I have no experience with producing music. I attended music school and have a fair knowledge of music theory and experience with performing music, but when it comes to production, especially the mastering step, I am utterly ignorant. Here are some questions to the more knowledgeable.
- Do the musicians have the final word on what the final product should sound like or do those that master the audio have a say in the matter? Do you ever disagree with the musicians and if so, to what extent and how persistently do you voice your disagreement/concern?
- Imagine that you ignored the demands of the musicians: how do you decide what the final product should sound like? Is it the genre? The target equipment on which it will be played (PA, studio monitors, headphones, over-ear, in-ear, radio, bluetooth, wired, etc)? What you subjectively like?
- Has there been a change in how the same genre of music has been mastered during the ages? If so, why is that? For instance, would you have mastered, say, Disturbed’s Prayer the same way today as it was mastered at the time of its release?
Bonus audiophiliac comment (TW! Last chance to elect not to continue!): After years of experimentation, I have settled on listening to music with studio monitors at home and Sennheiser’s IE900 when on the move. The reason for this is that they give me a flat and detailed soundscape, which enables me to pick apart and enjoy both intentional and unintentional sounds. “Consumer grade” soundbars and speakers sound ridiculous to me, because the bass deletes almost everything else.
Mixed and mastered in my local scene for awhile.
Sometimes they have ideas, most don’t care to be involved because of how minute what’s happening is. Most of mastering is volume tinkering and setting up for specific release formats (Spotify vs cd/mo3 would have a different cut).
is mostly led by the reference tracks given to you by the artist and the styles of the scene they play in. Everyone wants to sound unique, but they want to sound like their kin too. It’s pretty standard for artists to provide reference material for the producer to aim for to that effect.
look into the loudness wars lol trends definitely come and go, and each genre has its own ebb and flow of what’s useful/ good at any given time.
TLDR there are trends here and there but most of the “sound” is sorted in the writing and mixing prior to the final polish that is mastering.
Nice! Thanks for replying! 2 reminded me of how we asked our “guy” (some 20 years ago) to make the snare in one track sound exactly like the one in Manowar’s Warriors of the World United. It took several edits before he got it right. 🤣