We've got an article on Mastering Scams by John Scrip at Studio Reviews.

http://www.studioreviews.com/mastering-scams.htm

John your article was very informitive. It will be a valuable resource to those that are seeking Mastering services as well as newbie Mastering Engineers.

It's obvious that you take pride in what you do and that you are concerned about others using this art form to take advantage of the unsuspecting.

thanks

Funny - One of the places that basically "inspired" that whole article suddenly popped up on a particular forum this morning after lurking in the shadows for months...

Coincidence?

The way I look at it, the person doing the mastering instantly becomes an instant creative member/contributor...

If someone needs convincing, point them at the *insert country name* Idol audition lines - it could be their ears mixing your work!

Great article John, well written as many of the hot points were reviewed.

I have my project studio in my home, and besides recording and mix songs, I do mastering as well. However I always tell my clients, it's best to have your mixes mastered at a pro facility such as John's Massive Mastering. I can polish mixes to some degree, but unless your room is designed right, you have proper monitors, converters and equipment (besides good ears) many can hurt mixes more than polsih them. For those interested, Sound on Sound's March edition talks about "On line mastering" with a DVD that allows you to compare different mastering facilities. They had some interesting conclusions about mastering which you might find interesting.

ok, so 'mastering' has been the wrong term that i've used, for what I do!!
LOL

i've never considered what i do with my home project recordings to be true 'mastering'.

all i'm really trying to do, is take my basic best mix, take a basic clean pass with a multiband compressor, to get levels up, and a limiter to help stop any discernable 'overs'.

i've used the term 'mastering' much too loosely in the past, and i apologize for my transgression!

LOL again....

when i decided to release my album on an actual (fledgling) label, i was asked by the label owner to have the project 'mastered'....

i'm happy with the results, and am glad i didn't attempt to put out something that was really outside of my abilities and software/equipment, which is the impression i get from about 75% of what i hear off the net.

i think this is a great article, and it confirms some of my worries, about many 'mastering' ads i've visited over the last couple of years...

i'm fascinated by the idea of 'mastering', and the specialized equipment and experience that it requires, to do it right.

but i would never aspire to learn to become a 'mastering engineer', if only because of my tinittus (from years of road work).

sometimes it's good, to have someone with more experience, put things into perspective.

thanks John/Dot

Excellent article John! Is it cool to link to it on my Studio FAQ?

Most of what you said there also applies to recording studios and producers. It often astounds me how players will spend so much of their hard earned cash on a flaky sales pitch with no research or trust in their own ears. It's like their brains and ears shut down if they believe the person they're giving their money to knows more than them. A fool and his money are soon parted, but it sux watching the house of cards come down.

Cos.

Cos.

Agreed -- good article.

In general, you're almost always better off contacting the names in the liner notes of your favorite records or asking friends who they've had good experiences with than trusting almost *anything* you've read about solely online.

I'm pretty new to Web-based advertising. For 5+ years, I had steady work simply by word of mouth. It truly is the best way for the engineer to get work and for the client to find an engineer.

Cos - Feel free.

Yeah, the name thing... Man... Most of the sites that "weren't really referenced" in that article didn't even have a name on them. The whole "Our certified engineers..." and all - Speechless. I just don't get it.

Thanks John! I added it to the FAQ with a link and a plug to your site as well. You'll see a significant increase in traffic I'm sure. Haha. But I do appreciate it.

Cos.

quote:

Originally posted by kid-surf:

Although, for me it was all pretty blatantly obvious stuff.

The crazy thing "to me" is to think how many clueless people there are out there.

I think for anybody here it's pretty obvious stuff, but we forget what it was like to be a total noob. That's why I did that FAQ in the first place, it amazed me how many guys didn't know the first thing about recording. Or worse, heard their favorite band used a certain technique for recording something and assume they can do that too with shit gear. Like, trying to explain that using using a blanket tunnel off the kik like band x does will still sound like shit on an outa tune 100$ kik drum.

I sorta understand the being clueless part tho. When I went in to buy a daw it was weird. I knew nothing and at some point decided to trust the salesman. The second I did that the fog rolled in and the guy just loaded me up. I walked out dazed and 12 grand in debt.

I go pretty regular to a Kia dealership to help the neighbor wholesale out cars, and I see the same look on peoples faces while they look at cars and sign papers. It's funny, the salesman's face always reflects the customers. If he's all happy the customer has that foggy look, if they look desperate then the customer doesn't have the foggy look.

But bottom line is some people are just freakin stupid. Toss a big ego in and there ya go. Sometimes I get these guys in who talk about taking the trax to a "proper protools studio" for mixing. Arg. I thought about putting protools on the computer for these guys, but if they can't base their stuff on sound rather than name dropping screw em.

Not saying my mixes are better, or my gear is better, but there are a lot of recording hacks out there who use protools for sales rather than quality or skill. You can tell their customers by the foggy look.

Cos.

well, you gotta remember, everybody comes into these bbs's as 'newbies'.

they're coming to learn, a lot of them, for the first time.

if you forget that, then you're just preaching to the choir, and what's the point in that.

That's a good point, kid. There are "fringe" businesses in every area of high-profile industries - where people are always reaching for the proverbial dangling carrot.

Including a lot of the "recording schools". : )

I had to register after reading this. Its a great article and truth behind all of it. As i think me and john flot around on the same forums i know alot of the people he is refering about and have seen alot of the same things i just dont think i have the experience to do what he did and call out the pros and cons of it. Recently there has been numerous articles about online mastering in sos and recording mag and all over the net. I think its good that people are being educated to the " mastering " world. Great article.

Great read. That site I brought to John's attn awhile back immediately came to mind. It reeked of scam and was hosted on a "free site."

Sad..but hopefully, many ppl around the forums [net in general] would know better and go with someone like John, who has a high profile and decent rates to boot. I think more and more recording musicians are educating themselves, so these bogus outfits shouldn't last long.

very interesting article Mr. Scrip.. I recently took a very poorly eq'd and mixed track to a mastering place here in Los Angeles called "2 guys from the Valley studios". They have done work for us before, and did a great job basically just fixing a few problems....

but this last song, they could not save it. It was dead on arrival. It was basically a waste of a couple hundred bucks... but we did learn that you can't turn sh*t into gold. Not their fault in the least..

Thanks for that article John you are so right on that I have many client who have fallen for that and I find few studios using AudiopleXus photos and details.
I beleive client should be at the session for mastering.
www.audioplexus.co.uk

Ha! A "little bird" (more like a big, bad dog) told me about a site using one of your photos maybe a couple weeks ago... The same site had some really, really great photos and information all over it last month.

I see all their photos are gone now for some reason...

Yeah, having the client in the room certainly has its advantages... As much as I like getting things "in the pocket" alone, I love it when their local - It just seems to roll along so much more smoothly...

Thanks for the reply John
Yes the little bad dog I thing you r talking about send me an email about pictures used by fake studios...anyway its still good that some peoples are looking out for each others without prejudice.
I like to get artist music few days before the sessions so I can do it alone and when they get here we do the desired tweaking.
anyway lets keep making music sound Beautiful....
www.audioplexus.co.uk
www.audioplexus.com

indeed. fantastic. can think of more than a few groups who'd benefit from reading it. will refer. -D