mastering compared to unmastered

[demeyed]

right, i've often heard stereo mix down's of people's stuff and obviously i've heard stuff thats been mastered on cd's and the like.
what i've never heard though is the same sound file before and after it had a really good mastering job.
can people point me to or else post up files so i can see the difference- i know it must be sizable enough difference between the 2 but i just wanna see how big and in what ways a good mastering job sounds different.

thanks for any help

 

[Fifth_Horseman]

Last Tuesday I got the final master of the debut album of my deathmetal band "Devastator".

I can upload some samples for you...

 

[Unavailable]

Last Tuesday I got the final master of the debut album of my deathmetal band "Devastator".

I can upload some samples for you...

I'd love to hear it! Never had the chance to compare tracks like this.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I am pretty sure that I got to do this with Backmasks stuff.


The difference is impressive.

 

[Fifth_Horseman]

Here they are, the first two minutes of the title track of the album, final mix and master:
http://www.sneapforum.celtiaproduct...man/Devastator-Beyond_Massacre-mix_sample.mp3
http://www.sneapforum.celtiaproduct.../Devastator-Beyond_Massacre-master_sample.mp3


A little about the background:
This album is self-financed, we recorded and mixed it ourselves over the last 11 months. We used the project studio of the band Stormwarrior (where our former bassist plays the drums). He also mixed the album.

Mastering was done by Andy Classen at Stage One Studio; we chose him because he mixed and mastered Krisiun's "AssassiNation" album. Which basically was our reference CD.
So at least the mastering can be called a professional job.

As for the recording equipment:
Tascam M3700 console, Digi001 audio interface, Athlon64 X2 4600+ with 3 Gigs RAM and UAD1 card, Pro Tools LE 6.4.

All guitars recorded through my ENGL Fireball, hooked up to two Marshall cabs (one with V30s, one with Greenbacks or something). Both miked with a SM58 each and two small condenser room mics (some no-name stuff).
Here is a photo:

We didn't use the Triple XXX, as we couldn't get a good tone out of it. To fizzy and muddy.

So much about that, hope you enjoy the clips, and thanks again to Gavin for the FTP service!

 

[demeyed]

Thats exactly what i was looking for! thanks,

That sounds great, the mastering gives it that "pro" sound, big,thick kinda sound as opposed to the weaker stereo mix from the session. Thats the difference I was hoping to hear between the two.
I'd still like to hear other mix vs mastered like this as well if anyone else has this sort of thing. It interests me alot

 

[Fifth_Horseman]

Just remembered, you could also try to get a hold of the promo track of the new Behemoth album which was uploaded at ozzfest.com, and compare it to the store release.

The promo version was not mastered AFAIK.

 

[HeadCrusher]

Tascam M3700 console, Digi001 audio interface, Athlon64 X2 4600+ with 3 Gigs RAM and UAD1 card, Pro Tools LE 6.4.

Where did you place the 8 mics on the drumkit?

 

[Fifth_Horseman]

I cannot tell details about the drum recording as I wasn't present.

I believe they used more than 8 mics; I forgot to add that the guys had an ADAT which unfortunately transcended into the afterlife sometime during the guitar recordings.

 

[The inquisitor]

What you can do is buy a cd of wich you know was leaked a month earlier.

The leaked versions are most of the time not masterd, and since you bought the cd its legal.

 

[flytrapx]

That's impressive, Fifth Horseman The pre-master has a nice balanced tone and sounds very good. The master goes to another level and brings out the balls in the music.
SM58 on cabs, I've done that too. From what I've heard the 58 is the same as the 57 but with a pop filter.

 

[smy1]

I have the unmastered version of Machine Head's "The Burning Red". It sounds awesome and back then I didn't notice that it was unmastered because it sounds so good. It'd be interesting to compare it to the finished version.

If anyone has it and is willing to put up a snippet, I could dig out the CD and put up the same snippet from the unmastered promo.

 

[R-Stuur]

Re Fifth horseman: very impressive example of the use of mastering.

To be honest, I think it depends on the song whether mastering is required or not. From what I heard, the initial reason why mastering was introduced was to make everything more louder (=better in the mind of music n00blets) which kinda reduces dynamics for me. Anyway, what do I know, anyway

 

[Torniojaws]

Mastering was originally probably for vinyls etc, which had very strict limits. If you didn't obey those limits, the worst-case scenario would be that no one could play your album - the needle would simply jump out of the grooves and there's no way to fix it.

With CDs, it's not so important anymore. I've always understood that mastering a CD means: a) making it sound the same in the maximum amount of different playing setups (home hifi, radio, car stereo, 0.5" computer multimedia "speakers", etc), and b) making it louder has also been common in the past 15 years or so.

 

[MetalSound]

Here is a song from my old band Dark at Dawn (R.I.P.) mastered by Mika Jussila at Finvox. I knew before the mix that the cd will be mastered by him so I put nothing in the master bus while mixing except a compressor.

Dark at Dawn-The alliance (unmastered)

Dark at Dawn-The alliance (mastered)

 

[scorpio01169]

nice very nice.

 

[Eduardo Apolonia]

On this topic you can download the Unmastered and Mastered version of the Stillrise mixing challenge.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/andy-sneap/240328-mixing-challenge-6.html?highlight=stillrise