the price drop and feature boost of software leads people to think that word makes you a writer and t-racks makes you a mastering engineer!!

many musicians also thinks that because they played piano for eight years they also know everything about sound/mastering...

and sadly... many of my customers have had bad experiences with mastering.... and maybe that leads people into thinking they can do better???

last but not least MONEY!!!!

noone wants to pay for anything anymore!!!

they use cracked software on a cheap windoze machine to produce lame records that everyone downloads for free!!

and record companies put out records that was NOT recorded by a sound engineer.... and was NOT mixed by a mixing engineer... and... you get it!!

well see Tom, it is money that plays a role, when a normal band ( and by normal i mean not endored by a paying label), decides to have mastering done, they realise two things, #1 they just spent 70 dollars an hour recording, and they are already bottomed out. They hear of mastering and are like, "thats what i need to do", so they go online and find out that mastering engineers charge a good sum of money. Although they have been told by the RE that mastering is essential, they realise that at the present time, they have a very tight budget, that is why one of the crafty members of the band ,downloads t-racks, and "masters his own work."

In the end, it all comes down to money, unless you have a label who is paying for all of the studio time and mastering and replication and endorsing the band and etc. , mastering seems like a dark and unnecessary term in you book.

love it all

I like to do everything becuase i simply love to do it. I can be in my home studio 24/7 and be happy. I would love to get the real studio experience but not for 50/hr

I think money plays a large role but I also think that because mastering has become the final bastion of professional engineers, every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along entertains the idea that they too, can become a mastering engineer.

An example, the individuals who frequent mastering forums for several months asking questions and pumping the experts for the secrets of room design, speaker and amp choice and how it is all interconnected, who then announce they are in business and will master a song free for any prospective client ...

I suspect that the home recordists that is most able to really do their own mastering (the ones with the gear and the ears) probably are the only ones who actually have a pro ME do their mastering, leaving the bullsh*t mastering to those who really don't have a clue ...

You are also right Kurt, but look at it this way. If i record a band and offer them, at extra charge mastering, and i manage to get good sounding material to them. Why not go for the extra $?

The band usually doesn't have enough money for pro mastering, so i slip in the extra mastering idea for a MUCH reduced price, im not going to charge them 100/song knowing that i don't do pro work. I charge them an extra 25/song, and feel that the money they pay me is worth the work that i do. If time comes where the band with which i am working is sponsored by a label or has loads of money, i send that material to a full scale pro mastering facility and they pay that studio the hefty fee.

I mean this idea of home mastering isn't for everyone, if you downright don't have a clue about how to master material, don't do it, but i've been doing this for 5 years now, and i feel compitent, not professional, but i feel that for my clients, the mastered material that they recieve colours and warms the mix, and comes out sounding good and just close to professional. 8-)

Almost any client that would have the same person, in the same room, on the same monitoring system master their mixes, doesn't understand what mastering is.

I don't even master my own mixes. Not on a bet. At least not without an additional and very trusted set of ears in the room...

All serious bands, producers, and engineers that I know don't do their own mastering. they send it out. Singer songwriters making a demo CD has their drummer master the record. After the 5th attempt, they end up calling a recommended ME. Personally, I like it this way. I only work on serious records with people that do this for a living and not a hobby.

thanks for the reply ,,, welcome to recording.org Massive Mastering!
(nice client list :D ) 8-)

Thanks, bennyg! Now, if I can only get my signature to work... Geez! It keeps adding goofy code to the end...

hey massive mastering, i remember back when i got into mastering, your site was one of the first i ran across, I love your setup, brings back memories of sitting in class dreaming about getting tons of gear! 8-)

Well, that couldn't have been that long ago... I mean I'm not really old or anything... Not really old... :?

hey massive mastering, what do you use Nuendo for, mastering? I mean what are Nuendo's mastering pourposes vs. Wavelab for instance, i have Nuendo Editing System for my recording studio and love it for recording, but mastering?

