another thing to consider is the engineer's work ethic. all the gear in the world won't make a lazy engineer do his job. i would want to check with other clients about this before hiring someone.

You R right Discolightning you need to do that at Audioplexus we give a free trial to all our customers to make sure everything is right and we guaranteed all our works also the one doing it online only we send them test on wav or aif via a ftp account so they can follow the mastering prosess at home and get what they order and pay for.(if our customer work look good we look good)
Later....
www.audioplexus.co.uk
www.audioplexus.com

I am one of those who have a project studio and a budget mastering facility.

But I tell all my clients that the right way to master their music is to go send their music to a mastering facility like John's. I offer to get involved, talk to the mastering house, tell them what we want. Then talk to the mastering house while the work is being done, to see what they find and what recommendations they might have.

But many don't want to spend the money, and don't really understand how important mastering is. So most of the time, I end up mastering their CD's in my studio. Wavelab 6 with UAD and Waves plug ins. But hey, I get rid of pops and clicks, in using the RMS meters I make sure all the songs are at the same volume, control the low end below 40 hz, add a little sparkle in the high end with UAD's Prec EQ, and help all the songs to have a similar sound.

After studying Bob Katz book on mastering for weeks, I will admit mastering is a tough and complicated thing to do. I do a all right job, but I acknowlege that having high end gear like Cranesong, and Manley gear and knowing how to use it properly in a good room with great monitors is the way to go.

One client after we did a demo of a couple of songs, used it for a live gig as back ground music for some vocalist. They used our recording and then some professional done background CD's. He then stated he was disapointed that our CD did not sound as good as the other CD back tracks.

In any home or project studio, I don't believe we can get the same sound that you would with a professional CD you get in the store. Even if the project studios has high end mic's, pre's and converters. Other variables include

1. Recording in sound proof rooms.

2. Several high end monitors in a studio.

3. Several engineers which each have just a part of the music that they work on.

4. Professional mastering

5. Better quality CD's to burn on. There are a certain amount of errors on a CD, the more errors, the less accurate information is heard. I use decent CD's, but there are professional CD's we could use that would help in this area.We could buy them if you wanted to. But again, but for demo purposes....

6. Additional high end EQ's and compressors.

7. The professional CD pressing company's do certain things that we don't do either.

I told him I believe we can do several things to improve your recordings, but again, all you need is more money. The biggest step they can take is getting the music professionaly mastered.

Has anyone heard of the Site MasterByMail.com?
Do they even send you the finished product at all? I think these guys are a scam.

I feel as if I must recuse myself of commenting on that one...

As I stated in another mastering forum not unlike this one, I usually am a reader and not a poster but I was lurking around and noticed the master by mail question and figured since I have done business with this company I would post something to help out. I sent a 18 song alternative/rock project to them in January that my cousin and I recorded ourself on Digital Performer. I admit our recordings were not the greatest sounding since we have no pro training in this area, but good enough to put on cd and play for friends and family. We were low on cash so we send it to masterbymail.com with payment and really was not expecting much to happen because it was only $99. About 2 weeks later we got our mastering package back from them and to our surprise it was pretty good. All tracks were so much better sounding that we decided to duplicate 500 copies through disc makers. Anyway, it was money well spent.

The truth is these guys must be getting pretty good results, and the QUANTITY of work they are doing with a budget price they must get all sorts of work and make plenty of money. I went with masterbymail.com because their $99 rate was exactly what we could pay to enhance our bands music and nothing more. We knew perfectly well it was not going to be as good as going with a more expensive facility that charges $500 to $1000 for 18 songs. Anyone with half a brain knows you get what you pay for. Basically we were ready to get a cd worth $99 in sound quality. What we got back was an awesome sounding master that was better than we expected. The service was a little slow as far as the 2 weeks it took to get it back but if they keep doing a good job on my cd's i'll be using them for a quite long time.

Master by mail is the Holy Grail for independant artists and indie labels looking to enhance their tracks without breaking the bank. It's clear that if you have spent many months and thousands of dollars recording your album you would go with a more expensive facility with a well known engineer, but if you spent $300 at some dudes nickle and dime basement studio, or recorded your enire CD on your home computer like I did, nobody in their right mind is gonna dish out $1000 bucks for mastering with anyone.

