The first rule of mastering philosophy is possibly, “first do no harm.“ This is a quote attributed to Hippocrates, from the work, Of the Epidemics, and the full quote in context is:
“The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.”
I’m guessing that Hippocrates wasn’t actually referring to mastering engineers, but there is an apt analogy in there, and not just the “do no harm” part. In fact, that oft quoted snippet is perhaps the least useful analogy for a mastering engineer.
Indulge me in creating a new version of said quote:
“The mastering engineer must be able to remember the collective past and one’s individual experience to know why we got where we are, know the present/current artistic and production styles, and foretell the future about the direction we are moving in and that we want to move toward— we must mediate these things in a meaningful manner, and have two special objects in view with regard to music and sound art, namely, to do good or to do no harm.”
How to “do good” in a mastering perspective? Seems easy. You make things better, yes? Maybe. The answer to that question is incredibly subjective. Example:
You have a mix that is lackluster, certainly timid, and lacking any real character. You pull out all the stops, add some bounce and groove, add some low end focus and high end silkiness, you push the singer forward in line with modern pop standards. And then….
The artist/client hears it and says “WOW!!! That’s incredible, I didn’t know my music could sound that good…..”
or…
The artist/client comes back after listening to your master and asks, “why did you alter the timbre so much? The vocal is too far out front, the lows and highs are too sharply exaggerated and defined. We just wanted to make it ready for release and I feel like what you’ve done is change the mix entirely…”
They are the same master, only the client’s point of view has changed. Obviously the artist may not share your perspective, and we should both be aware of that and actively try to understand the expectations of the artist/client BEFORE you even take the job.
There’s a mentality that a mastering engineer operates from, or at least a mindset we often claim we operate from, that posits we serve the music. Or another one is, we want to make the music the best it can be. What happens when an artist or client asks for something that is clearly not serving the music or making it the best it can be…?
I’ll cut to the chase here before wondering aloud about how to actually achieve the above and make everyone happy, including yourself. So, what’s the big takeaway? Check your id at the door. No matter how good you may think you are, you will never be the final arbiter of whether or not something is great music. Only the end listener determines that. What we need to do as mastering engineers (MEs) is to give the music the best chance it can to do that…
To better define this idea, let’s also agree that mastering engineers are in fact a kind of final arbiter of whether a piece of music is great. And in fact that’s our skillset, we have a broad knowledge-base of the art of music and the science of sound, we are perfectly suited to make the decisions necessary about a particular recording’s potential greatness.
Lets talk about Music…
“Music” is roughly defined as organized sound. So that makes the definition quite broad. Additionally, we all know that what some people call noise, others call music. Many parents consider what their kids call music as noise.
A better more accepted form of the definition of music could be:
“sounds that are sung by voices or played on musical instruments”
A more “scientific” version of that definition might be:
1a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
2a : an agreeable sound
That last one kinda brings us full circle.
Anyway, this gives us the basic outline of what we are working with:
Something agreeable sounding that is created via the art/science of ordering successive sounds in space and over time to produce a unified composition.
Now we’re getting somewhere. There’s the sounds, the time between the sounds, the ordering and presentation of the sounds over time, and the silence that everything lives inside (outside?) of. I posit that how an artist handles the silence gives us a tremendous amount of information about what we can be done and what we should be looking at in the mastering process. Think about the silence.
The metaphorical silence is what exists before the sound starts, and it is what remains when the sound stops. The art of music can only be experienced in real time, once the sound completely stops, so does the art. There may be “silent punctuations” in a composition, but once the composition is complete and the final sound stops, the art of the thing disappears as well… To my knowledge it is one of the only forms of actual ephemeral art. I like this idea, and apparently so did Plato who supposedly believed:
“beautiful things are not enduring, since the only eternal thing is the “idea of the beautiful”
So we have an art form, at least according to Plato, that potentially qualifies as beautiful as it is “not enduring.” Check.
How do MEs (Mastering Engineers) balance making the music the best it can be with artist/client expectations and desires?
It is truly important to listen to the client AND the music, and from those two elements to extract the best balance. A lot goes into this.
- Client’s expectations
- Potential of the music from a performance and technical aspect
- Adequate tools to perform your job
- Adequate experience and understanding of the musical idiom
Client’s expectations can be derived from communication with the client. Be as clear and direct as possible without being intolerant or judging. Ask the broad question of what are the expectations that the client has for the mastering process. Be specific and ask for details. Ask them what the release is about, what is the theme of the song or project, should it make you feel something, make you want to dance, etc.? Who is their audience? What is the main age group of the listener? What other music does that audience listen to? What is the medium/media of release?
