Original subtitles

hi this is justin kelly of sonic scoop

thanks for joining me for this week's

episode of the sonic scoop podcast

and today we're gonna be answering

another audience question this one that

came

in with the very provocative title does

my song even

need to be mastered and this was with a

capital need i'm not putting it in there

this was from a viewer reader listener

named

nick and it's a great question

interesting one and i think there's a

lot of insights we can glean from it so

let's just jump right into the question

nick writes hey justin i'm a big fan of

the sonic scoop podcast and i've been

listening for about a year now

all of your information is fantastic and

made me a better mixing engineer

that is awesome that is exactly what i

want to hear i come

with a question that you probably get a

lot i do get something like this with

some frequency

he says i just produced a song and mixed

it fairly well

and afterwards i ran it through some

mastering websites

lander soundcloud when i heard the

master preview

it sounded almost exactly the same

when the levels were matched perfectly

do i even need to master the song if it

makes

almost no difference here's a wav file

of the song so you can check it out also

if you have any constructive criticism

about the song

please don't hesitate to give me the

most brutal and honest feedback

thanks all right nick it's not my style

to be brutal but i'll give you i think

what

you need to hear and what's going to be

beneficial to you i usually don't have

time to listen to every song that comes

in

unless i'm doing a coaching call or i'm

doing a mastering session for somebody

but

with all the compliments that nick

loaded this with and with the

the great title subject line he put in

uh i did end up listening to it

and let me give you my ideas on this

first of all lander soundcloud these

automatic mastering services

are they any good are they worth it is

his experience a common one where it

sounds almost exactly the same after

mastering

would mastering with a real person

change that at all

is it going to be markedly better in any

way

like what's the difference and are there

some songs in some context that maybe

just

don't need mastering as a great set of

questions so we're going to go into all

that

and a lot more in mere moments here

before i do the briefest

of shout outs to the sponsors on this

podcast this week who do we have

sponsoring

we have got fabfilter sponsoring this

month they just came out with their

newest version of their timeless delay

timeless three i recently did

a whole mastering session using nothing

but fab filter plugins

and stuff actually turned out pretty

awesome i'll link to that

here in the show notes also sound toys

sponsoring once again

they make some of my favorite creative

mixing effects in the own universe we

got two of the best

plugin companies out there sponsoring

this week which is awesome try out

anything they make for free at

soundtoys.com

also try out the fab filter stuff for

free over at fabfilter.com

last but not least jay-z microphones i'm

talking into a wonderful

jay-z vintage 67 right now i've been

using jay-z mics on the podcast in my

videos for

over a year now and they're having a

huge sale where you can get mics like

this for up to 60

off plus free shipping if you use the

special code

sonic scoop but you gotta act now

because that summer sale is ending on

june 29th

all right let's get into it nick does

your song even need to get mastered you

put it through landry you put it through

soundcloud it sounded practically the

same

afterwards what's the point and also

give me feedback in my mix

all right i have experienced similar

things

with lander and soundcloud where i've

heard other people's mixes run through

them

when i hear really good mixes run

through them they sound

in my experience pretty much like the

mix but slightly less good

and then you usually don't really have

the option too much to actually

change it like which direction do we

want to go in

which is a big thing and this is

something that not

many automatic mastering services have

which is the idea of

context genre like what's the feel we're

going for

and one of the big things about

mastering that's super important to

recognize

is there's no one right way to master a

track

you could master a track reasonably well

in a variety of different ways and i've

sometimes done this for clients

first time i'm working with a client and

i'll get a feel for some of their

favorite records get in my ear listen to

them

listen to their track and be like well

we've never worked together before

here's the direction i think it needs to

go listening to your track and listening

to

some of the tracks you love send it back

to them and say

here's a place where i think it sounds

really good however

since you're not here in the studio with

me listening to other options i'm going

to send you one

maybe in some cases two additional

versions just in case here's what it

would sound like

if we mastered it darker but also went

kind of just as well balanced but in a

darker direction

and here's what we do if we backed off

on the processing a bit and went a lot

flatter or the opposite here's we really

pushed it you know balls of the walls

went really hot

really hyped it up and i can get it to

these

two or three maybe different sounding