All I use WaveLab for is PQ editing and the burn. Any manipulation "in the box" is done in Nuendo. I do a lot of home & project stuff that requires a little more "massaging" than many other recordings... Depending on the job, I may have 4-6 copies of a single stereo track running in unison, all treated independently. As much as I love WaveLab, it doesn't love me when I need to really dig into the bag.

I'm sure it's a financial thing too. In many cases the recording process is done "in the box". The recording of a project costs little more than the computer & software combined. Sometimes a dedicated recording or mix engineer is brought in. But it seems to me that most of the costs involved are production & replication costs. A "mastering software package" is usually included or can be added on at minimal extra expence. People figure that they can do the job themselves & save all that $$$ they would have to pay a M.E.. Also some people have a hard time "letting go" of their baby.

The value of letting an experienced professional work on their project is downplayed or lost in the economic picture. For mastering to really be done right, a certain detatchment from the recording process must exist. Also, the room & setup must be such that educated decisions can be made about the final sound of the project as a whole. That's the real value of mastering.

the answer is having a project with a budget. If the project at hand is going places mastering is budgeted and figured in it. If like most most "recording and i hope I land a deal somewhere" projects out there, with just barely a budget eeked out from day jobs, mastering is way down the line, a nebulous equation at best. Michael said it best, he works with only serious projects with people who do it for a living and not for a hobby. That seems to be the bottom line. If you do it for a living you always have a budget for mastering.

Further elaborating on the subject: right now I am working on a couple of projects that I hope turn into a couple of movie deals. I am sending my demos to my contact, the excecutive producer of the movie company. You betcha I will do my damdest to make the best sounding demo I can give him but I don't think I will expend the extra grand for mastering. I just don't have the money to spend for something that I will have to redo anyway if I get the deal and the budget. If I get the go-ahead in any of these projects I will hire a studio and also real musiciand to redo the midi and loop parts. there will also be a budget for mastering, of course.

I think a lot of the people who are interested in mastering in our forums are just recording a CD for their band to sell at gigs and also to generate interest in their band. they are trying to get their CD's sounding as good as possible and you can't blame them for that. Of course, mastering will enhance their CD by a lot but the extra $$$ does hurt. And remeber, if this hypothetical band creates a buzz and gets a record deal, the label will more than likely re-record the tracks and of course, send it out to get mastered. everytime when a project changes from a hobby I-hope-I-get-it situation to a pro-recording situation, there will be a budget and money for mastering.

maintiger wrote: the answer is having a project with a budget. If the project at hand is going places mastering is budgeted and figured in it. If like most most "recording and i hope I land a deal somewhere" projects out there, with just barely a budget eeked out from day jobs, mastering is way down the line, a nebulous equation at best. Michael said it best, he works with only serious projects with people who do it for a living and not for a hobby. That seems to be the bottom line. If you do it for a living you always have a budget for mastering.

I understand that situation. I deal with MANY independent musicians and bands without contracts. Many of these folks DO sell their CDs at gigs, etc. But if you burn your fans who have just attended a show, and are coming out of the experience with a warm & fuzzy feeling toward the band, then the last thing I would want as a band is to ruin that impression when they get home & put on a CD that sounds like a home made project. Same thing with a demo going to a label with a possibility of signing a long desired contract.

If people save all kinds of budget by recording on their own, to me, the best place to put resources is into a good mastering job. This will allow you to compete with all the other CDs in the market.

PLAN AHEAD & give it a shot

It really makes a difference.

i wouldn't call it mastering, but why not try and make your mix as loud as possible yourself?..nuttin wrong with that is it?..if i ever get to release my own music commercially, i'll have it mastered in abbey road or whatever...(wich isn't insanely expensive b.t.w.)

hmm, that wouldn't work too well, see if a mix isn't compressed at all and all the levels are raised, your track is going to peak, and most cd replication towers will eject your cd if they sense this.

huub wrote: i wouldn't call it mastering, but why not try and make your mix as loud as possible yourself?..nuttin wrong with that is it?..if i ever get to release my own music commercially, i'll have it mastered in abbey road or whatever...(wich isn't insanely expensive b.t.w.)

