Sending to Mastering Engineer

[Gomez]

Mastering i sent the first album to http://www.xarcmastering.com/ and he did a great job.

I checked this website and I really didn't like the fact that there's no equipment list. The only thing piece of equipment that is mentioned is KRK monitors... How can you master on that????

Very annoying. This guy rpobably sits in his bedroom all day mastering with T-Racks yuk: ).

then again, the guy seems to have experience...

Wouldn't do it there.

 

[SickBoy]

I checked this website and I really didn't like the fact that there's no equipment list. The only thing piece of equipment that is mentioned is KRK monitors... How can you master on that????

Very annoying. This guy rpobably sits in his bedroom all day mastering with T-Racks yuk: ).

then again, the guy seems to have experience...

I suppose he is a nice solution for mastering on a budget.
Those KRK Expose monitor he boasts aren't really the cheapest around, so I guess they're decent enough for the job...
Plus, the whole idea of transferring the files over the net is awesome.

As far as the bedroom is concerned, I recently read an article about Jon Astley, the guy who remastered Judas Priest discography, The Who and various other and I didn't see any fancy-schmancy mastering facility as a place he works in...

If the guy does the decent job, I don't care if he worked in the barn.

 

[Gomez]

Mastering engineers don't have fancy looking rooms with loads of rack equipment. They do need:

- Full-range monitors
- 1 EQ
- 1 Comp
- 1 limiter
- AD/DA converter
- Good room acoustics

All of these must be of great quality... not Waves pluggins (although the Linear phase EQ has been handy a couple of time)

I'll give you an example of a tipycal high quality mastering setup:

Monitors: Bowers and Wilkins 800 series with Bryston amps.
EQ: Manley Massive passive
Compressor: Cranesong STC 8
Limiter: Waves L2 hardware (still kind of standard around mastering suites)
Converter: Lavry Gold DA and AD.

Now go and investigate how these bits of equipment are built and desgined so you'll understand why they cost so much... and believe me, through a setup like this, you'll hear stuff that you would have never heard through many "good quality" setups.

There's a differenece between "Improving the sound of your mix" and "mastering".

 

[SickBoy]

There's a differenece between "Improving the sound of your mix" and "mastering".

I know there is...What you pay is what you get in this case.