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.

  1. 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?
  2. 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?
  3. 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.

  • gigastasio@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    6 days ago

    I’m kinda in the same boat as you. Lifelong performer, self-taught recording engineer. Here’s my perspective on your questions:

    1. It’s the producer who generally shapes the final product. A producer has a lot of say in a band’s sound, assisting with arrangement, directing what the engineer does, even coaching the band’s/artist’s performances.
    2. If I’m producing a band, genre is an important consideration for the sonic choices I’m making. Let’s say I’m producing an album for a metalcore group. There are accepted conventions in terms of master chain, instrument tone, vocal delivery, and it’s my job to ensure the performances are up to those standards if I want the album to compete with what’s currently charting. Yeah that sounds formulaic. And, well, it kinda is, and I don’t necessarily like that it’s that way, but you want fans to not skip your song, right?
    3. Kinda feel like this is self evident, but it’s as much an evolution in technology as it is in style. Digital made a lot of things possible and accelerated that evolution, and it’s not over.

    Also your last paragraph reminded me of this:

    • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      Thanks for all the insight! Regarding 2, I find it only natural that the process has a certain formulaic… nature? Which makes me wonder how collective musical trends are formed. Is it as random as the evolution and mutation of animate organisms? It also reminds me of how languages evolve and change. Looking at you, “rizz”… 🤣

      I laughed out loud at that image. 🤣

  • bluGill@fedia.io
    8·
    6 days ago

    Check on your monitors, but also listen with terrible things like phones, cheap Bluetooth speakers, soundbars and other garbage. That is what most people use so it needs to sound acceptable on them.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        I think they were meaning it from a quality assurance angle. check the mastered edition on devices like those before release, to know if something is very wrong

  • VirtigoMommy@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    6 days ago

    Mixed and mastered in my local scene for awhile.

    1. 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).

    2. 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.

    3. 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.

    • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      3·
      6 days ago

      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. 🤣

  • DFX4509B@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    4·
    6 days ago

    The loudness war, widely believed to have been kicked off by Oasis in '95 with (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, has been effectively ruining mastering for 30+ years because almost everything has been brickwalled since then.

    • moondoggie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      We were at a listening room last week that had Mark Ronson curating the music. He played an old Stevie Wonder track, then a new track by Raye which he produced. He said listening to them back-to-back made him embarrassed/upset with the output because today they have to really crank the loudness and the compression since the majority of people are listening to it on their phones.

  • venusaur@lemmy.world
    6·
    6 days ago

    I’m not familiar with musicians having much input on the mastering process. Could be their decision to not be involved. Before mastering though is mixing and musicians have a say in that, but not always.

    Genres generally get compressed or limited differently and especially over the times music has become more compressed and louder.

    Sorry I didn’t answer your questions exactly.

    • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      No need to apologize, all answers are welcome and appreciated! 🥰

      Interesting! Is the volume/gain raised during production, are speakers and headphones more energy efficient, or both? Or neither? 😅

      • venusaur@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 days ago

        Technically volume and gain and compression are separate things but they are related. Mixing process is generally where you adjust volume or gain on individual tracks and you can apply compression on individual tracks as well. Compression generally acts as “glue” during the mastering process to bring levels of individual tracks closers together by applying it to the master track. Very high level explanation.

      • CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 days ago

        All answers?

        Ok. Here goes. The short answer is it depends on the arrangement. Big stars have more clout with publishers/producers, many artists self publish and maintain control themselves, other work with artist centric studios who respect artists wishes. Otherwise, it’s usually the studio who have a say, and they rely on their mastering engineer’s opinion.

        The trend for the last long while was the “wall of sound” pionered by Phil Specter who developed a compression technique so it would sound good on cheap systems and especially cars and radio as that was the main means to introduce music to potential buyers. It has persisted into the age of streaming. Hi-fi friendly masterings are usually done because the buyers are into that kind of music and seek it, conversely, most pop is mediocre. The short of it is the loud and quiet parts are evened out so you can hear more over road noise.

        I recall one example, Mary Star of the Sea by Zwan (Billy Corgan from smashing Pumpkins) who made a fantastic record, but wanted, as an artistic choice, for the album to sound like it was being played on a boombox. Great music, sounds like shit. I consider it one of the greatest mastering crimes of all time.

        A lot of it is also in the recordings in isolation booths so you get a perfect individual performance, but you lose the stereo imaging and staging audiophiles love. Really depends on who is doing it and why. A lot of artists don’t know anything about this stuff and count on the pros to take care of it for them. Its pretty diverse overall.

        • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          Thanks! How interesting that production (inevitably? necessarily?) considers maximum exposure, which, as you said, is radio and cars, and perhaps smartphone speakers and Bluetooth headsets nowadays?

          I remember seeing one of Billy Eilish’ albums on vinyl and I was this close to buying it but then I didn’t because it hit me: has it been remastered to actually sound good on vinyl or did they just slap the Spotify version or the radio version onto it? I still haven’t bought it and never looked it up. 😅