I am in a situation where I was waiting on a professional mastering engineer but I have not heard from him. I am wondering is it worth learning to master with platinum or find another professional. I want my music to sound professional and I know platinum has the ability but there is much to learn. I am curious to know who in the forum masters their own music? Also how has your mastered music received by professional venues like radio, iTunes etc? I know this is a broad subject but Platinum can do so much why not mastering. Thanks in advance

A couple older threads on the topic, but some stuff doesn't change:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Mastering-in-Sonar-why-not-m604999.aspx
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/mastering-tips-m475013.aspx
 
 

It's about all said in those threads.
If you really are aiming at pro level DIY mastering, the most important thing, IMO, is the quality of your monitor speakers and the acoustics of your studio. The more lacking they are, the more trial and error it takes.

If you are publishing a CD or collection of tracks, you'll likely get better results with a professional because they will be able to get the tracks to sound like they belong together. If you are doing one-off singles, then you could get good results on your own, but it will take a long time and a very good monitoring environment to get there.
 
Regards,
Dan

Your guy is either overloaded or he's doing it part-time whenever he gets around to it. If he's good at it, he's worth waiting on.
 
Sure, you could start looking for somebody else to do it. There are plenty of people out there doing it. Unfortunately, MOST of them aren't very good at it and don't have the proper gear or room. Some are outright frauds. You'd have to ask for samples from multiple MEs and compare them, and you still wouldn't know what the turnaround times are going to be until you put them to the test.
 
Personally, I do all my own mastering if it's my own music, because I have no commercial ambitions. "Good enough" is good enough for me. But I won't master somebody else's work if it's going to be for sale. (OK, I'll admit to having done it, but only because there was no budget for "real" mastering.)

"mastering", means a couple of things:
 
equipment.
knowledge.
 
don't think that running a mix in sonar thru a brickwall limiter is mastering...
beyond that, why not spend the 10,000 or so hours it takes to become an expert..
or,
maybe something a bit less that that.
 
in other words,
you probably need a pro.
 

I tunes and radio don't care about your mastering - most radio stations have their own "sound" that they impart onto their playlist.
 
But yes, for commercial work that is one of the ways it is distinguished.  Many good MEs are dying for work (just like all the other commercial aspects of music production not named Katy Perry).  And it really isn't that expensive in the scale of things, unless you pick Katy Perry's ME.
 
@

BMOG,
 
I sent you a PM.

sent 'who' a pm?
 

The OP, bats.