Is it natural?

[MARKEG]

To spend 2 weeks mastering one track?

I'm sure somethings gone a bit cuckoo upstairs.... :doh:

Either that or I keep blacking out in the studio :lol: :lol:

[messyfuture]

yes if its been all you have have been doing :lol:

me and paul can spend weeks doing very little apart from fiddling with bits. I sometimes wonder how we get anything finished

I'd say leave it for a week and go back to it once you cant really remember how it sounds and you might pick up on that missing element with clean ears

[stjohn]

welcome to my world mate...

i know how a track should sound... but can i do it....nope!

tracks involve me doin a master, people telling whats wrong with it, another master, same over and over... and eventually i say feck it..its grand as it is...

the one i have at the moment has been mixed down and masterd 10+ times.. although im makin satisfactory headway.

buts its all part of the learnin process innit.

[dirty_bass]

To spend 2 weeks mastering one track?

I'm sure somethings gone a bit cuckoo upstairs.... :doh:

Either that or I keep blacking out in the studio :lol: :lol:
hmmm
depends how much time you are spending each day.
MAybe a zero desk restart will stop you from getting further down a hole

[audioinjection]

ive done that plenty of times, but thats due to my work schedule

[acidsaturation]

Yeah, does depend how long each day yr at it and other factors...

Is the track worth the time?
Is it a case of proverbial turd polishing?
Is the track ****ing kicking but the reason it's taking that long to master is that there's actually one sound that doesn't quite fit, but you haven't had the balls to get rid of 'cos you like it?
Would a slightly different kick/bass/lead/whatever work just as well and not have that annoying sound that upsets the balance (however good it is by itself)?
Would I be better off getting pissed/weeding the garden/looking at boobs on the net/phoning my mum?
Am I actually shit hot enough and have the confidence to trust my ears and heart and know that when I say it's done it's done and f*ck anyone who says it's not?
What constitutes perfection anyway?
Can I be arsed?
Is it still not quite right and could be better...?

...are some of the questions I force myself to answer in such situations.


(probably ad infinitum...)

[herman]

No personally i would say thats a bit mental :lol: i doubt i ever spend more than 15 minutes on mastering , just get the mix right in the first place ;)

[xfive]

just get the mix right in the first place ;)

I think that's definetly the right place to start... :lol:

[eyes without a face]

yeah im with Herman... im certainly no expert but i do think over-mastering is a common problem and ends up with people overcooking things... 2 weeks seems a drastic amount of time to be honest, and i usually have things sounding pretty much how i want it during the mix

[Mirsha]

I'm glad I've not pissed about with seriously getting into the nitty gritty of mastering yet. Oh that'll be why all my stuff sucks then...

[fatcollective]

No personally i would say thats a bit mental :lol: i doubt i ever spend more than 15 minutes on mastering , just get the mix right in the first place ;)

15 minutes????????????? this is the most important part of producing the track, surley more time should be spent! if your using a desk just getting the final tweeks right takes long enough, never mind getting the compression sorted. mastering should take as long as it takes to get the track sounding right...2 days ...2weeks ..whatever, as long as the final result is sweet i dont think it matters.. ;)

[Komplex]

15 minutes????????????? this is the most important part of producing the track

No way man! If your track rocks and its composed + mixed well, mastering is just the final polishing. It's nowhere near the most important. The music and ideas are the most important.

MARK - your time is up, let someone else do it now cus u aren't getting anywhere :)

[AcidTrash]

To spend 2 weeks mastering one track?

I'm sure somethings gone a bit cuckoo upstairs.... :doh:

Either that or I keep blacking out in the studio :lol: :lol:

I've been trying to master one particular track for nealy a year now and I still aint happy with it but it is potentially the best tune I've ever heard

[fatcollective]

15 minutes????????????? this is the most important part of producing the track

No way man! If your track rocks and its composed + mixed well, mastering is just the final polishing. It's nowhere near the most important. The music and ideas are the most important.

MARK - your time is up, let someone else do it now cus u aren't getting anywhere :)

sorry didnt actually mean that mastering is the most important part of production, but it is a very important part of it. if you take your time mastering your final mix then it will obviously sound much better.