If you, John Scrip started offering affordable "budget" mastering services at a $100 price point I would gladly send my home recordings to you rather than master by mail. Even if you said you were not going to run my music through any of that very expensive high end gear in your pictures, but instead were gonna use some trusted and proven monitors and plug-ins, I would still send it to you. But you don't offer budget mastering. At least not in my budget or most other musicians limited budget. It's clear Master By Mail is not scamming anyone as they have been around for a long time. They claim over 10 years and if you check the BBB's report on this company, it clearly shows 4 resolved complaints. Don't you think they would have much more than 4 resolved (which means they probably refunded their money) complaints in that amount of time? If they were not providing a quality product do you honestly think musicians, lawyers, FBI, government, banks, BBB, Google, Yahoo, and everyone else would let them take peoples money month after month, year after year without it catching up with them? I think not.

Every business has a right to run it the way they want. If they don't offer a customer service phone number or put a picture of the owners face in their web site they don't have to. This does not make the company a scam. There are thousands of very reputable online businesses that do not have a phone number or picture of the owner on their sites. Instead they use email which is probably faster and much cheaper in the long run. And as far as photos of the facility goes, they have a page full of studio pics and their gear list looks average for the services they provide.

It's been stated by some ME's that budget mastering at rock bottom pricing tends to "cheapen the industry" and if this is true then Bob Ludwig who charges 10 times what Massive charges is probably looking at MassiveMastering.com and thinking the very same thing. The difference is Bob Ludwig doesnt hang out in mastering forums using scare tactics to try and drum up new customers for himself.

WTF?

I just recently used Massive for a project that required a little TLC and he was just what the doctor ordered. I'd hire him again in a heartbeat. Highly recommended. I found the price to be extremely reasonable.

I understand that many people just plain can't afford professional mastering services. Hell, most of these people I call friends .

If you can get a whole CD mastered for $100 and be happy with the results, then more power to you brother. But, why the slag towards John? People charge for their services based on what the market will bare, like any other business. It's on you, the customer, to find the right services at the right price point.

I found your last paragraph to be highly offensive, and I'm not even affiliated with Massive.

I think your gut intuition of primarily lurking and not posting was spot on. I'd go with that.

Best,
Steve

Ouch - I didn't even notice that last part...

And I'll take just a little offense. I'm not trying to "use scare tactics to drum up business" by any means. That article (and it's well explained in it) is geared towards people who I'm quite sure will *not* be a client of mine.

Now, without mentioning anyplace by name, the reason that certain places may have come under scrutiny was for blantant misrepresentaion. *Phony* gear lists (confirmed at other forums). *Phony* audio samples (confirmed by anyone with ears). *Phony* claims (confirmed by anyone with common sense) and the like.

If someone wants to charge next to nothing, that's up to him (or her) and I don't really care. But once they start being deceptive and dishonest, they really *are* doing a disservice to the industry while taking advantage of the ignorance (or gullibility) of others. There's a big difference between "sales hype" and flat out B.S.

In my estimation, the "flat out B.S.'ers" don't deserve your money.

On to details:

quote:

They claim over 10 years and if you check the BBB's report on this company, it clearly shows 4 resolved complaints.

4 BBB complaints against a company that charges $99 for a service that averages many times more is actually pretty shocking. Even over 10 years. I'd be surprised if any of those were more than two years old though.

quote:

If they were not providing a quality product do you honestly think musicians, lawyers, FBI, government, banks, BBB, Google, Yahoo, and everyone else would let them take peoples money month after month, year after year without it catching up with them? I think not.

(A) It's not up to those people. (B) I never said anything about a "quality product."

quote:

And as far as photos of the facility goes, they have a page full of studio pics and their gear list looks average for the services they provide.

