Objectivity & experience

I haven’t found out exactly who coined the phrase, but I believe it was Tom Volpicelli who asked rhetorically on an internet forum “would you cut your own hair for an important job interview, or have it done professionally?” when someone asked about mastering their own material.

This is actually a very good question, and Tom makes a very good point.

DIY (Do It Yourself) is great, don’t get me wrong. It’s fun to learn new skills, master new crafts and spend one’s time learning and growing. However, some things - mastering your own material in our particular example - don’t lend themselves to this kind of self development.

Why is that? Because by it’s very nature, mastering requires objectivity. It’s hard enough to be objective about songs you’ve written, arranged and performed. However, with anywhere from weeks to years spent tracking, mixing and tweaking the recordings, any semblance of objectivity is long gone.

While there is a common belief that mastering engineers hear better than casual listeners (I would hope that years of critical listening does in fact improve one’s auditory abilities), one of the often forgotten reasons to use a professional mastering facility is that we’ve never heard your material before - ever, and have at our disposal a reference listening environment. Never having heard your mixes, we can approach the project completely fresh and unbiased. Having heard (and perhaps mastered) thousands of commercial releases, our experience gives us a good idea as to what your project needs to make it as good as it possibly can be, and how to get there quickly and without compromising the sonic integrity of your mixes.

Being able to work efficiently means that an experienced mastering engineer will be able to complete your project within a reasonable amount of time. Without experience it may take much longer to arrive at an acceptable result, if one arrives there at all.

What is a reference listening environment? We’ll cover that soon in a new blog entry....

Our assumption is that your music is important to you. It’s your expression, your art. Something you care about, probably deeply. It should be treated as such from start to finish - and mastering is part of getting it finished.

Just as you wouldn’t order a 4 star gourmet dinner and then cover it in catsup, why risk ruining a carefully crafted production at the very end of the process? No budget? Mastering is a relatively minor expense in the big picture of producing a CD. No time? While “perfect sound forever” didn’t really live up to the “perfect” part in many people’s ears, the “forever” bit isn’t far off as far as digital audio goes. When your CD is released, it’s out there - forever! Wouldn’t you rather wait an extra month or two if needed to arrange for budget and time for professional mastering?


What are some of the advantages to cutting your own hair?

• It’s cheap (scissors, comb, mirror), much cheaper than going to a salon/barber shop.
• It’s convenient. You can do it at home. Anytime.
• It’s fast. No need to make an appointment, travel, wait.

However, there is one big disadvantage: the fact that most people have no experience whatsoever at cutting their own hair. That puts one at a major disadvantage compared to anyone who does this for a living, day in and day out year after year....

Don’t get discouraged - if you’d like to learn more about mastering, or perhaps even consider becoming a mastering engineer at one point, that’s great! Learn what you can, and definitely practice. To maintain objectivity, work on other people’s mixes - not your own. To gain experience, practice. No one starts out as an expert. Make mistakes in the beginning, while practicing and learning. It’s uncool to let other people pay for your mistakes while you learn, wait until you have the experience required of a professional before you charge for your services.

Tags: Mastering, DIY, quality, objectivity. experience

Sometimes it’s easier when inspired by others to simply emulate them to the best of one’s abilities. However, unless one brings something unique and personal to the mix, it will never be anything except a pale copy - the original will always be better (even if you play better, sing better and write better, you’re still not the original)!

Some societies excel at integrating many different impulses with their own sensibilities, Brazil is an excellent example, always reinventing whatever they come in contact with.

Much of the most successful and most interesting music I hear is created by individuals or cultures that possess their own unique identity and “musical voice”.

Folk music is a rather clear example of what I’m alluding to. In Norway, Black Metal has actually managed quite successfully to define a genre, in essence finding their voice. Regardless of whether one likes the music or not, they’ve established themselves as flag bearers for the genre, with people in far away countries learning Norwegian in order to understand the lyrics and even craft their own songs.

So by all means be inspired by artists you respect, admire and just plain dig. We reach new heights by standing on the shoulders of the giants that went before us. But take care that you make it something uniquely and unmistakably yours.

I’ll bet there are many other unique voices and expression to be found lurking in between the fjords and mountains of Norway....