From my point of view, making the mix "as loud as possible" is absolutely not mastering. This approch is what gives the mastering process a bad name.

Any project that goes out with your name on it, either to be sold anywhere or to be sent as a demo can benefit from real mastering. The sound of the music represents the sum total of the quality of the band. It is the way you present yourself to the world. I believe that attitude IS wrong, huub. Even if you want it done cheaply, bring it to someone with fresh ears, no preconcieved attitude about the lead singer (just for example) and a room & equipment you can trust.

I pretty much agree with Don on this subject. But I DO think someone can master their own material. And in our society, the D.I.Y. approach is popular from everything from home improvement to mastering. The question is whether or not a musician/band/engineer SHOULD master their own projects.

My favorite clients are the ones who have already tried to make their recordings sound "finished". They appreciate my services more than anyone else and are GREAT to work with. Then they ask, "how'd you get it to sound like that?" and I lie to them so that they go even deeper down the wrong path next time. (j/k) :-?

It's like when I first moved into my place, I did all the drywalling, but when we needed it done fast with the birth of my son, we hired someone, and he did it in like 1/10th of the time and it was a MILLION times better. Not that I regret doing the other stuff myself, as I could have never afforded to hire a professional for the whole house, but I have a real appreciation and respect for what the pro could do.

There's an equation that I think applies to anyone who wants to do their own mastering...
Experience X Gear X Natural Ability = 1/Relative time to get it done
If you have TONS of experince, you can get by with less of the other two. If you have a great room with great gear, and you really work hard at it, you will eventually get it to sound good. If you have a knack for making things sound good and understanding audio, you can get by with less experience and gear. Etc. Any zeros in the equation (no gear, or complete idiocy) means you'll never be able to finish.

Someone with lots of real world experience, world-class gear/room, and natural ability will get the best results the fastest. That's why those people get hired by the majors when they need things done correctly and quickly.

Jus' my 2¢

Thats the perfect answer mixandmaster, let people who want to master their own work do it themselves, but let these people be warned that they CANNOT AND WILLNOT achieve the same level of professionalism in their work as MEs. If they want their work to be at the next level and be pro. mastered, they should seek a ME and not do it themselves, but if they do not care about the professionalism, they have permission to try it themselves.

Also: Didn't most of the MEs start by doing their own mastering and taking it from there? (y) Let novices follow the same path 8-)

I did start by doing my own mastering and found that it can't be done as well as if someone else did it. I don't need the money for that one project as much as I value honesty and respect for the artist to give them the best that I can. That means turning it over to someone that's objective. I still mix projects now and then and most of them would like me to master it as well. The money would be nice since these are big projects with large budgets and they want me to do it. But there is a reason I've done big name acts for years and years. Of coarse i could do a good job, but not the best job. It never ceases to amaze me when i send a project out to be mastered and get it back. They enhanced things and brought out things that I would never have thought of and the project is better for it. The client is happy and returns for their next album. If it doesn't turn out the way everyone wants, I call the ME and discuss it with them. I apply the same principle to engineers that I master for. They get the project back and say I turned it into something that they are proud of.
Having been on both sides of the fence, I feel I understand the importance of this process. I can play guitar too. well you get my point. I hope all mix engineer's master their own projects so my clients can have the upper hand.

Something to think about when mastering your own mixes...

Not long ago, I had a band come in with their mixes AND mastered versions (mastered by the mix engineer). They pretty much just wanted me to make sure everything was cool, dither & "RedBook" it for them.

Right off the bat, I could tell that the recording/mix engineer's monitors had something strange going on at around 3.5k. Likely, a crossover thing. The mixes all had a weird thing going on around there that they didn't notice in the studio. On top of that, there were some "tribal" tom fills going on under some heavy guitars. I could *almost* hear the toms on the mastered mixes.

