Pretend Mastering

He makes some good points, and goes overboard a bit.  If you are doing the singer songwriter thing or just putting out something noncommerically, it doesn't make a lot of sense (cents) to spend a whole lot on mastering.  As Brandon Dury makes plain, most of that can be done at home, or at the same time as mixing.

At the same time, if you are doing a commercial release having a second set of ears and mastering grade equipment is the way to go and isn't that big of an expense.

If everything else is up to snuff, mastering should just be a matter of squeezing less than a dB or so compressing, like a final polish, and maybe imprinting a little final eq so the songs jell together on the CD etc.  I run my "mixes" through outboard for that.  If you can get a good mix, you can probably do that, too.  I also like to use Sound Forge since it puts me in a differnet "mode".  "Does this need fixed enough to go back to go back to the mix" is a question it raises.

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Brandon is cool but man he goes over the top at times looking for attention.

Most of the folks that use Sonar could use a good mastering job; few if any will.

Great thread!  The article was a bit incoherent, conclusion-wise.

But the 'end-of-the-day' mastering is a big gulp for all of us, I reckon.

It signifies that the song is *finished*, 'The End -- Amen'.

(Like kicking a grown-up child out of the house)

OTOH, I'm certain many of us have works that are:

1) artsy and don't require an ME.
2) car-traffic or dance music ... and don't require an ME.

But for pop, theater, church, radio, country, and or 'safe' listening ... an ME helps.

I think there are people who post here who have "outstanding" mixes. To a level I will probably never be able to achieve.