Preview-Mixes for Clients - with or without "Roughmastering"?

[brandy]

I am just curious!

I realized that most of the mixes which are uploaded/posted here are coming more or less mastered/finalized...

Today I have just listen to a mix from LSD Studios, the one with the swooosh in the beginning dealing with the snare. He uploaded the mix-in-question already mastered which made the overall sound/ballance quite different to the unmastered mix he posted later. Thanks for the files, btw! Good work!

So... I am just guessing that most of us are delivering such "pseudo-mastered" mixes to clients for approval as well...?

Yes?

Or do you provide (usually via www - at least I do so) the naked, bare, pure mixdown?

I do - because I mix without any stuff going on at the master-bus, and when we are mixing together (clients & I) then we are working on a certain ballance/sound - if I upload them the stuff for "to-check-at-home" it would mess completely with the overall ballance and stuff.

After all I find it more efficient to teach them about "what a mastering does" - so that I do not have to deal with those "mh, yea - that mix is way quiter than record XY".

Later in the Mastering I do take care not to mess with the mix/the ballance. I often had the situation that when I throw an eq, a comp and a limiter on the masterbus for rendering a pre-mix, I fuck totally with the mix.

Just because a good mastering is more than just putting an L2 etc on the masterbus...


How do you do?

cheers,
Brandy

 

[Machinated]

When I do a quick master, its more than slapping a few plugs on the master bus. Ill give it its own project, and start to shape things for that, but it won't be massively critical and its really more to have it at higher loudness. Also gives an idea of how the mix will sound when its been squished which may influence some desicions of the mix.

 

[brandy]

When I do a quick master, its more than slapping a few plugs on the master bus. Ill give it its own project, and start to shape things for that, but it won't be massively critical and its really more to have it at higher loudness. Also gives an idea of how the mix will sound when its been squished which may influence some desicions of the mix.

Do you do that always when preparing tracks for client-approval?

Of course you are right regarding the mix-decisions. Often very... informative..

 

[Machinated]

Yeah usually if the band doesn't come in to personally listen to the tracks. Normally they seem to prefer it if its at a volume they can compare to other CD's - but again could be just the kinds of clients I'm working with.

But yeah, normally when I show tracks to my clients, I'm doing a quick mastering - nothing that I spend too long on (usually it will save some time from the proper mastering anyway as I'll start to have things in place).

 

[GuitarMaestro]

I guess the aim is to provide the client with a sample that sounds as close as possible to the final result. I usually mix into a comp/saturation/etc. that is close to my usual mastering settings and changes the balance of the mix quite drastically - so a sample without that would not be worth much. If you mainly strive to change volume only in mastering - why not send the sample to the client unmastered?

 

[Dollarosa]

I always give my clients a non master version, as I never master my own mixes. I also explain to each of them the process of mastering and what they can expect. I do this by showing a recent mix before mastering and after mastering.

 

[C_F_H_13]

Yeah usually if the band doesn't come in to personally listen to the tracks. Normally they seem to prefer it if its at a volume they can compare to other CD's - but again could be just the kinds of clients I'm working with.

But yeah, normally when I show tracks to my clients, I'm doing a quick mastering - nothing that I spend too long on (usually it will save some time from the proper mastering anyway as I'll start to have things in place).

I completely agree. Usually when I send a whole album to a band for approval I'll include 1 track with a regular and a "mastereD" just so they can understand how my reasonably balanced mixes that are peaking at like -7 will actually be as loud at some point as the crushed cd's they like.

If it's a song by song kind of thing, I usually send un mastered until they complain about volume...

 

[Soundlurker]

I send them pseundo-mastered clips because they tend to compare them to their favourite CDs and I'm sure they'll have a hard time if one is way louder than the other. Also they are most often interested in the levels of the different components and the amount of bass mids and treble, all of which almost inevitably change once you get to the mastering.

 

[ahjteam]

If they wanna hear just the songs, I usually just add a limiter like L2 to the end and beeper before that in there just in case they don't put it to myspace or any that kind of shit: http://www.voxengo.com/product/beeper/

 

[brandy]

I always give my clients a non master version, as I never master my own mixes. I also explain to each of them the process of mastering and what they can expect. I do this by showing a recent mix before mastering and after mastering.

Exactly the same here. Exept for the fact that I usually master my own mixes.

I guess the aim is to provide the client with a sample that sounds as close as possible to the final result. I usually mix into a comp/saturation/etc. that is close to my usual mastering settings and changes the balance of the mix quite drastically - so a sample without that would not be worth much. If you mainly strive to change volume only in mastering - why not send the sample to the client unmastered?

This is a valid point.

I heard it quite often that some mixing engineers/producer are mixing through some kind of compression/saturation (no limiting) and because this will be part of the sound they are including these processing into their mixdowns as well and sending that to mastering.

I would say this is cool when you know what you are doing, so you CAN point the Mastering Engineers into a corner (do you say it that way in english?) avoiding that he/she changes too much in the mix...

I send them pseundo-mastered clips because they tend to compare them to their favourite CDs and I'm sure they'll have a hard time if one is way louder than the other. Also they are most often interested in the levels of the different components and the amount of bass mids and treble, all of which almost inevitably change once you get to the mastering.

For me this is a dangerous point...

Well, a good mastering which is loud AND ballanced is quite difficult or at least it needs some time to get it right in the end.

So a "quick mastering" is usually either "not that loud" compared to a "favorite CD" or it IS as loud but maybe suboptimal sounding.

So they compare and then they are dissapointed.

For me it works better to tell them NOT to directly A/B compare to finished CDs BECAUSE it is not mastered yet.