On Delamar I read an article that Abbey Road-studios has launched a service called ONLINE-Mastering.
For those who don’t know: Abbey Road is the legendary studio where Beatles, Foo Fighters, Radiohead and U2 got mastered. For 90 British Pounds per track you get a professional mastered mix. They even offer special vinyl-mastering.
I dunno, if this service is good but as I read in a producers magazine before: “You cannot produce everything by yourself, you need a good composer, a fine singer, a magnificent engineer and a qualified graphic artist”.
I might give it a try, because I am currently producing my first real CD. (infos here: Public Perception )
Hmm, like KVR but solely dedicated to third party services…
It’d be a good idea to shop around and see what a couple of your tracks would sound like in the hands of a few people. Investigating for your investments is an investment in itself.
Indeed, seen very expensive studios doing shit like that. Basically they pass it through some automatic mastering software, wait few days and send the result back to you with a fat bill.
But it’s always smart to try before you buy. With those soulless machines on the other end, other problem arises. Whether you will get the same technician to master your CD which mastered your test track?
ONLINE MASTERING often means ‘mastering’ for demos you send to
labels, crews, clubs, etc… promotion material to be exact. Good enough
to be representative, but not nearly good enough for an actual ‘release’.
Yeah, I fear it’ll just be that, except some of them will be sporting a brand name.
Which is why I respect people like Foo’s (don’t know anyone else really) who’s willing to have a dialog with the artist, systemize the process and learn a thing or two along and before the way.
I guess it depends on whether the artist cares what happens after such and such step, I mean, some don’t and some do.
I tried mastering my own tracks for my own RPM 2009 album and it sounded crapper than crap so definitely promote going external. I am not saying everyone is as crap as me at mastering their own stuff mind you!
Let me throw in Audible Oddities, which is run by Twerk. All the mastered songs by him are really sounding great and he has also quite affordable rates.
F%^&^%£ Abbey Road Mastering!! The only person recommended here should be Foo or otherwise someone that we have had personal exp with…relatively new to production but I do know that his rates are wicked and he has been working with renoise for years and knows his craft…plus he will actually master it and put his soul into it as opposed to putting a preset over the mix!!
Let me join the chorus of suggesting that you shop around. I’m not the only Indie Mastering Operation, there are a few others around here I can recommend (a bit more pricey than me most of them are). I’m still relatively new to the game and there are people like Matt Gray who I’d definitely look up to has having the better chops.
Despite all my rhetoric about scientific processes and the objective nature of high end production, I’ve still got my own ‘sound’ and ‘taste’. These might not be fore you. I had one client once who wanted his dance music to ‘sound like all the songs on Beatport’ which equated to him has being very very loud and near distorted - and I really didn’t like it that much. These days I’m more about bright clean tone, warmth, natural dynamics, and of couse ‘the tape sound’. I’m usually happy to bend in the direction the client wants, after all they are the ones paying the money!
Just had somebody highly recommend these guys. Although it seems this company hasn’t been around that long some of the people working there have and they already seem to have high class customers, including a number of acts in the UK Top 10.