places

all of which will sound awesome in their

own way but

it really comes down to the aesthetic

universe that the artist wants the song

to sit in

and this is one of the problems with the

automatic mastering services that are

out there now i'm hopeful that in the

future

there will be automatic mastering

services that go beyond this and give

you

more options more flexibility but i've

actually heard some examples of this in

the past i'm going to link you to

right here a past contributor to sonic

scoop

jason moss who ran the website behind

the speakers he's great mixing engineer

in his own right he's written a bunch of

articles for sonic scoop

he did this thing on his own channel

where

he compared a track that he had mixed

going through

lander and going through a couple other

automatic mastering services

and then also going to a professional

mastering engineer

and his mix was great to begin with it

was one of those mixes that sounded

good right out of the gate and sounded

close to

finished or mastered like it didn't

necessarily

need mastering but when it came back

through lander and some of the other

automatic mastering services it

generally sounded

pretty similar to his original mix but a

little bit worse

but the human mastering engineer took it

in a different direction

and went significantly brighter and

wider with his mix in a way that was

awesome and i think

stood up a lot better to some of the

commercial releases in that style

and i'll link to that so you can hear

his track mastered in a few different

ways

and the one that really stood apart was

the human mastering engineer because he

made a creative decision

which was i think the track needs to go

in this direction it's not the only

direction it could go but if it went in

this direction i think would be super

cool and i think he was right

he could have also been wrong but in

this case i think he's totally writing

his master in my opinion level match

wins because it was the most

interesting so that i think is the

primary benefit

to getting your stuff mastered isn't

just like bringing up the level

and isn't just the qc like that's part

of it i think the biggest part

of the mastering engineer's job who's

helping you is the independent third

party qc where we're double checking

things for like

what you might consider technical errors

like

there's some over abundant frequency in

the low end or some over abundant

resonant frequency in the high end and

we're trying to smooth those things out

but there's also that creative side of

it of taking the context of

the whole library of recorded music

that's out there and figuring out

how your song is supposed to sit so when

i wrote back to nick

i said to him hey man you know the track

sounds pretty good

as is and i totally get that experience

of it coming back from one of these

services sounding

basically the same but louder that's

kind of what they're supposed to do if

your mix already sounds right like

they're not trying to ruin it they're

trying to get to the right level and if

you have way too much bass or way too

much trouble

they're trying to reel that in a bit and

they do fine at that

but listening to your track like if i

listen to other tracks in the style it's

kind of electronica style

it's way darker than like all of the

major hit

kind of things in that style so

if that's the feel that you're going for

and those are the records you want to be

heard next to

neither his version nor the mastered

version had that kind of excitement and

clarity and energy

that a lot of the top tracks in the

style do

but on the other hand if that's not what

he was going for and he was going for a

slightly more

you know esoteric like alternative

electronic feel like a little bit more

in the direction of a band called

caribous like one of my favorite

electronic artists and like

if he was going for that feel then it is

an appropriate level

of darkness then like that kind of muted

top end and the slightly more mid-rangey

feel

totally works if like that's the kind of

world we're trying to fit in

so that's a question and that's a

question that i ask

my clients and it's a question that you

know unfortunately lander and soundcloud

mastering service isn't going to

to ask so that's a big thing to know but

one of the other things that i noticed

is that

nick's mix totally competent

good good overall job a lot of nice

balances

there was one problem in it for me where

the kick drum

was overly dominant again compared to

anything whether it's this more

alternative esoteric electronic style or

this amped up electronic style

the kick was just really dominant really

bottom heavy really big

and totally taking over and that's

something he probably couldn't hear

properly in his own studio when he got

the kick to a place where it felt right

to him

it ends up in other environments feeling

out of step with

major releases that he might love the

sound of so that's the other thing that

a mastering engineer might look for

in this case i'd be going and doing one

of two things one trying to do

processing

to control that kick a little bit more

whether it's eq

or dynamic eq are going to be the most

likely tools it could be multi-band

compression

to help contain that kick a little bit

more and bring some of those other

elements out

so we have this totally more rich kind

