1 one cards plugs, there was a night and day difference.

It really doesnt compare. Not only can you get signals hotter with negligable quality loss, but the stereo imaging and dynamics is superior - and it's *way* clearer sounding.

You dont buy Reason for it's "mastering" plugs, you buy it for the environment and it's cost-effective song writing capabilities. However, the UAD-1 is bought purely for it's sonic quality (Although the UAD-1 plugs have very pleasing interfaces).

UAD-1 is also a very cost effective option. Although I know that MEs usually prefer even higher quality tools, given the option between using UAD-1 and Reason, hardly any would choose the latter.

And no, I'm not a pro, but I've been working with audio for about a decade now, and can tell the quality difference between proccessors when I hear it.

I don't understand how some digital plug-ins / devices can sound better than others unless they color their own outputs in ways that simulates analoge hardware. Isn't an electron that gets recorded or processed on to the hard disk just the same as any other electron from any other digital plug-in?

I was always under the impression that the UADs just simulated the slight harmonic distortions found in analoge equipment. If that's the case, that would explain why many Reason users pass their stereo mix through a slight distortion before sending it to the mastering devices to remove the 'too-clean-to-be-true' digital sound.

But I could be completely wrong about all this - I was just speculating.

no, not quite true. some programs and plugins streamline their processing to give you the most bang for the buck. not all are created equal. each run the program through a digital audio engine and programmers decide what's important and what's not.

Some plug-ins intentionally seek to emulate analog gear, i.e. URS EQs, Bomb Factory Pultec, etc. whereas others do the opposite and seek to be as transparent as possible, the track EQs in Nuendo are rather like this for example. Then there's everything in between also, the only way to judge a plug-in is to use it. The playing field is way too wide open these days for any general assumptions to actually apply anymore... 8-)

FWIW both the emulation plug-ins and the transparent ones sound great, it's all a matter of context. :D

for recording, yes. not for mastering. Emulating plugins generally degrade a two track mix too much. If you are looking to get the most resolution and tranparency during mastering, then you can't expect a cheap plugin to do the job. Expensive plugin's and expensive harware are expensive for a purpose. I wish it were as cheap as buying a $200 plugin, i've tried them, they're cute and nostalgic, but not what anybody that pays good money wants on their master.

for recording, yes. not for mastering. Emulating plugins generally degrade a two track mix too much. If you are looking to get the most resolution and tranparency during mastering, then you can't expect a cheap plugin to do the job.

Yes, absolutely. 100% agreed. I should have specified, my bad. 8-)

Did Remy forget to take her pills or something? :? :-?
I don't get the Pakistani mastering engineer rant. Despite all her impressive credentials and experience.

:D

Hi

A friend of mine just mastered an album perfectly adequately using a UAD-1 card and the included plugs.

I have a powercore firewire which has TC system 6000 mastering algorithms....does the job. Multiband compression, limiting and eq...

If you want perfection, pay for it. If you want something good enough for mp3 and for your average punter, these PCI/firewire systems are fine.

Rhydian

Rhydian, you should check out this thread: http://recording.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=33713&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I think headchem would appreciate your input.

I would, indeed. Thanks for plugging it for me.

headchem wrote: I don't understand how some digital plug-ins / devices can sound better than others unless they color their own outputs in ways that simulates analoge hardware. Isn't an electron that gets recorded or processed on to the hard disk just the same as any other electron from any other digital plug-in?

I was always under the impression that the UADs just simulated the slight harmonic distortions found in analoge equipment. If that's the case, that would explain why many Reason users pass their stereo mix through a slight distortion before sending it to the mastering devices to remove the 'too-clean-to-be-true' digital sound.

But I could be completely wrong about all this - I was just speculating.

Aside from the emulation aspect others have mentioned, it's also a matter of result vs method. Digital processors just do math to get their results, so if two devices don't do the same math, you could end up with a different "sound" based on how many calculations need to be done with the data, what specifically is done, in what order, at what resolution, etc.

Not sure if the analogy will help, but consider a digital picture you want to double in size. If you just double the original picture, then boom, you have one result. If you first reduce the picture to half-size, then blow it up to 4x that new size, you end up with the same "double-sized" picture as the other method, but your result will be much grainier and of lower quality due to the specific way you got there.

Not that most music plugins would do something THAT drastically different mathwise, but the "how" is why each plugin sounds different, even if it essentially does the same thing.

That makes sense, thanks for explaining it. So, I guess this is the root to the software vs hardware debate on which sounds better. Funny how far off-topic we got, but that's how investigative conversations go...