Thank Jeebus that they brought the raw mixes in also -

Now, I'm not "blaming" the engineer - This is what I see all the time from bands that had the mix engineer master the mixes. I'm sure *he* could hear those toms just fine. After all, he recorded them, he mixed them, he's heard them a hundred times. He's just used to hearing them. I, on the other hand, having never heard the mixes before, had an objective point of view and pointed out that the toms were behind an over-compressed wall of smashiness.

The 3.5k thing was easy to figure out - His monitors had a little "extra" in that range. Probably 3-way units. During recording, it was irritating and was cut a little. During mixing, the tracks added together made more to cut again. During "mastering," the compression again brought it into the forefront to be cut even more. By the time it got here, there was a giant hole in the upper mids centered around 3.5kHz. The mixes weren't nearly as defficient, so I mastered everything from the original mixes.

They were pretty happy at the end of the day - One of the tracks is going to be on a promotional compilation with somewhere between 750,000 and 2,000,000 copies released. Not something to take lightly.

I've had similar problems mastering my own mixes (which is basically why I won't anymore).

other than listening, is there a way to find out (online resource for ex.) about where you monitors lack?

Massive Mastering wrote: Right off the bat, I could tell that the recording/mix engineer's monitors had something strange going on at around 3.5k. Likely, a crossover thing. The mixes all had a weird thing going on around there that they didn't notice in the studio.

Yeah, this one studio that I get stuff from has the same thing with lows in reference to their sub crossover. It ranges anywhere from 80-150 hZ. There's just slop around where the mains and sub meet - nothing they can do about it in the studio. Otherwise the mixes are outstanding and I don't have to do much of anything.

bennyg wrote: other than listening, is there a way to find out (online resource for ex.) about where you monitors lack?

There should be a frequency response curve somewhere in the owner's manual. This does not take into account the accoustics of your room, though.

A couple of people have mentioned the "money" thing as to why they don't go to a professional mastering house but they also are wanting to purchase something (insert name of equalizer, compressor or whatever) that will make their mixes sound more "professional" and mention that they have $$$ to spend on that item. So the money seems to be there but it is not there for hiring a professional mastering house to do the work.

There are many people that are very good at mastering that don't charge an arm and a leg for their services. Most mastering that we do gets billed out in the $400 to $600 dollar range for 10 to 12 songs.

So I think it is not really the money angle per se but how they want to spend that money and a new "toy" wins almost all the time. I think that they are saying to themselves that after they have a (insert name) they can always use it for other things and even if they don't want to take the time to learn how to use it they can always tell their friends that they have a (insert name) in the studio. And having one of those (insert name) will certainly attract new clients.

I agree with Tom. Buying that "thing / software" is a choice of allocation of resources. Spending it on something that might be used later rather than the best job for mastering the project at hand. But as we have said before, equipment alone does not make a mastering engineer. Mixandmaster had a good post as well.

BTW, I started in mastering after doing years of live sound for many and varied artists. Everything from Beebop jazz to Bluegrass & hard rock. This was great training. It was global, real time & you couldn't go back & fix it later in the mix. Then I got into mastering & started all over again, from the bottom, learning from experienced engineers who taught me lessons I'm still using on a daily basis. So there are all sorts of ways to break in.

I look at it this way, and don't get me wrong, i have send tons of clients works to pro mastering studios before when i knew that they had the money to pay for mastering.

If #1 ... If the client has the money, the first thing that i tell them is that i know a professional mastering studio that charges 100/song, and i send their material to that studio.

If #2 ... If the do not have any money left over after the hefty recording fees, which happens maybe 60% of the time, i tell them that for an extra 20/song, i myself will master their work, and i do, and the restult comes out sounding great, not as great as the pro studio, but very much competable.

