the difference between Mastered and unMastered

[Brian Ffar]

I will say you get what you pay for. As a label owner, we've used several mastering engineers int he past, and the one we currently use does an absolutely tremendous job - the difference between the pre and post master is like night and day.

If I get some time, I'll try and upload some clips at 320kbps MP3 (to save space of course).

[RichardLodge]

That would be brilliant. Thanks Brian

[Stomper]

I saw an interview a little while ago with Infected Mushroom. they make psy trance, but i think thats irrelevant to the subject. they talked about a few tricks they use to make their music and they have an interesting view about mastering.
they say, if they push the master fader on their DAW all the way up, it has digital clipping and even though they know that its not good in theory, bottom line is that they don't hear any clipping or difference if they compare the clipped and unclipped audio when in their both in the same volume.
So they push the master fader and record the output to a Prism Sound AD converter and thats about it.

I think their music is OK, but i always liked them soundwise.

I mean, this is our- let’s say- our secret. Big secret. We do the mastering ourselves as well. We basically learned that if we push the gain really high and get everything distorted in a way that you don’t hear distortion, you just see the red really really - say 6db+ you don’t hear distortion yet and we record that analog to another convertor then we get much better sound. We tried even the Waves Ultramaximizer- I don’t find them sounding better than what we do. I find the Waves, for example, taking away the highs a little bit. And not only Waves, a lot of other companies that do the same things. The highs always go away, and something in the details goes away. This way, we record it analog, in our case we record it to the Prism Sound, and we get the Prism Sound distorted ['visually'. So the inputs are distorted and the meter shows that it cliping but my ears don't hear distortion]. We get really high gain and with a sound that doesn’t sound compressed.

http://en.audiofanzine.com/sound-techni ... html#pages

[_gilles]

or maybe your listening environment isn't good enough to notice the differences...

I've the Yamaha HS80m and a Beyerdynamic DT-880 PRO... Maybe my hears deosnt't work as needed

[tone-def]

you mean your ears don't work properly?

maybe the mastering engineer was just plan sh!t.

[juanm2t]

EQing and Compressing is mainly everything...just two things, but golden ears ( gotten thru experience or natural skills) to know how to use both of them properly!!!

also, a well mixed track will sound great after master process.

[PsyTox]

besides in few myths, i never heard of any ME that really adds reverb to a master (i guess in reality this maybe happenes in 5% of the cases)
but what can happen that if a master is done really good, that rooms etc just cut through much better aswell as the stereo image and instr. seperation.

Could be, I am not by far a sound engineer so I can only guess what they do, but to me it sounds like a bit of subtle reverb applied on it. If I knew exactly how they did it, wouldn't be no point in sending my stuff to them, right.
So I kindly accept your explaination

The good thing about mastering is also that you might think it sounds okay, but the SE might have a different view to it (due to other equipment, ears, whatever). I always find it interesting to hear that every other engineer puts his 'stamp' on a sound in a slightly different way. So that's also why it might take a while for a label to find the engineer that's right for you as it can also define the sound of your label imho.

[Roqqert]

why don't you talk about multiband compression. That's the gold for DIY mastering