FINALLY!!! Geez, and it's about time. And yes, that list actually is somewhat believable (Although I've never seen a place with SSNN that can charge less than around $99 per hour... that's a huge, HUGE investment that isn't going to be recouped at $99 per project). A certain (unnamed, of course) site used to have a list of amazing gear - Manley, Crane Song, Lavry, Class "A" this and Class "A" that, "Tube" this and that - And a (very blurry) photo of a rack of Behringer gear. I won't hide that I'm a bit sketpical of even *those* photos - But just skeptical. It just doesn't add up. But perhaps he's (I'm sorry "they" as they are a group "of the most experienced and dedicated mastering engineers") independintly wealthy and just does this for fun.

There's the one that still gets me about them though...

quote:

Over the past 11 years we have assembled some of the most experienced and dedicated mastering engineers all with a common goal to give the average musician the opportunity to achieve the same quality that is given to some of today's major artists, but at a much lower rate.

You'd think that after 11 years they'd tell you the names of these experienced and dedicated mastering engineers... Just three of them. This group of experienced and dedicated mastering engineers that can make a living out of doing projects for $99...

Again - A bit hard to swallow.

And again - if you like that particular place, that's fine. And AGAIN, that article has nothing to do with "cheap mastering" places. And I recused myself before of discussing any of them by name - Even the ones that blatantly ripped off *MY* site / gear list / rate sheet / articles / everything else. It's about deceptive business practices. There are "cheap" and "honest" people out there that deserve your business. I'm not saying WHO is "cheap and honest" - I'm just trying to give people a little ammo when they're looking for themselves. I've seen enough of the rest.

John,

Your right on the money with your article but there are soooooooooo many people who are drawn in by this trickery and who lose valuable time and money and get nothing except heartbreaks in return. Too bad that your article is not required reading for all people getting ready to master their materials.

Thanks, Tom - I appreciate it.

And nice to see you 'round these parts!

WHAT!!? You could not be more wrong. I and many of my musician friends have been using budget online mastering services for years. Never paying more than $15 to $25 per song and I have never been disappointed with the mastering work performed on my music. Every mastering service has a different equipment and different ears producing a different sound. Budget mastering is not trickery like your "Mastering Scams" article claims, it is simply people mastering music with equipment that cost them $10,000 instead of $100,00 . 10 years ago this was almost impossible to achieve, but these days it's very easy to get incredible results using very little equipment. You could buy an entire mastering studio off Ebay for less than you think. Johns article has many good points that are true for any business out there, but a few I don't agree with and are simply not true. These forums are great for people to voice their thoughts and opinions so here are my thoughts on Johns Scrip's "Mastering Scams" article .

Johns article says there are no certificates given out to audio engineers in general. FALSE- This could not be more untrue as most audio engineering schools give out audio engineering certificates and degrees upon completion. Although I have never heard of a school offering mastering certificates, there are many many certified engineers out there who are becoming mastering engineers so I would have to say recording engineer certificate YES, mastering engineer certificate NO.

Johns article says that any studio that does not list the names of the engineers or owners have no credibility because you are hiring the engineer, not the facility. FALSE- When you pay $15 to $25 per song for budget mastering services you are not paying for a well known mastering engineer with tons of credits to their name. You are paying for the mastering service that the facility is performing for you. Actually, I would be more skeptical of a well known studio with a well known engineer with tons of credits offering budget mastering. But thats just my opinion.

Johns article says that studios with no photos of the gear they claim to have is deceptive. TRUE and FALSE- I agree that when dealing with online studios, photos of the facility and the gear used by that facility is helpful in determining what kind of final product they can produce, but there are many studios that will not put any photos or even a gear list online because they have been broken into in the past. I once read an article of a studio owner who showed up to work one day to find his facility broken into and thousands of dollars of gear stolen. All that was left behind was a printout of his gear list that the thieves got from his website with every stolen item highlighted. Now tell me, if that happened to you, would you keep the gear list and pictures on your site? Not me.

