The Band Didn't Know they Needed mastering and ENDED UP SELLING THEMSELVES SHORT...HERE'S HOW

I was recently approached by a musician I was friends with in high school.  His band had just recorded an album.  He asked me if he could send me the tracks so I could tell him whether or not I thought the songs needed to be mastered.

I told him I didn't need to hear the songs to tell him that his songs should be mastered if he wants to do a professional-style release.  Every single professionally-released album is mastered.  

If you want your recorded music to be presented professionally, mastering is NOT an optional step.

So, he agreed to let me master his album.  

He sent me the files that his mix engineer sent him.  They weren't mastered.  But, they had what is referred to as "faux mastering" applied to them.

Faux mastering is essentially using a limiter plug-in to raise the volume of a mix so that you don't have to turn your device up to maximum volume to hear and evaluate your mix at a reasonable volume.

If you've been a long-time reader of this blog, you know that mastering is much more than just raising the volume of a mix.  It's the critically important final step in improving the sound of your recorded music.

Because the volume of these files was set at maximum volume (in the industry, called "zero headroom" or "peaking at 0.0"), they were not "masterable."  Why?  Well, because mastering involves boosts to certain frequency ranges (e.g., giving a mix more bottom end), you need headroom, otherwise you'll get clipping (a nasty sound).  It's the sonic equivalent of smacking your head against a ceiling.

So, the logical option for this band was simply to ask their mix engineer to remove/bypass the limiter plug-in and reprint their files, which would have the necessary headroom for mastering.  When other band members got involved in the discussion, some were apparently uncomfortable with this and said they didn't know what mastering would do for them anyway.

I explained what mastering would do and how using the faux mastered files for their release could be problematic.  I am guessing it was a money issue, but they said they did not want to move forward with mastering.

So, they chose to be stuck with using faux mastered songs for their release.  Here are four reasons this will be problematic for them and why you may not want to make the same mistake.

1.  Mastering improves the tone of the entire mix. In terms of tone, mixing focuses mainly on EQ'ing individual instruments while mastering EQ's the combined work. Almost every professional, national release has a different person master their music than the person who mixed it. A second set of professional ears can identify blindspots that someone who spent hours mixing just can't hear. With a quick listen of this band's mixes, I can hear a tone improvement opportunity.  I can't share the music, but the screenshot from my mastering software at the top of this blog post visually shows what my ears heard:  not enough low-mid "beef" and a little too much high-mid presence, which can sound harsh at higher volumes. That's not a criticism of their mix engineer.  I know him and he always does a great job. It's just something that a second pro can bring to the table when mixing and mastering are treated as the separate arts that they are. I can mix and master, but I had an outside engineer mix my latest album for that very reason...to get the benefit of a second set of professional ears working on making my music sound its best.

2. Mastering optimizes music for streaming. One of the biggest concerns in mastering today is avoiding the "loudness penalty" that streaming services impose on songs.  Streaming services strive to have all songs be approximately the same volume so that you are not unexpectedly blasted by a loud song after a quiet song and so that you don't have to constantly adjust the volume on your listening device.  This is of particular concern for songs that are mixed/mastered too loud for today's streaming standards. Streaming services' technology will turn loud songs down.  A lot of artists today strive to avoid having streaming services apply normalization or limiting to turn down their music to match other music because it changes the character of their music. Some artists can't tell, while others - one of my clients in particular - absolutely can and want to avoid it like the plague. The files that this band sent me were printed too loud and will absolutely trigger the loudness penalty.  Their songs may not sound as good on Apple Music, Spotify, etc. as they do just by playing the WAV files on their computers.  Because streaming is the #1 way that music is consumed today, I consider optimizing music for streaming to be of paramount importance.

3. Mastering applies compression and limiting to make your music sound smooth.  A mastered song will allow nothing to jump out and sound unnecessarily loud, even for a fraction of a second, while also maintaining dynamics. In this example, the faux mastering did nicely tame the transients and provide a smooth listening experience.  I can't criticize that.  I do think dynamics were sacrificed a bit compared to real mastering.  The soft parts weren't really that soft compared to the loud parts.  But, dynamics are subjective and more experienced ears will hear them more than less experienced ears.  Today, the importance of dynamics has been elevated again after the "loudness wars" of the early 2000's.  If the band felt that the dynamic range was acceptable for their purposes, it is hard to argue that more dynamic range is better - even though, to professional ears, it certainly is.

4.  Mastering allows your music to sound good even when converted.  When WAV files (which are called a "lossless" format) are converted to a "lossy" format, such as MP3 or the formats that streaming services use, you can get audible distortion if your WAV files do not have enough headroom.  The files that this band sent me peaked at 0.0 on the meter, which means they had zero headroom. Industry standards are to leave 1 dB of headroom (i.e., peak at -1.0) for these types of conversions to avoid distortion. So, the quality of the music from these files is likely to degrade if the band wants to make them available on streaming services or even if they want to email a song to someone.  That being said, their files are absolutely fine for making CD's and having their fans download as WAV files from a service like Google Drive or Dropbox.

I think that the biggest lesson from this example is that you need to have a plan for mastering early on in the production process.  The band didn't tell the mix engineer that they had planned to send their album out to be mastered.  So, the mix engineer assumed that delivering faux mastered files would be acceptable.

​Know your plan for mastering before your mix begins!

Look, I understand that money isn't plentiful in original music.  Everyone is looking to get their music out there as cost-effectively as possible.  But, I'm firmly convinced that cutting corners on mastering - after you've taken the time and spent thousands on good recording and mixing - is selling yourself short.  

Mastering might be anywhere from 4% to 15% of your music production budget, but it's the delicious icing on the cake.  You wouldn't serve cake without icing.  Why serve your fans music without mastering?

Planning to have your music mastered?  Contact me at 412-600-8241 or beforeandaftermusicgroup@gmail.com!

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