Also to Thomas, you are right in many ways, when people purchase equip to do mastering, they could have always taken the pro mastering path for the same money, but look at it this way, if someone wants to learn how to master, and they purchased the equip instead of using that money for pro mastering, that is something they feel that they rightfuly chose... 8-)

Benny
The reason not to master a band you just recorded and mixed for a little extra money is because the project will ultimately sound superior if done by a top mastering engineer.
This also makes you look better. Because you can play a record you worked on and it will sound world class instead of sounding like a good demo.
This is not a knock on your engineering at all. But 99% pf the records that are not properly mastered, (when I say this I mean someone who really knows there craft.) will not sound like a world class record.
You will get more work as an engineer if you have the records you mix mastered proffecially. I can put you in touch with several engineer/producers who work with me and have had this experience.
The bottom line is when you put the cd in your cd player is it as good as the best records out there. If not are you really doing your client a favor?

Don't forget the rewards of using particular engineers - There are a few local studios that send me a LOT of my business. I recommend bands to them all the time. It's a wonderful little circle of business.

At least it was wonderful after I got them to stop using those damn Finalizers across the bus... :P

Massive Mastering wrote: At least it was wonderful after I got them to stop using those damn Finalizers across the bus... :P

8-)

From my point of view, making the mix "as loud as possible" is absolutely not mastering. This approch is what gives the mastering process a bad name.

Any project that goes out with your name on it, either to be sold anywhere or to be sent as a demo can benefit from real mastering. The sound of the music represents the sum total of the quality of the band. It is the way you present yourself to the world. I believe that attitude IS wrong, huub. Even if you want it done cheaply, bring it to someone with fresh ears, no preconcieved attitude about the lead singer (just for example) and a room & equipment you can trust.

well, like i said, i wouldn't call it mastering, it's only about giving a mix some punch, and trying to compete with the levels of commercial releases..i do think that a bit of compression and a ton of L2 maximizing makes my mix sound better..
i think this has nothing to do with the fact (and it IS a fact) that professional mastering makes all the difference..

huub wrote:

From my point of view, making the mix "as loud as possible" is absolutely not mastering. This approach is what gives the mastering process a bad name.

Any project that goes out with your name on it, either to be sold anywhere or to be sent as a demo can benefit from real mastering. The sound of the music represents the sum total of the quality of the band. It is the way you present yourself to the world. I believe that attitude IS wrong, huub. Even if you want it done cheaply, bring it to someone with fresh ears, no preconceived attitude about the lead singer (just for example) and a room & equipment you can trust.

well, like I said, I wouldn't call it mastering, it's only about giving a mix some punch, and trying to compete with the levels of commercial releases..I do think that a bit of compression and a ton of L2 maximizing makes my mix sound better..
I think this has nothing to do with the fact (and it IS a fact) that professional mastering makes all the difference..

A lot of mix engineers seem to think that they can do mastering while they are doing the final mix. A compressor strapped across the final two track mix and some "extra" eq and PRESTO your mix is mastered (and they can charge the client for the extra service) This is not mastering by any stretch of the imagination. It is adding some compression and eq to a mix. Just simply making something louder is not mastering. Mastering is putting the final polish on a mix. It is done in a room with very good acoustics on a speaker system that the mastering engineer knows very well, and it is done using very good equipment and is done by someone who knows what they are doing and has had LOTS of experience doing it. It is making the project cohesive. It is making the project sound like it is finished and ready for replication.

I have a very good friend who is a very good mix engineer. He has excellent equipment and good ears. He use to try and master his own material but it was mainly done because his clients wanted to leave his place with a "finished" project and not have to go elsewhere for mastering. I now do all his mastering and he supplies the best mixed projects around. We are both specialist and both do our jobs extremely well. They are different jobs and done in different places with different equipment but the end result is a superior project for the artist.