This is also the point that I’ll usually include my own statement about how I usually work… In most cases I’ll say something similar to:
I work from a place that assumes the artist and mix engineer have made something they’re proud of and my first intention is about preserving the work you’ve done and then enhancing it in a manner that you and your audience can appreciate. If I do my work well it results in subtly amplifying the emotional content and deepening the audience’s connection to you and your music.
To expand a bit more, I work to objectively treat the dynamics with respect to program context, insure an involving soundstage and achieve appropriate tonal balance to create the optimal experience for the listener across the widest range of media.
The more I know about your vision, your goals, etc., the better work I’ll be able to do. And always feel free to question or ask for clarification. I’m an open book and utterly transparent about my process and the specifics of what I do.
This spells out what the client can expect from me and also opens up a dialog for potential problems that the client can note/tell me about if it’s not necessarily true that “the artist and mix engineer have made something they’re proud of.” If they are not proud of the mix, that should be a flag that this is more than a mastering job, it may be helping the client and mix engineer get to a more fully realized mix that will result in a better master. You are really working with them, not for them, at this point.
Understanding the actual potential of the music from a performance and technical aspect takes time to learn, but it is one of the more useful skillsets that you can develop.
If the performance is weak, in the most diplomatic way possible, you need to tell them so. You don’t have to be an ass, simply ask something like, “do you feel strong about the performance(s) on the song? Everything have the energy that you want?” If they answer a resounding “yes” then you are now better informed about what you’re up against and can discuss in detail what the clients expectations are. If they answer “no” then perhaps ask about the possibility of retaking some of the recordings and then supplying a new mix.
The technical aspects are a bit easier for an ME to figure out on their own. If the noise floor is really high on a jazz recording, make sure you mention it, again in a diplomatic way, to help keep the client’s expectations in check, or potentially encourage re-recording if possible. If the mix is unbalanced with respect to the style take careful note from the beginning of what you can do to rebalance the issues you’re hearing. If the phase is out of whack, can you gain a half a db by correcting that, and should you?
Insure you have adequate tools to perform your job. That means having tools that are high quality and unless color is part of the plan, doing so in the most transparent way possible. Some engineers are known for “having a sound” that they impart t to their masters, others, like Matt Davis feel that:
If we do our job right it was like we were never there at all from the end listener’s perspective.
– Matt Davis
Which way you lean as an ME depends on how you work and who you work with. Like most things in the mastering world flexibility and experience is key.
Your tools need to be able to do their work in the cleanest most bit perfect way possible. You don’t want to create a beautiful master only to “shitify it” with a cheap sample rate conversion. Utility tools aren’t sexy, but IMO more than any other tools this is where you shoot for the highest quality. I’m not saying the highest price, there’s some great tools out there that are really cheap, but do your due diligence. Read reviews and most importantly test things for yourself to see how it works in your system/workflow.
Having adequate experience and understanding of the musical idiom is critical, IMO. If you don’t know how metal sounds, what turns metal fans on, and probably most importantly what the client thinks metal is (derived from your communication with them) it’s gonna be difficult to make something you’re confident with. AND if you don’t know a style or genre well, inform yourself. Study it. Listen, listen, listen and really try to hear what’s going on. Ask for references both from the client and (don’t be afraid to ask) your peers that might specialize in that idiom or at the least have some greater familiarity with it than you do.
I strongly suggest you don’t try to pretend you have knowledge of something that you do not. If you start going on about how much you like Metallica, or Cannibal Corpse, or whatever, you might get called out, you’ll look dumb and if that happens you’ll probably lose that client and anyone else they might’ve referred to you. Bullshit erodes trust quickly. You needn’t announce that you have no real experience with the idiom, but if asked, be honest.
To note, because you’re not schooled in metal doesn’t mean you’ll suck at mastering it. Mastering IMO is at least 50% science and technical chops. If the client loves their mix you just have to keep from fucking it up. Giving yourself a few good listens to known good references will get you very close when coupled with good technical skills and a thorough understanding of client expectations.
The above are just ideas, not rules. You’ll find your own way of doing all the above in time, but at least for me, that’s ongoing. All things change, so do you, so does music, so does what people want to hear…. I’ll leave you with a quote from Jimmy Iovine that is about general producing but is a great way to look at artist and producer (or mastering engineer) relationships: