…comes great responsibility. And mastering engineers need to accept that.
If you take on the challenge of mastering someone’s music, you also accept a huge amount of responsibility for that music, and In this episode we tackle the question - what are the responsibilities of a mastering engineer - and even the ethics ?
Including:
- Should a mastering engineer have a “signature sound” ?
- Why the “B” word is at the heart of mastering - in many different ways
- Something you should probably never do
- How to supply files - for CD, online and vinyl pressing
- Ensuring transfer integrity online
- The golden rule of mastering
Links
Popular distributors:
Bandcamp
Distrokid
CD Baby
Tunecore
AWAL
Related episodes
TMS #37 – Does gear matter ? And if so, how much ?
TMS #50 – Mastering on headphones ? (Glenn Schick interview)
TMS #45 – Jonathan Wyner
TMS #23 – Balance (or, how to master an album)
Hey fellas!
Enjoying the podcast.
In the last episode, what Ian didn't address is how to handle the mastering when songs overlap on the album. As in, one song starts while the previous track is still fading out.
Sure, it's easy enough to place the track marker for the intro of the second song, but how do you export the individual tracks for streaming?
Does the individual file for the second song have the tail end of the previous track included in its render?
As for file backup, the most reliable and simplest is cloud backup. It's really inexpensive these days for lots of room. Then you don't have to deal with physical space or worry about refreshing or secondary backup.
Having listened to every Mastering Show podcast, I feel as though this show gets down to the real nitty gritty of end mastering. And I hope that future shows build on the topics covered here particularly metadata, ISPC and UPC codes, as well as just how much advice can be ignored by the client before the mastering engineer says “Please take your tracks to someone else.” or words to that effect.
How much free time should you give to a potential client before you leave them to their own devices or ask for payments.
What if a client refuses to pay after the master has been handed over, yet still uses the master.
Should we ask for our fee up front or after the work has been completed. How about charging a deposit, can that work without putting off potential clients.
How do we prove that an unpaid master used for an end product is our master?