One problem that I see around my geographical location is that a lot of pro recording studios lately have fallen on hard times. They are being undercut buy the person with a basement or bedroom studio so they are looking for alternative sources of revenue and are turning to mastering or CD replication for additional money. There are places that use to be "recording" studios that now are calling themselves "mastering" facilities without any change in equipment or monitoring setups and if you go to master there they are doing the mastering on their Pro Tools setups or their Mackie analog consoles in what use to be the control room for the recording studio. They are doing the mastering on speakers that were not designed for critical listening and their acoustics in the control rooms worked for mixing but are not at all suited for mastering.

I was in one of these studios a while back (part of a replication facility) and they were doing mastering on 8" speakers that were at best marginal for mixing and definitely not good for full range mastering uses. The mastering room is a 8 foot by 8 foot by 10 foot room with hard plaster walls and no door on the room and is located right next to the noisy cassette duplication equipment. The owner of the place says that he can do mastering but he is basically lying to his clients. He may be making their stuff "louder" and he may be adding some eq to their mixes but he is not MASTERING their material.

The other problem that is cropping up is that many mix engineers are becoming more and more protective of their mixes and don't want or don't see the need for anyone else to work on them after they are finished with them. They tell their clients that mastering is not really needed and that the project is ready for replication when it leaves the mixing studio door. They are really doing their clients a BIG disservice because they are relying on their ears and their monitoring setup to make the final judgment on the "sound" of the album. I have many clients who REALLY hear their project for the first time when they come to master. They suddenly hear the traffic noise or the HVAC noise that was down low in the frequency domain and was not being played back on the Mackie speakers in the mix room. They also hear bad edits and bad eq'ing that they never heard in the mixing suite. They also hear things like abrupt level changes song to song or noises that they never heard in the lead-in or fadeout of the song. It is not because the mix engineer did not correct them properly it was because he never heard them due to an inferior monitoring setup or from hearing the song for the 22 (or more) times (if he was also the recording engineer) and completely glossing over a mistake because to him it has become part of the music. What a mastering engineer brings to the project is a pair of very fresh very good ears that can hear things as they are and not as he remembers them as being.

A good mastering engineer is as important to the project as good songs, well written and played and well recorded and mixed by a good engineer. To think otherwise is simply fooling yourself at a critical time in the creation of your project. I would venture to say that by NOT spending the money on good mastering the whole rest of the project will never see its full potential.

Just my thoughts and yes I am biased because I am a mastering engineer....but I have seen too many projects that cost a great deal of time, sweat and money go nowhere because at a critical junction the artist decided to be penny wise and pound foolish and chose not to master his or her material to "save money" and it proved to be the wrong place to pinch pennies. Maybe they could have cut back on the shrimp cocktails and $50 a pop champagne at the CD release party or the 22 page glossy paper CD insert that showed the baby pictures of all the members of the group and the current artwork from their 2 year old daughter and instead spent the money on something that would have made a HUGE difference in the commercial success of the album - THE MASTERING.

Best of luck!

Gee, Tom... You sound a little bitter. :twisted:

I'm kidding - A little - I get that way myself. A lot. You visited several points very well in that last post. One of these days, people will understand two things...

(1) Mastering isn't all "black magic" and "dark arts"
(2) Mastering IS a specialty process that takes years of practical experience to get even reasonably good at the craft.

We are the "plastic surgeons" of audio - The Compression Cowboys that earn respect from those who understand the "big picture," and contempt from those who don't.

I don't think, especially in today's market, that's going to change for the better any time soon. There are too many people out there who "already know everything" and that number is growing day by day. All these "mastering" processors and plugins... "Mastering" programs that have little, if any use other than PQ editing in our day-to-day tasks...

All we can do is stick to our guns, practice out craft, and turn the "non-believers" around, one track at a time.

Geez, now I really sound bitter!

I am not BITTER but I do get tired of hearing people complain that their stuff does not sound "commercial" and want to know from others on forums like this what "magic" plugins they need to purchase and what "magic" settings for the compressors and equalizer that will surely make their stuff into a COMMERCIAL SUCCESS.

