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hey guys ive got 4 tracks here i spent long time(over a year) and lots of high end gear trying to get the mixes as balanced and clear as i could, but for the third time i got them mastered i still feel the originals without mastering is better. i was fed up after 2 times so the 3rd went to very expensive mastering engineer and said to preserve as much detail and dynamics as possible and he did and this is def the best of the 3, and yes they are more louder than originals but still feel originals much more crystal clear and hd like. so thinkin mayb better without mastering processing or myb its my ears/perception/monitoring..cant help being perfectionist and cant trust myself with this really need some second opinion, so really hoping you guys could help, pleasse have a listen to them and what do u think sounds better the originals or mastered versions, thnks so much
Alon-

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80928016/Masters.rar




btw on originals just raised the volumes until reached clipping

I don't know, but for some reason I cannot download them... Would you please upload them through a different platform, like dropbox or something? Cheers

sure now on dropbox: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/80928016/Masters.rar
thnks

Hey I just took a listen and this is what I concluded:

Drifting - master has digital clipping in the first 5 seconds. Otherwise it sounds better than original.

Mystical Dimensions - original sounds more open and balanced to me.

Reborn - sounds better than original.

Spinning the Consciousness - sounds better than original.

Check out my recent post here: http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=31519

thnks so much man, yh wow ur right bout the digital clipping cant believe he did that, and mystical for now stays original than, i just sent u the tracks, really cool of u to do this
cheers

imho such tracks don't need any mastering at all
you've set them up to a certain point that obviously reflects your idea about the sound
in this case they simply fit
any modification of the levels will break it apart, make it a new mix, so to say.
not necessarily bad, but different - great soundscapes, btw
(would be interesting to know what quantum will tweak out of them, tho)

cheers, Tom

For me, one of my referents in mixing and mastering is “Paul White” in terms of technicalities because he is very good at explaining everything in his many books which I have read for a few years, then “Bob Clearmountain” when it comes to the most amazing mastering jobs in history, at least to my ears, like Tears for Fears The Seeds of Love Album. But none, Paul or Bob, have ever stressed this modern obsession for loudness, this is something that have been happening more and more in the last 3 years or so, but it is definitely not part of the best in the history of mixing and mastering. In fact, there is today a countercurrent against this excessive false need for more and more loudness. If you add more salt to a pizza, it is true that when you bite the first bit, you will like it probably more, because there is an extra addition of salt, but that’s it, after that you will get tired and will not want to eat the rest of the pizza and will never again get a pizza like that, it will be too much.

The same happens with two mayor exaggerations in today’s standards when mixing and mastering: “excessive high frequencies”, and “excess compression and loudness”.

I think that if you have to choose for something, choose dynamics against loudness, as a first more musical concept. Then, a natural sound instate of an extremely sharp, crispy sound with too much high end.

Well, I have gone though this as a general answer, so I am not telling you anything in regard to your songs, as I have not listed to them yet. Now I’m going there… and…

“Drifting” sounds much better Mastered, despite this small clipping, which I think don’t really matter much or can be easily fixed.

“Mystical Dimensions”, I would probably let it be as unmastered.

“Reborn” sounds to me better unmastered, the mastered version has a pop like sound so it does not match what you are doing, not for this kind of music. I think that not everything can be mastered in the same way.

“Spinning the Consciousness”, I prefer the unmastered version.

I think that there is a subjective element you have to take into account here, very important: each one of us has different setups to listen to your tracks, so the perception may vary depending of the monitors, and then of course, depending of the likes of each person. I would recommend you to trust yourself, and sort of make an empty void into your mind about all these concepts when listening at your music, forgetting what is right or wrong and then letting yourself be carried away by your own experience of the music, after all, this is exactly what the listener is going to do, he is not going to think about mixing or mastering matters, he will simply enjoy the music. Enjoy the music yourself, as if you were a listener too, and judge AFTER you have listened the tracks, this could help a lot to decide what to do.

The last thing I would like to say is that for me there is no perfect master when it comes to what I do myself. I feel that it could be better every time, even if I better it many times it is not still enough for me I realized that I was losing too much time mixing and mastering tracks lately, so I decided to mix and master to a certain extent in which I can really enjoy the track and say, “wow, it sounds cool”, but I don’t longer look perfection, but strong motivation in state. Why? Because there are many more tracks waiting for me to bring them down to earth that I want to compose and play. So as a conclusion, I prefer to spend more time composing, because every composition gives me too the opportunity for bettering my mix and master experience and output. In a way, it means not to get too attached to a particular track, but rather to your alive experience of music in life, the one will bring the other to perfection.

