Hi.
I would like to have my new track mastered by a professional studio. I would like to hear how different it is going to sound once they do it the right way (as opposed to what I can do at home, with my poor mastering skills). Any recommendations? What are the usual rates for a one track? Anyone on the forum does this?
Thanks.
Thank you for this. I see they also have a free 60 seconds demo - perfect for me to see how differently it is going to sound and whether it is worth the money (I’m sure it will be).
One question, though. Should I just render the whole song to one WAV file, or is it better to render each track separately?
Also, I thought it is best to render it to 88.2kHz for mastering, but they say they only accept 44.1. Why?
Also worth checking out:
John from http://metarc.com is a god.
He’s done a lot of my stuff and I would seriously hesitate to use anyone else (except Mike Wells as well http://www.mikewellsmastering.com who is also a god)
The metarc page says the studio is closed. 
Aw shit! So it does! 
((((((
Aw man that is awful news. I’ll have to hold him at gunpoint to master the next one then.
Thanks for all the good suggestions.
So far I tried that http://xlmastering.com/ as recommended by Roppenzo. The turnaround was pretty fast - they had it ready just few hours after I have sent it! I posted the mastered tune to the Renoise Song Forum here: Battle Toronto
I also want to try this mastering studio: http://www.suprememastering.com They have a “promo” right now for $35 for one song. They seem to be very professional, so I want to send them my tune and see whether they can do it even better than xlmastering. Once that’s done, I will share it here with you guys for comparison.
In the meantime, keep posting more links to mastering studios. I’m willing to try some more to find the optimal one for me.
Thanks!
That sounds very good to my ears. Do you have unmastered copy somewhere?
Interesting, will try.
That melograf page looks pretty good. Has anyone tried them? Some demo sounds?
Probably because mastering is the last phase before releasing a track to the listener / end user who are ideally going to listen to it at CD quality at best but more likely download or stream your music at a much compressed bitrate.
Huge audio resolution is no doubt useful for maximum clarity and processing headroom when recording and mixing but will ultimately be lost in the finished product that reaches the listener so 44.1kHz is still more than sufficient for most post-production purposes. I’d say 24 bit is still preferable over 16 bit though… as always above comments are IMHO.
I uploaded the unmastered copy for you here: http://obfusc.at/ed/mp3/Cadence-Battle_Toronto_unmastered.mp3
Let me know what do you think about their mastering process after hearing the unmastered version.
I may also try that melograf with the same tune. Although I’m not quite sure whether my tune is good for these kind of tests…
The tune sounds pretty good unmastered, but the mastering guy really did a good job in my opinion. Sounds like a lot more clarity and depth into the music. Great tune by the way.
It is a good test for clarity and overall mastering. But other thing that also causes quite a bit of issues is the bass work related to electronic dance music. Some proper dance track preview would also be useful.
I really liked http://www.medwaystudios.com/online-mastering. It was 25£ a track when I tried it but now it is 60£ per track
Less expensive but good too: http://www.sageaudio.com/
Now I also got my tune mastered by Melograf http://obfusc.at/ed/mp3/Cadence-Battle_Toronto_masteredByMelograf.mp3
The one mastered by XLmastering sounded better to me. And it was cheaper, too.
I’m still waiting for my tune to be mastered by suprememastering.com. So far no answer from them. I will keep you posted.
Yeah, XL mastering version sounds brighter and a bit louder and clearer to me. Also a bit more bass neutral - less howling bass. Also the bell blends a bit better IMO. Just my thoughts, but I enjoy the XL mastering version a bit more myself. Might not be a sign of quality though, might be a sign of personal preference too.
Would like to hear thoughts from someone with proper equipment though. 
I sent one of my dance tracks to XLMastering and when I got the preview back, I heard something I thought was clipping in the track. So I asked about it. And he responded:
So I cut out the offending part and sent it to him: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/40253010/crackle.wav
This is what I got as a reply:
I can still clearly hear it myself. Some crackling in right speaker. Might not be clipping, but there sure is some crackling in there. Tried listening to it at very low volume, tried applying low pass filter and reversing the stereo channels. Still hear it clear as day. But not in the original I sent.
Am I going crazy or is there crackling in the wav file?
I can hear it after second or third beat. Sounds almost like cone breakup but clearly isn’t. Maybe an artefact of using Signal Follower on a parameter which may crackle slightly on changes, I’m thinking most likely an EQ or a Compressor parameter. Are you using a SF on the kick for anything? Is it not present in the original at all?
His reply of “not having time to investigate” is very unprofessional though! And that in itself would put me off going back.
The crackle is not present in original. It’s probably a too fast attack for compressor like khades suggested.