mastered vs unmastered.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 5:16 pm

theres been a good few long threads about the pros and cons of self mastering on here, so i wont start off on another one, but its worth pointing out that theres different levels of mastering, you can just slightly limit or very soft compress your tune to give it a bit more cohesion and density without having a degree in sound technology, or top quality monitors.
tony, i wouldnt send both unmastered and mastered copies as demos mate, it either sounds right or it doesnt. if the mastered version sounds better to you, send that. if you're unhappy in anyway with what youre going to send, just dont send it.
i'm the same with vinyl releases, i have to be 100% sure of the tune, the EQ, the mastering before i'll even dream of putting it out. most of my releases over the last 5 years, were between 3 and 5 years old before i released them, because i want to be sure they will stand the test of time, and not sound derivitive in the future. maybe thats a little excessive, but at the other end of the scale, i am sent numerous demos that sound like they were made two days before, and the artist had only been producing for about one year.
patience is the key IMO. give your tunes at least a few months and then check them again and see if they still stand up and the mastering is adequate before sending them. quite often something that sounded right to me 2 months ago, sounds totally wrong with bad eq after a break from it.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 5:19 pm

tone-def wrote:Also i don't think my monitors are big enough. It's better to do mastering on 8" monitors. I can't afford mackies or anything that good.

BTW mate, the stuff you've sent me sounded fine, i wouldnt worry about mastering too much. its not far off spot on.

Stomper · Post by **Stomper** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:22 pm

Make sure its a good mix and write on the cover that the track(s) are unmastered.
theres no reason IMO to spend money on mastering before a label accept the track, especialy when most record labels take care for mastering them selfs.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:26 pm

steevio wrote:
tone-def wrote:Also i don't think my monitors are big enough. It's better to do mastering on 8" monitors. I can't afford mackies or anything that good.
BTW mate, the stuff you've sent me sounded fine, i wouldnt worry about mastering too much. its not far off spot on.

Cheers steevio.

plaster · Post by **plaster** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:21 pm

steevio wrote:if an artist seems to be control of his own destiny it gives me more confidence in them.

Oh i love saturday evening wisdom. Nice words.

victorgonzales · Post by **victorgonzales** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:19 pm

good points I ussually ask for a track to be very well polished off before submitted to me for my label. I am capable of mastering but every now and then I get a track for a release as part of an ep or something and its so far off it takes me three or four hours to get just the eqing in order.

I think a fairly experienced artist should be able to submit a finished track that only needs a SLIGHT compression or maybe a slight limiter just to bump the volume up a tad. Other than that a finished song in my opinnion shouldnt need any eqing or "fixing".

livecollective · Post by **livecollective** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:19 pm

It really depends, I like to do some mastering myself but I also like to use a specific engineer sometimes because the sounds he is able to bring out, and the choices he makes with the music I trust... (and his track record is impeccable) I think sometimes having a mastering engineer can help with give your label a cohesive sound even crossing genres. On the other hand it can slow down the process, and get pricey. So some stuff gets mastered myself.

I am curious who is running this dubplates&Mastering?

thomasjaldemark · Post by **thomasjaldemark** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:44 pm

livecollective wrote:It really depends, I like to do some mastering myself but I also like to use a specific engineer sometimes because the sounds he is able to bring out, and the choices he makes with the music I trust... (and his track record is impeccable) I think sometimes having a mastering engineer can help with give your label a cohesive sound even crossing genres. On the other hand it can slow down the process, and get pricey. So some stuff gets mastered myself.

I am curious who is running this dubplates&Mastering?

Maurizio, Robert Henke etcetc
http://www.discogs.com/search?type=arti ... btn=Search

Think it's Cristoph running the biz, not sure though.