mastered vs unmastered.

victorgonzales · Post by **victorgonzales** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:21 am

Im curious what your guys opinion are of a track that is READY for label submission.

I have noticed alot of people don't master their work befor sending it out. I have always done my own mastering and equing and making the track sound perfect for release BEFORE I give it to a label. Mainly because the one time I had someone else master it they butchered the intended sound of the track.

Robot Criminal · Post by **Robot Criminal** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:22 am

steevio's turn on this one.

sorgenkind · Post by **sorgenkind** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:31 am

I work on the mixdown until it sounds as good as I can before sending it out, I even might take the stereo file and squash it a bit so that it has a bit of loudness but I always keep a raw version, in case that the label has an engineer doing the mastering work, they prefear to get raw material with enough headroom to work with.

thomasjaldemark · Post by **thomasjaldemark** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:38 am

mainly depends on how the label wants it..
and depends if its going to be vinyl or digitalonly.
and depends on WHO the label gonna order to do the mastering. if it's dubplates&mastering or schnittstelle you know it's gonna be a great result in the end.

steevio · Post by **steevio** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:22 pm

thomasjaldemark wrote:mainly depends on how the label wants it..
and depends if its going to be vinyl or digitalonly.
and depends on WHO the label gonna order to do the mastering. if it's dubplates&mastering or schnittstelle you know it's gonna be a great result in the end.

+1
dubplates&mastering are the boyz.

if you cant use a reputable co like them, do as much as you can yourself. (as long as you know what you're doing)

personally if i receive an unmastered demo from someone, i'm less likely to be impressed, maybe thats a bad attitude, but i cant help it. if an artist seems to be control of his own destiny it gives me more confidence in them.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:09 pm

as an artist i would like to know what the label wants. I find it hard to master my own tracks because after hours of work i get emotionally attached to my tracks and when i start putting it though limiters I start thinking "this isn't right".

Next time i send a track tp a label i'll send both mastered and unmastered that way the label can decide what is best.

Mp3 mastering is totally different from wav, because of the lower quality you can't use as much compression without distorting the sound a lot.

this is a little experiment for you to try. take a mastered wav track and put it into your sequencers audio track 1 and then put the same mastered track but bounced as an mp3 in audio track 2. now invert the mp3 and click play. What you will be hearing is distortion from the mp3. now do the same thing with unmastered tracks and you will hear a lot less.

I haven't found the balance between loudness and sound quality in mp3 so i don't think i'm in a position to do it. If beatport and all the other stores sold wav as standard and that's what everyone used then i would be more confident about doing my own mastering.

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:20 pm

tone-def wrote:Next time i send a track tp a label i'll send both mastered and unmastered that way the label can decide what is best.

Be sure to put them on seperate discs or use explicit naming. People have a hard time managing files and stuff like this. especially when the tracks sound so similar.

Its even difficult if you are requested to make an updated version before pressing... haha... tracks get lost sometimes.

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:51 pm

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.