i hear what u guys are saying, i think just like in mixing, in mastering less can be more but seems lots of mastering guys just make things in way thats become standard to them, seems this guy really did master each in a similar way as u said and because of this feel lots of loss of detail n depth. I personally dont care about loudness at all, care about quality sound n dynamics, but it seems that these notions not too popular in mainstream music.I listened to these on many various systems now, and i agree with u guys i think unmastered versions sound much better in the sense of clarity and depth, the mastered ones might b more balanced but i dont think worth the sacrafice for the detail. drifting not the only song i found artifacts btw, really the last time getting mastered by this guy, hope quantum can put my belief back into mastering cause so far im seeing its doing more damage than good. btw Quantum is a really great guy not just cause hes mastering these for free but he unlike all the others till now huge difference in how he cares about mastering and so much better communication, every detail of flaws that i overheard in my mixing hes getting to me and im fixing and sending back, much unlike the other mastering guys that said nothing just seem were trying to get over with, get my $ and go to their next project, like the music and perfecting it isnt whats important. Your also right about not getting too caught up in it, oof im going to start working on new trks now got to enjoy life again and for me personally that coincides more with production than mixing/mastering

Bob Clearmountain said that when he has to mix and master an album he would do it in about 40 minutes, depending on the style of the music, pop and rock would apply to this amount of time, now, more sophisticated music like yours would need more dedication and more time. This first 40 minutes are the most important (in his words), and if you don’t get a clear direction on what you want to do through this period, you are in trouble. He states that if he goes on and on trying to fix problems for hours, that would usually not work, that is why he prefers to rather stop and wait, because “perception” becomes unclear and you lose the reference of what you are doing because you are listening to the same music for too long, your sensitivity becomes sort of numb. You need to go away then come back and listen at what you have to do again, and go for yet another session. I think this is a good idea.

Something that many engineers do before mastering an exacting kind of music is listening to some of the guys out there that are important exponents of this kind of music, trying to understand what they have done to its music to sound in this particular way, and then try to emulate their result. I think this is a great idea to learn from. I listen to very well mastered music that I like and pay attention to the details, then try to learn and make it my own, applying their techniques. At least you have a reference to hold to and that feels much better than been alone

lending my ears.

Drifting:
Mastered one definitely lost imaging and space definition. I don' think it's so much the mastering, but just the techniques involved. I definitely like the original better. Seems like just careful comping would do the job. The dynamic range of the original is just a tad more what would be expected of a "mastered" track, but I think it's fine for live, or theater. It's quite obvious you went for a specific spatial sound, and it's definitely not there in the mastered version.

Mystical:
This one, since dynamics is used very effective, won't benefit from compression. Again something about the reverb gets messed up in the mastered version.

Reborn:
hmm, same with this one too. I think the issue is that you're using the dynamic range in a very theater/cinema way (more volume "zones" used expressively) so the material doesn't lend itself to lower dynamic ranges. I think it's better to write that way, but obviously distribution expects otherwise. The track levels on this one are so awesomely dialed in in the original creating great track separation and intelligibility but all that gets smushed in the mastered version and becomes flat.

Spinning:
This one sort of benefits from mastering, though not necessarily true to the original. The drums being more in your face I think emphasizes the groove. But definitely much more aggressive than the original, which is smooth and silky throughout. I think if you want the aggressiveness the mastered one's good. Of course this is totally out of line from the "transparently mastering" since it's apparently different from the original, but just saying it could be different in a preferable way.

Overall, I think it may be worth it just to dial in a gentle comp by yourself if you much adjust for consistency in dynamics (just from a quality perspective) but otherwise I don't think the material calls for much dynamics tweaking. It uses a very wide range very effectively so cutting down range and smearing the resolution is quite a downgrade. I don't think the material can't be mastered, it just requires care. The masters you got aren't bad by any stretch, they're just not keeping the important things that make the tunes "happen" in tact. Other than that, the masters are quite neutral and true to the original.

It's difficult, you have this very fine reverby, spacy sound/theme that carries through all the tunes, and it seems that's what gets bulldozed to flatness in every tune. Same with minute track level differences used effectively to maintain track separation. The differences are so minute that perhaps the smallest dynamics changes mess up the balance. And I can hear that you spent a lot of time/thought in getting the mix right because everything sounds like they're controlled at a very high level of detail. So it's definitely not worth losing that hard work.

thnks so much kensguru, everything u said is exactly how i feel, really glad to hear wasnt loosing my mind and over nothing ,
cheers

scopus wrote:kensguru

Wow! If you ever turn to Hip-Hop Ken, that could be your nickname, cool

lol , call urself what u want or think u are, in my eyes u will always b kensGURU!

lol, it's just a typo guys.

yes ur right kensuguro is a typo, surprised u kept it on ur avatar for so long

Yes, but it is different, yours is "kensuguro" and the one he suggests is "KensGuru", which sounds cool because it suggests that you are a Guru of what you do, a master of what you do

lol. Nestor, scopus is joking.

yea..., crazy me.. anyway it's a cool one! Your next release should be this one: The CD art would be a picture of you being inmersed in the middle of many cables, patches, computers, digital screens all around with many modular stuff and keybors inteconnected to each other, with a sort of futuristic ambient...

that would b an awesome cover, but the ep was just released and unfortunatly being a slave to a label didnt have any freedom towards the mastering(which the label mastering did worst job of all) or the pic, pic actually they did ok, heres it is http://www.plusquam-records.net/metamor ... dimensions

so i try to get the right sounding .wav's up here: http://soundcloud.com/alon-chen and for free, label would not like but im not in it for the money,
just finished making my first music video btw, check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhQXfxgTtyQ
fly squirrel man fly!!