Johns article says look out for studios that list redundant software, such as Cubase SX and Nuendo.
FALSE- Are you kidding me? In todays digital age compatibility is one of the most important things to look for in any studio. Even mastering studios that were once recording studios will have many different programs they have purchased over time. If I am recording at home in Nuendo and want a studio to be able to upload and work on my session files for mixing and mastering, I would much rather use a studio that has or is familiar with Nuendo as to insure a smooth mixing or transfer process. Every audio program has it's own individual qualities that make it stand out and over a period of years it is easy to aquire several different audio programs to perform different tasks. I can't figure out why John assumes sites that list several computer programs are being deceptive. These programs are really not very expensive and can even be purchased on Ebay for a couple hundred dollars. I myself own 4 different recording programs, each great for performing certain tasks and I bought them all new over 6 years for under $1,000 total. Am I being deceptive in saying this?

Basically what you did with that article John is this: You took your own business ideas and practices for your current mastering facility, wrote an article about what you think and believe the mastering business is or should be like from your eyes and your own personal experiences, and posted it on the internet. Well, that is fine and you have every right to do and say whatever you believe about anything. Infact I honor your opinions and your passion in helping others in forums who need help with things of this nature. But you are right, your article is a bit of a rant. What you claim to be "deceptive facilities" may actually be %100 legitimate businesses with nothing more than different business ideas and practices than you have. Yes there are phony pics of gear and wannabees hyping up their sites and promising the world on a silver platter for the cost of a paper plate. But when you write an article that puts a label such as "scam" on every legitimate budget studio that has no pics, or is very inexpensive, or has a certified engineer, or has several recording programs, it's you John who is really doing a disservice to the audio industry. You just lost my business.

I think you missed the entire point of the whole body of the article... I'm not trying to throw *ALL* budget mastering facilities into the same basket here -

Without going point-by-point, you've conveniently distorted almost every point you made...

I *know* of phony places - I *know* of phony gear lists - I *know* of stolen photographs. I *know* of sites that list "a staff of certified professional mastering engineers" (with "hundreds of credits to their name") that name no one.

*OF COURSE* I wouldn't expect a top-name engineer with pages of credits to be mastering entire albums for $100... That's why I have to wonder when places that charge $100 make that claim. And *OF COURSE* I have no problem with places that have a decent stable of software - Nuendo is fine. Cubase SX is fine. Cubase SX *and* Nuendo (which has every simgle capability of CSX plus a bunch more) is redundant. And I *do* know of a place now that uses both. But with the investment made, they aren't going to be offering $10 mastering any time soon like some places I know of that claim well over $50,000 *just in software* that are charging $8 per track...

I do *NOT* label every budget facility a "scam" by any means - If you got that out of the article, I suggest you read it again.

I've never said to *avoid* budget facilities - On the contrary, I've *supported* and continue to support them.

Excellent article John, and I am curious....in the notes of the article it mentions you did something with Manowar? That rocks man! I used to love those guys back in the day when their first two albums came out. Fighting the World was AWESOME! I ate up so many cassette copies of that album it was ridiculous. Ah yes....80's metal get's me all misty eyed. What album/s of theirs did you work on?

And for those other guys in here picking on John, you are totally missing the point. As with any industry, there is always a certain amount of hype in advertising. If you choose to go with a "budget facility" to accomplish your project goals, that is up to you, but John's article makes good common sense. The bottom line point was for beginner's to take the time to KNOW what you're getting. And I don't care WHAT you say, there IS a difference between a $99 job and a $1,000 job **IF** the more expensive studio is legit and using what they advertise. Higher quality equipment equals higher quality results, and taking the time to determine if the company you're dealing with is reputable is NEVER a bad thing.

I can't tell you how many CD's I've listened to from local studios here in Virginia, that charge fairly expensive rates, but frankly have dissapointing results. Along that line, it doesn't matter if you have all the gear in the world, if it isn't run by an experienced engineer who knows how to use it, it won't sound as good in the end. I think it's seriously short-sighted to "assume" he was trying to "use scare tactics" to drum up business. I felt the article was pretty straight forward and offered a great deal of good common sense.

If a $99 mastering job works for you, then good for you. That's what ultimately matters. But the point I think, was to be on the lookout for the schisters that charge you $1000 and give you $99 results.

Manowar stuff - Hell On Wheels LIVE! Nothing extraordinary - Preproduction engineering mostly.

