On-Line Mastering Thoughts

[Starship Krupa]

To reiterate what everyone else has said and point something else out:

iZotope Ozone already has an algorithmic mastering wizard. I don't know how it compares to any of the online services, but I find it useful as a starting off point, to compare my progress as I learn more about mastering.

The traditional thinking on mastering is, as @bitflipper says, putting your mix in front of a pro who knows how to get the best out of it. The idea is that the mix engineer and artist may also be too "close" to the mix after working on it for weeks. And that the processes of mixing and mastering use different tools and have different goals.

Mixing (to me) is at its essence getting everything sitting pretty in a sonic space. Mastering is applying final compression and limiting and EQ and maybe some spatializing to give an overall polish and loudness, coherence and depth. Depending on the genre, punch and/or warmth.

I personally subscribe to the traditional thinking, but my problem is that I can't afford to hire someone, so I try to separate the processes as much as possible. I do my mix as a mix, with no effects on the Master bus, only channel and submix effects. Then when I have everything in its own space sonically, I start with one of my mastering chains.

The mastering process may reveal a need to revisit the mix. If so, I do, but I turn off the mastering effects.

One of the most important techniques is, of course, referencing to other professionally mastered material that has the sound I would like my piece to have.

I think the online services would be useful inasmuch as they are another algorithm to compare my work to, but they are still just algorithms, like the one in Ozone. There was an algorithmic one I downloaded a couple of years ago, AAMS or something like that? Anyway, I ran it against one of my mixes and liked my own results better.

There's no need to get redneck-y about mastering wizards. To use bitflipper's analogy about the houses, it's as if they gave you a beige house but left out the part that says you're not allowed to change the color. Ozone at least is just a set of the same FX that we all use manually. Some of those FX can be set up by robot, some not so much. Limiters, for instance, can do pretty well with an adaptive algorithm. An EQ curve can be applied based on what genre.

I notice that Neutron is utter poo when it comes to setting compression parameters....

Heh, maybe at some point, we'll see a "John Henry" or "Big Blue" type mastering competition to see if an algorithmic mastering program can outdo a human.

"Bob Ludwig was a disk masterin' man...."