of immersive

environment where it's not just like kik

and a whole bunch of

other decently balanced stuff below it

being totally dominated

and that's one of the changes i would

try to make

but even if i couldn't do the ideal job

of getting there

i could at least give nick the feedback

of hey

one thing you might want to look at is

bringing that kick down

maybe bringing it down by x number of db

is

i think would get you closer to the feel

of some of your favorite records

maybe taking out a little bit of low end

below this particular frequency would

get you

a little closer to your favorite records

here's what i could do

without you doing that i think it sounds

pretty good here's as far as i could get

it

i think it's in a way better place and

stands up to your favorite records even

better

but if you want to take it even further

here's a little bit of feedback i'd give

to you

so those are the benefits of mastering

does it

need mastering you don't need anything

right

no track needs to be matched no track

even needs to be mixed no track iv

needs to be recorded it's like what's

optimal

what's going to satisfy you and for most

people most of the time

i'm going to suggest that getting

another human set of ears

on your record as the final qc who's

like

almost a little bit your mixing coach a

little bit of

the final sweetener a little bit of the

final quality control

that's the purpose of mastering and what

things like

landers sound clouds automatic mastering

can do for you is just

bring your level up to an appropriate

loudness

level within reason and they don't

really give you that much flexibility

they're like what's an appropriate

loudness level

well that depends i've got a whole video

on that i did one with fab filter

recently where we looked at

like how loud should you actually shoot

for is it negative 14 lux like spotify

recommends

probably not depending on the genre it's

probably louder

how much louder could be anywhere from

negative 13 to like negative six

depending what genre

you're in could be common so like watch

the right loudness level

to sit next to your favorite tracks

watch the right amount of brightness

watch the right amount of low and watch

the right amount of width

and hopefully you have a really

competent human being working with you

to decipher those things that said i'm

not against the idea of these automatic

mastering services there are contexts in

which they could totally

be useful i could totally imagine if

you're out there

doing library music or you know

like soundtrack music that's like

royalty-free soundtrack music you put

out a lot of songs a lot of cues

you can't afford to get every single one

of them mastered then

doing most of this on your side might

make a lot of sense

but i've even worked with some clients

in that realm where it's like

yeah i get the economics of what you're

doing it makes sense not to have every

cue

you do get mastered by some human being

who's going to charge you

you know 125 bucks 150 bucks or more

or less high level engineer who's going

to charge you 50 or 60 bucks

that might not make sense for what

you're doing

economically realistically doesn't make

sense but what you could do

is take a couple of tracks in a couple

different styles

send those to a mastering engineer have

him or her

master those tracks and then tell you

exactly what they did

and i've done this for clients before

like hey yeah i know i'm only going to

master a few tracks for you you can do

the rest yourself

but at least we can go through this

process where you can figure out

what you're not hearing right in your

environment exactly what kind of changes

i needed to make to exactly what

frequency is to get it

sitting better next to the things that

you're going up against and competing

with

giving you those few little mix tips of

the things that i'm hearing that are

maybe slightly off compared to the

records that you're really shooting to

sound as good or better than

and going through that process even once

with that mix coach last mastering

engineer

huge benefit and then from there run

with it i've even had one client ask me

hey could you do everything in izotope's

ozone the entire master

so that i can open it up in my version

of izotope ozone

see exactly what you did and use as like

a preset starting point template

for my other tracks so that i can master

them myself

and i was like yeah totally why not i

could get

why some mastering engineers wouldn't be

comfortable doing that

but i'm totally comfortable doing that

because there's a lot of people out

there

who need mastering and i don't think

we're going to run out of them any time

soon

and i see it as being a cool service

that i can offer people so that's

something that's happened a few times

so i hope that's answered your question

nick did you need to get your song

mastered

nothing needs to get mastered but

nothing needs to get mixed either

nothing needs to get written nothing

needs to get recorded

would help you to get mastering in your

case and in the case of 90

or more people i think yes in part

because of the

sweetening the additional human

perspective the additional

final qc on it all that stuff

i think is tremendously valuable

and it depends again on the quality of

the mix with some people who are mixing

at a super high level i'll get mixes

from people

