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How much mastering costs?


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Let's say that I want to master some of my tracks, how much would I have to pay?

I'm not talking about super-professional work, just something to make my tracks sound better.

Although I'm really curious how much professional mastering costs. Anyone?

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Timecode aka Artifakt takes €30 per track.

 

:o That's kind of cheap for his uncanny mastering, isn't it?

Damn, I thought professional mastering costs like 80-100 euros per track or something.

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On a personal note, I believe that if you can't make your tracks sound good enough yourself, then mastering is not the thing that's going to help you.

 

I'll totally disagree with this.

An artist is meant to write songs while the mastering house cleans them up and makes them sound as good as possible.

 

I don't necessarily want to listen to music created by someone who masters music. Just like most session musicians suck at writing music but are fantastic at playing it, there are different roles for different people and a person who crafts brilliant music shouldn't need to learn all the ins and outs of proper mastering too.

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Then you obviously don't know what mastering is.

Mastering is taking the whole track after the mixdown/export/render whatever and applying stuff over the entire thing.

If the mix (that is, everything done before) isn't good, it will just not sound good. It doesn't depend on how good the mastering enginner is, it will just not happen. fact.

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Tim Schuldt, Colin OOOD and Johannes Regnier works very well as I tried 2 of them and heard very well of the third. And they are not expensive, so try them out!

i think that definitely the price range of 30 to 50 eur a track is the price of professional mastering of these days, more or less. Except if you ask for mastering at Abbey Road Studios in which case prepare to spend thousands of pounds for an album. I asked for a preview price and was astonished by its prices :D. (I asked for Geoff Pesche that mastered the lunar civilization cd-ep of crop circles).

So I guess that mastering "commercial" music costs much more.

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Deffo agree with Mike A. The mastering engineer can only do so much to tighten things up; I think it was Colin OOOD that said on a different forum "rubbish in --> louder rubbish out". BTW Colin is real good if you want nice mastering.

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http://www.altar-records.com/mastering.html

I do mastering for $30 a track, first track is for free so you could check/compare with others and see if you like my work.
Check the link above, it's my portfolio: 10 years of experience.

Send me one of your track in 16, 24 or 32 bits via Sendspace by PM if you wish.You have nothing to loose, it's free and I guarantee a pro service and no distribution of your music over p2p and such, cool.gif

Greetings,

Gabriel.

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  • 4 months later...

ever since i mastered this album using e-mantra's arcana album mastered by tim schuldt as reference cd, and taking a look at 4CN's pricing schedule, my prices have gone way up :D

 

in the end price is determined by the hours of work needed and the total length of the music or album (who are somewhat related in the ideal case, bad mixes take up more time so it's best to get your stuff mixed right before you think of mastering)

 

i've also worked on tracks many of the above mentioned mastering services have had their hands on (Exelization - The Paradox (dj zen), Lapsus - De Tevroegkomer, Goalien vs Agneton - God Of Light (master dx) E-mantra's album (4CN), one track of artha (Colin OOOD) but those still need to be released on my label in the future...but i'm already very happy with the result comparing them to the other mastered versions! i also redid e-mantra - metempsychosis but that's a bit of an unfair comparison since it was horribly ruined by jesus raves on the suncokreti va

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  • 5 months later...

Hello all!

 

Well...i have a question about...

 

Do you know any netlabel (free music) that offer free master when they decide to release your music? for example i dont want money to release my music, but is great deal when labels offer free master of all my tracks and promotion as well...

 

Any experience from that?

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Hello all!

 

Well...i have a question about...

 

Do you know any netlabel (free music) that offer free master when they decide to release your music? for example i dont want money to release my music, but is great deal when labels offer free master of all my tracks and promotion as well...

 

Any experience from that?

 

Mastering is one of those things the label takes care of when they decide to release your music.
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  • 7 months later...

Hello all!

 

Well...i have a question about...

 

Do you know any netlabel (free music) that offer free master when they decide to release your music? for example i dont want money to release my music, but is great deal when labels offer free master of all my tracks and promotion as well...

 

Any experience from that?

 

I have the same question.

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  • 2 years later...

Currently studying a course in studio engineering. I've gotta tell you thatit's very true that unless the music comes in nicely mixed mastering isn't going to fix it. A turd is a turd no matter how many times it's polished. I recently worked as part of my course with a local heavy metal band. The reasona band costs so much is you actually need an engineer from the start to record, mix down & then master. Often the master is done elsewhere so a new set of ears can hear it. Even some bands like say Behemoth from Poland will have the guitars & bass recorded by an engineer who is expert in that area, drums are teacked by another and voclas another. Then final mix down & mastering down by someone else.

 

I gave one of my tracks to my lecturer so he could demo mastering. for use the other day. I intentionally gave him an unfinished/poorly mixed version as he asked for it to prove that mastering only polishes what is alrwady there, it does not mix it down or fix the issues of structure etc.

 

I would not pay for mastering until my music was on par with what is currently selling well.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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