[eyes without a face]

15 minutes????????????? this is the most important part of producing the track

errrr what did u mean then? :doh: ;)

Mastering is different for everyone, and im sorry but i think if your spending up to 2 weeks on then something maybe wrong, and if your spending up to a year, depending on teh amount of time your on it each day of course same with 2 weeks, then i seriously doubt its the best tune youve ever heard, which is a bold statement about your own music anyway to be honest...

do what works for you, some people master as they go like Paul said and only require small finishing touches at the end to boost things a little etc etc, this is how i do it and only apply light mastering really, i admit im not clued up on it and therefore dont go to town on it because i do know that the cutting engineer would rather have a nice clean track to work with than an overcooked track which leaves him nothing to work with, or makes it hard for them to work with

i dont see how someone can be doing a track and actually need that amount of time to make it sound, im guessing, drastically different... surely you have the track sounding how u want it during production?

a tricky subject anyhow!

[RDR]

To spend 2 weeks mastering one track?

I'm sure somethings gone a bit cuckoo upstairs.... :doh:

Either that or I keep blacking out in the studio :lol: :lol:

I've been trying to master one particular track for nealy a year now and I still aint happy with it but it is potentially the best tune I've ever heard

:roll:

A year? dear god, i think'd i'd have topped myself.

[AcidTrash]

u shud ere what it does tho. tis a ****in masterpiece that just won't fly.

[jesus]

I think everyones talking mixdown here, which is all that matters for a good master. A master is your, single, finished file that gets a litlle comp and touch of eq, then raped with an L2 to customer specification. This only takes a minute if you know what your doing. Mixdowns however have been known to take years.

[fatcollective]

15 minutes????????????? this is the most important part of producing the track

errrr what did u mean then? :doh: ;)

i meant the final mix down, getting all the eqing right and getting that compression to sit nicely....can sometimes take ages, its always in the back of your mind that you can possibly get the track sounding better...and this is what takes up the time. i think you just have to come to a decision and stick with it....but some people are very fussy.

[RDR]

u shud ere what it does tho. tis a ****in masterpiece that just won't fly.

Get it posted then pete.

[eyes without a face]

bah to being fussy, if somethings sounding sweet then its ready to go, people get bogged down too much, ive just had a sweet track taken for a nice label indeed and it took me about 4 - 5 days to do start to finish, sounds mint indeed and itl get mastered before the cut anyway so its gravy...

as the late great Joe Meek said, "if it sounds right, it is right!"

lets here this track then Acid im intrigued now

[fatcollective]

u shud ere what it does tho. tis a ****in masterpiece that just won't fly.

Thats like saying I've built the best aeroplane the world has ever seen...
but I can't get it to take off :hmm:

[AcidTrash]

u shud ere what it does tho. tis a ****in masterpiece that just won't fly.

Thats like saying I've built the best aeroplane the world has ever seen...
but I can't get it to take off :hmm:

Basically I made this tune in Fruity 3 when I still had no clue about production and now I'm trying to bring it up to my spec today. I have a very clear idea of what I want in this track but as yet it cannot be done until I fully understand what it is I did to get the sound this way in the first place. As a result I'm having to build the drums around the synth instead and it's tricky. It's nearly there but theres a few little quibbles in it which I will address when the main problem is solved. Otherwise I think this ****in rules. tis here:

http://www.squatjuice.com/mp3/acidtrash/osc305.mp3

[fatcollective]

get on it lad ;)

[GATOR]

To spend 2 weeks mastering one track?

I'm sure somethings gone a bit cuckoo upstairs.... :doh:

Either that or I keep blacking out in the studio :lol: :lol:




I think if a track good mixed is need it not so much master

[professor]

I really don't like mastering or mixdown at all. For me all the pleasure is in playing the music. Once a track is recorded to DAW it gets quickly eq'd, mildly compressed, and made as loud as it'll go without clipping. 10min. tops. Of course, my tracks don't sound nearly as good mixing wise as tracks by some of the techno studs on this board.

[tocsin]

It's taken me months to master some tracks and, in the end, I still wasn't happy.

[slavestudios]

personally, i never spend more than 3 two hour sessions with mastering or i get bored & dump the track..


maybe this is why i never got an ep signed lol