that sound awesome they sound pretty

much like mastered or ready and loud

enough already

from the moment they come in and i

barely do anything to them

and i'm just like ducking down

below 100hz by half db or the opposite

bringing it up by like a db

and like that's it that's all that i've

done and occasionally that'll happen

and occasionally some records it'll be

much more radical where there's

significant dips and cuts and additional

dynamic processing and

sweetening and widening it really

depends on what it needs

and some tracks need mastering less

because they're mixed

so incredibly well but even those people

at that

level often find hey if i can work with

someone who i

trust who i know isn't going to overdo

it and try to change the thing that i've

done

so well but it's just kind of going to

like have my back

and help me maybe sequence an entire

album and make sure that

each track that i you know kind of mix

to where it's almost mastered

individually that they all fit well next

to each other

so that i don't have one that is like

hotter in the low end compared to the

next one or vice versa

that's even helpful when people's mixes

are tremendous and they already sound

like commercial releases just like

straight out of the daw

which happens sometimes but a lot if not

most of those people

often want mastering even if their mixes

are still a level above

you know the quality of the guy who

wrote in again nick's mix

totally competent totally excellent for

where he is at in his journey

but there are people levels above that

whose stuff sounds

like super finished who still feel like

they benefit

from that do you need it

you don't even need to be making music

so the answer is there's so few things

in life you actually need what do you

need you need oxygen right

you need food is it going to be useful

and helpful for you

and worth it in many cases i think so

then again

you're listening to a podcast that's

done by a mastering engineer

so take all this with the grades solved

but again with that said i'm a mastering

engineer who will do things like say

there's some context word use lander

it's gonna be fine or i'll show you

exactly what i did and you master stuff

for yourself

and go on and be merry so i'm not the

guy who's trying to drum up

endless amounts of work i already have

as much work as i need

i just think this stuff is true and

useful to know

i hope you believe that because i do and

uh

thanks for staying tuned for this

episode of the socks group podcast

hope you can relate to some of that

stuff do you agree disagree let me know

in the comments down below have you ever

had something mastered

and regretted it there have been cases

where i have i'll link you to an episode

about

mastering sessions gone bad and how to

avoid them but have you ever

not had something mastered and regretted

it that's an interesting case to let us

know about that in the comments down

below

as well big thanks again to our sponsors

this week we've got

fab filter making some excellent effects

creative mixing effects as well as

awesome utilities really great

compressor

saturators eqs uh tremendous stuff

check them out over at fabfilter.com you

can try out any of their stuff for free

also sound toys making some of those

vibey interesting cool creative effects

out there

check them out soundtoys.com both those

companies you can try on anything they

make for free so go over to their

websites and please do tell them we sent

you

also big shout out to jay-z microphones

i've been using one of their vintage 67

microphones on the podcast lately i've

done videos with their black hole their

bb29

their amethyst which i was using on the

podcast a while back really rich and

delicious sounding condenser

so great stuff they even make my

favorite pop filter which i don't use on

the podcast because i speak off access

in the podcast i don't even need a pop

filter but

if you're looking for one that's my

favorite one all right check them out

because you can get these mics for up to

60

off right now up until june 29th and you

can get free shipping on top of that

with the discount code

sonic scoop i've also got more free

stuff for you if you want it i've got

a intro to mastering workshop called

mastering 101

that you can get over at sonicscoop.com

mastering101

that's sonicgroup.commastering101 we go

30 40 minutes deep into

what is mastering how do we go about it

what are the benefits what are the best

practices if you want to get started

doing it or just have some master tracks

for you i think it's an invaluable free

workshop check it out sonicscoop.com

slash mastering 101. if you want

something on mixing

check out the habits of every great

mixer the five habits to be precise of

every great mixer over

at

sonicscoop.commixhabits.sonicscoop.com

mixhabits and learn what the best mixers

on the planet are doing

that you might not be doing we've also

got full length courses like

mixing breakthroughs now in its 2.0

iteration definitely a good one

as well as a mastering demystified where

i tell you everything i know about

mastering

they come with a money back guarantee i

think you're going to love them

and you could also just tune into the

sonic 2 podcast if you want more free

stuff

hope to see you around this has been

justin coletti of sonic scoop thanks for

hanging out with me

see you next time