Did some touring with them on the previous album (I'm a former long-haired-heavy-metal type myself).

Damn you! =) Now I am jealous! Those guys ripped back in the day!

quote:

Originally posted by Cosmic Pig:

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.
Cos.

I do seo. I get people to rank for search terms in the engines. Obviously I rank high for some search terms myself, seo uk for example. Know what the most competition's for, pretty much? Search engine submission. And you know what? You don't need it! At all! People charging for this "service" are robbing you blind! People think they need it so they pay for it. Hence it's a competitive term to try to get. Moral here is, there's probably more money in taking advantage of peoples' ignorance than there is in trying to educate them.

BB

Internet Mastering Scams
By Ron Leeper, Sound Affair Mastering
February 20th, 2007
A serious problem in the recording community has been brought to my attention. It is not my intention for my blog to be negative in nature, however maybe I can help others avoid being the victim of a scam.

I have received phone calls from two individuals recently regarding an Internet mastering scam. Both of these artists had sent their music to be mastered to two different studios that advertise “discount” or “low budget” CD mastering services. As per request, the payments were made in advance and were sent in along with the CDs to be mastered. It is not unusual for deposits to be requested for services, so I am not suggesting that this was a red flag. Unfortunately both of these artists never heard from the “mastering studios” again. They both e-mailed numerous times and heard nothing back.

Both guys contacted me in a bit of a panic and I was able to help one of them to get a completed master to the replicator on time. They gave me the names and I decided to snoop around and do some online investigating. It didn’t me take long to find them. Upon review they didn’t have much substance or information on their websites. Both had maybe one or two pages on the site dedicated to mastering, but they were boasting everything under the sun as far as being the “experts of mastering.” Looking further, I could not find any contact names, telephone or fax numbers. Both websites only had a post office box and an email address. Both victims had been emailing these studios but never received a reply. I too tried several times, but never received anything.

The only solution I had for them, was to contact the United States Postal Service and submit a case for mail fraud. Every now and then I keep an eye our for these fake mastering studios, however they have seemed to have changed their advertising method as I don’t see them any more. I hope we all see the last of this phony scam. We all know there are music business and Internet scams everywhere. Don’t become a victim of Internet fraud. Do your homework and find a mastering facility that has a long track record. Telephone the mastering studio and speak to the engineer. Ask questions. Develop a relationship with them. A good facility will be happy to speak to you and discuss the best process for mastering your project.

This is your music and you have put a lot of hard work, time and money into it. This is the most important and the final stage of your music. Don’t skimp on this final step.

It's kind of ridiculous to try and take a cautionary tale about some budget mastering scams...and turn it into a "scare tactic" aimed at every budget mastering facility. The original story by John bears repeating over and over again. The internet is like Dodge City in the 1800's...nobody's in charge and anything goes. More specifically, the music biz has always been rife with scammers, leeches, lowlifes...you name it. There's a certain element out there that have figured out that robbing people of smaller sums is less likely to generate the effort to go after them...people will often say "c'est la vie" and walk away. Do that often enough and it can add up to a lot of money. Add-in the relative anonymity of the internet and you got easy-pickings. John is right-on and people need to consider:

1)Even if a scammer sent someone back a "finished product"...there are some who wouldn't be able to evaluate whether they got a good job...and maybe some who wouldn't know if they got anything. Maybe the person ran their tracks through a plugin EQ/limiter and flipped them back getting $100 for 10 minutes work.

2)Buying mastering is like buying anything else...look to people you know who've had good experiences and don't necessarily go JUST for cheap. The proof's in the pudding...

-john

I'm new to this forum so I'm a little unsure as to how this works. If you receive this note can you let me know how your experience turned out with Masterbymail. Two weeks ago I paid them to master a disc for me. I've never received any communication whatsoever, even after 4 emails (the only way one can communicate-seems suspicious now that I've paid). It did seem alittle too good to be true. PT Barnum was right and its tough to realize he was talking about me. I've been a musician for a long time but mastering is an area I'm very ignorant about. I just got a little smarter.