I have many many tunes in many formats: 24-bit, 16-bit, Mp3's (ugh), etc. I need to get the shit mastered and out to the good people of the world. Can this be reasonably done? Recommendations?

Thanks!

Yeah sure it can be done!

Of course it is best to have the highest quality / highest resoloution sources possible, but if "what you have is what you have" then thats that!

Best case scenario is that you can get a real mastering guy to do it, but sometimes DIY is the only way....


The goal of mastering in my mind is, you are trying to find a balance for all the material within a certain context... That context includes, the tonal balance and relative prerceived volume of the parts within a song, that song compared to the one before it and after it, the Album as a whole, and the ultimately the album compared to EVERY OTHER (great sounding) ALBUM EVER MADE.

Its kind of a huge context to keep in mind and in balance, but that is the goal.
You want to make it so that the listener never have to touch the EQ / volume of stuff while listening to your record as a whole, and also as they put another album on after listening to yours...

If you are thinking about doing it yourself, I would buy this book:
Mastering Audio by Bob Katz
I hate it when people tell you to "read a book" but its a big subject.

I would say that if you arent going to buy the book, at least sit down and do a bit of free reading about it online.../

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mastering
http://www.tweakheadz.com/mastering_your_audio.htm
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug04/a ... tering.htm

Even if you are going to pay someone to do it, it will pay off to have some understanding of the goals of the process, and a vocabulary for dealing with the engineer.

Houlihan... you going to do it yourself?

Humboldt
Maybe you want to chime in here... You are dealing with mastering questions too 'eh?

Hey Jake,

Great answers and links! Much obliged. Some real good info, there. I'm not going to do it myself, though. I just don't have the time/talent/experience.

Does anyone recommend a good mastering guy who's not too dear? Prefferably in the New York area, because I'd like to be on site.

Thanks!

I seem to have massive problems with this. Something sounds great on one system, and then terrible on another.....everything sounds completely different on headphones to speakers......The other day I listened to a track on someone else's stereo and the bass sounded completely different to how I'd ever heard it before. And it wasn't a good thing

Although I sometimes realise that most people are only ever going to hear my stuff on their crappy computer speakers, on myspace, which is a bit depressing

Do any of you have a good system for mastering? Like, a certain type of speaker to play back on, or whatever?

I just finished the Fiery Furnaces album yesterday, and went with Matt over to Trutone to sit in on some of the mastering...

I have to say, when someone is good at it, its like fairy dust sprinkled over the sound spectrum.

These guys have bat-ears and the most pristine and specialized high end gear you can imagine.
I was in geek heaven watching Joe Lambert work on the mixes.

Smart Patrol... The continuity on different systems problem is one of the main problems solved by this process...

The few things I have tried to make masters for were done on high end monitors that I have been listening to for about 10 years...
And I CONSTANTLY A/B'ed my work against other CD's and burned disks to play in other systems.
Its REALLY fucking hard to do it right, unless you have the ears and have done it everyday for years like some of these guys.

Seeing a good mastering guy at work is as humbling as watching Jimi Hendrix play, seeing a gymnast pull off a crazy move, or hearing a beautiful poem read by an author. A fine art.

Houli...
Sorry, I have no idea. The guy that the Furnaces use is in NYC, but costs like $1500 / day or something like that.

Too rich for my blood....!

If I was looking for something like that, I would ask on the TapeOp messageboard...
Maybe you can get Pat to do it!!!

-Jake

Cheers! - the tip of listening to other albums, whilst now seeming incredibly obvious! is a good one. I'll definitely try that one. It's quite annoying when you get a CD that's either way more quiet or way louder than all your others.