What is Mastering and why do I need it?
Mastering is really two things. The first step of the process is making your music sound as good as it can. Careful spectral and dynamic processing can bring out the best qualities of your mixes. The second step is creating a master that works best for the way your audience listens to music. Whether it’s for streaming, digital distribution, CD, Vinyl, Film, TV or Broadcast, the right master will make your music sound great wherever it’s played.
Mastering Philosophy from a 2008 interview by Steve Mueske
Greg, you’ve mastered over 3,500 albums in the last two decades (as of 2020 that number is 7,000 and growing); what are common mistakes clients make when presenting a final product for mastering?
Now that so many artists are recording their own music, it has become much more common to find problems with incoming mixes. I sometimes get mixes that are very bright or very dark, or mixes that have some bright elements and some dark elements – which is very difficult to address in mastering since the fix for one makes the other worse. I get mixes that have been so over-processed that there is no life left in them. I get mixes that are so wide they sound phasey and mixes that are completely mono. I get mixes with the vocal so buried that it’s very distracting and hard to hear. I get hum and buzz and vocal sibilance and tics and click-tracks and all sorts of extraneous noises. The most repeated comment in my studio is “I never heard that before….”
I think it all comes down to listening. In the heat of battle, sometimes it’s easy to get distracted by the process and not pay proper attention to what one is doing. We get into a habit or a routine and do things the same way so many times in a row that we don’t take enough time to cleanse the pallet and get a fresh perspective. Taking breaks and listening to other music while recording can help you understand what is going well and what is not. In the iPod age, your music is going to get played next to absolutely everything else out there. It needs to sound as good as the other stuff your audience is likely to hear. By taking extra time to critically listen to your own mixes in the context of other music, you will soon learn if you are on the right track.
I guess the take-home message is, make the mixes sound as good as you can, don’t worry about making them loud, and enjoy the process as much as you can.
You’ve mentioned that you’re not a fan of the current “make it as loud as possible” trend, and that in ten years we’ll probably look back on this era and cringe at some of the recordings. Why do you think many mastering engineers are taking this approach and why is it detrimental? Piggy-backing on this, are there other trends in mastering, and if so, do you tend to work against trends or incorporate these into your style?
Well, we didn’t start this fire! The push to make records loud isn’t as new as some might think. Go back 60 years and you’ll find that engineers were trying to cut records as loud as they could. Back then it was more a matter of getting the signal above the noise. There was also an argument for louder records sounding better on the radio. In the modern world of digital noise floors and heavy broadcast processing, neither of those reasons holds water. Now it’s become a matter of doing it because we can, and because that’s what everyone else is doing. When digital limiters and clippers became available they were used to raise the average level on CDs. One thing led to another and engineers and producers started to abuse the tools. Now we’re in a situation I call the triple forte of death. FFF (fear, fad and fashion). Artists, label execs, producers, engineers… they’re all worried that their product won’t be perceived as professional unless it’s LOUD. But somewhere along the way we forgot to listen to what was happening to the music. Every engineer I talk to says they hate the volume war, yet most of them participate in it. It’s even starting to affect genres like folk and jazz. It just makes no sense.
OK, that’s the rant. To answer your question, mastering engineers try to facilitate the artistic vision of their clients. While we are often asked to master extremely loud CDs, most of us will tell you that we don’t like it. There is just no musical reason to throw away so much of the sound so the listener can keep her volume knob at 3 instead of 5. I do think we will look back at this loud era as an experiment gone bad. Luckily there are signs of sanity with some groups releasing lower volume CDs and organizations such as http://www.turnmeup.org trying to talk some sense into the industry.
To answer the second part of your question, yes, there are some interesting trends that have influenced mastering over the years. Before 1970, when independent mastering was in its infancy, most processing was tube based. Starting in the 70s and into the 80s, solid state equipment became common. Digital processing was also making an entrance and by the mid 80s, many of the top mastering facilities used digital based mastering consoles and work stations. The push back to analog and tubes and transformers in mastering coincides somewhat with the explosion of digital recording. Some argue that digitally recorded music lacks a certain quality that only analog processing can provide. Sales of analog EQs and compressors and vinyl records certainly support that theory. Ironically, even plug-in programmers are trying to sell ‘analog’ sound. Now that’s funny!
For me, whatever tool does the best job is the one I chose. I moved right along with everyone else from analog to digital and back to analog. I’ll even to go tape if it adds the right sound to a project. Aside from the loudness trend, which we all have to deal with, whatever best serves the music is the trend I like to follow.