Published via Ecency

Mastering, is a term I use lightly. “Mastering” is usually done by professionals. I’ve actually studied mastering. I had the privilege to learn from a guy that was prevalent in the industry. He worked with the correct gear, top echelon facility and piers, and legitimate old school experience on top of all that. In my opinion, most of us, including myself, are nearly incapable of mastering music/albums as well as it was once done. Guys like him probably can't exists anymore. Bold statement, right? Music has changed.

Terminator proly got it now.

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My confidence comes from my experience as a listener and as a person who observes listening patterns and tendencies. Fidelity is forgiving phenomenon these days. I am grateful, don’t get me wrong. Technology has opened many doors for us. Abundance is here.

Listen vigilantly! 💪🧠👂

The more we listen to something, the more likely we are to eventually prefer it. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon in myself and in groups of video game testers. People who are forced/paid to sing this music they might not like. Just when you think you’ll never love high school musical, someone pays you to run quality assurance on it and guess what… you start to like it… you tell yourself “oh the bass is cool, it’s all about the bass.”

Conditioning is everywhere and easily underestimated. Use it to your advantage. Get flat speakers, no coloration. Mix and master with your flat studio monitors/speakers. Then, when you reference against other people’s speakers, approach it knowing that most people will have their bass boosted. Most people have consumer grade speakers that make the bass and high end extra juicy. You'll figure it out.

I use KRK Rokit 8s. You know, the yellow coned eight inch woofer ones with tweeters and bass port slits near the bottom. I remember checking different speakers when I was in the store. These were slightly above my price level, but I preferred the clarity I am neutrality when referencing them against other speakers in the room. That was a long time ago. I still have the same speakers.

Never trash or sell your old studio monitors. Get new ones, maybe fix the old ones, but keep the old ones to maintain your reference perspective. You’ve invested time learning how to interpret the frequencies coming out of your speakers. Keep that perspective as you learn the new speakers.

What I’m Mastering!

Too many songs. Did you notice I haven't talked about mixing? I nearly skipped the process. Taboo AF and IDGAF. I might get back to it. I've been mixing along the way, so I think these drafts will be tolerable.

This is a view of my current music projects dropbox folder. I use Dropbox in combination with a Dropbox audio player to review and run quality assurance on my music.

From here, I can listen to the music on any speakers that connect to Bluetooth. Reviewing my music on speakers outside of my studio monitors gives me a healthy impression of the Hz behavior.

CloudBeats makes it easy for me to reference projects on a variety of speakers. I could create playlists, but they are hard to transfer over via itunes and muh Macbook.
When if comes to referencing, convenience is important. In the old days, I carried around a double sided stereo 8th" mini cable so that I could connect to speakers. I had RCA adapters too. With that cable I would connect my #walkman, #cdplayer, and later #ipod to hotel television speakers, other peoples home stereos, cars with mini... just to sample/reference my own wacky music.