Then two posts later on in the tread complain (after having someone suggest going to a pro) that they they do not have enough money to go to a top mastering engineer so they want to "do it themself" to save money but at the same time are willing to lay down a couple of grand for the "right" processor or software package.

You are not going to become a good or even adequate mastering engineer overnight. It takes years of experience and the best equipment you can afford (or not afford) and a room with the best acoustics and loads of projects before you will start to know what to do or more importantly what not to do with a project.

There are no shortcuts to a GREAT CD every part has to be done and done well. If you can't play your instrument well, if you can't keep a beat and you sing off key then their are no plugins that can do it for you. You can use programs like ProTools and Auto Tune to get you somewhere back in to the middle but if you aren't able to play it correctly from the start then you are already behind in the "commercial sound" department.

If you cheapen it further by trying to mix it yourself and master it yourself you are not going to get a commercial project no matter how expensive a plugin or external piece of equipment you purchase and try to use.

Why at the end of the project would you NOT do the one thing that would really make your project commerical? Why would you chose to not master it or master it yourself with no experience and a bad monitoring setup?

Why do you think all the top artist go to places like Sterling Sound, Benny Grundman, or Bob Ludwig to do their mastering. It is not because they enjoy spending the money going to New York, LA or Maine it is because these places can take a well recorded, well played, well mixed song and turn it into a COMMERCIAL SUCCESS.

END OF STORY!

So no I am not BITTER.

I am just AMAZED and how people can fool themselves into thinking that buy purchasing something (a piece of new software or equipment or finding out the "magic" setting for their compressor) will somehow make their project sound COMMERCIAL.

It also makes me wonder how they can think that by buying this sofware or equipment that they can somehow gain all the experience and knowledge that a really good mastering engineer has and can use on their project to make it really sound "commerical"

Maybe things will change....Maybe not!

Thomas,
I'm not so surprised.
At the time being, people get it printed in their brains that they can do everything with the right tools and almost no effort.
I believe that this comes from listening to much to low IQ commercials and bad salesmen in the shops.
And not many people knows how much effort they actually have to put in when they go down to purchase a PC.
I believe that this is the same story with mastering.

But this doesn't stop with mastering, it goes all the way up to multi mill. companies that decides to purchase the next "hot" IT solution and ignoring the fact of how much effort it will require.

I think that it will take a small revolution to clean up this mess.
But we can do our best in telling our customors and peoble we meet.

Best Regards,

Well mastering isn't a black art, or magical, or anything of that sort, i don't think that mastering takes that long (as much as you guys make it sound) to learn. Mastering sucesss comes in stages, you start out with a basic idea, that mastering involves EQ and compression, and limiters, and warming, and etc. etc. etc. , but at the same time you have no idea what or where to start, so you get an EQ and compressor, and start to work, then as time goes by, you learn what you have been doing wrong, and you fix it, mastering isn't like a sport, (this is for me, for others it may be different) you can pick up bad habits at first, but you can easily change thouse habits and techniques in just one night, and the amount of techniques is infinite, thats what i love about forums just like RO, you learn so much, and you pick up talk and techniques, and at the same time you get to share information that you know with others, RO is like an information powerhouse, if i was able to memorize everything in this forum, id be the best Engineer on the planet... well, anyway, mastering- what defines a commecial track, in a commercial track, mixing is 65% mastering is 35%, so if a mix is not commercial quality, neither will the master, and i think that you don't need a 20 year engineer to determine what work needs to be done to a mix to make it sound "good", i'd say that if my room was as good as sterling sound, i'd be a fair challange mastering engineer, (note: ive been into mastering almost 6 years now (not a rookie))....

So the point of this is... you don't quite need AS MUCH time of expirience as some people believe, id say that in 5 or so years, a person can become a respectable engineer if they work their tail off at making themselves one.

Mastering out costs alot of money.