Mastering business in decline

[Inner Space]

Not sure what to make of this. Recording business is good, but the market for mastering is declining.

I started in studios in 1977, when mastering was a specific technical function, done for specific technical reasons, mostly about bass management with mass-market vinyl sales in mind. Would the bass kick Uncle Stan's stylus out of the groove? Would the groove width allow six songs a side? Was the DR survivable for contemporary domestic playback? And so on. It was a boring, narrow and limited job, to be honest. The glamour lay with the recording engineers and producers. (Not that any of us were "engineers" in terms of education or qualification - just customary titles.)

Then vinyl receded and the requirement for old-style technical mastering went away. New-style mastering became a kind of last-word, super-producer role - which was expensive. I was well paid, but I knew behind my back they were billing me out at an hourly rate like a white-shoe lawyer. That phase lasted 10 or 15 years.

Then indie production and finally streaming wrung every spare cent out of the process. The super-producer role devolved back to the regular producer, which in turn devolved to the mixing guys, which in turn devolved to the artist himself in his own basement studio and digital workstation. DR concerns, etc, were delegated to end-use consumer devices with heavy built-in digital processing.

So really the Capitol decision is logical. I bet the auto dealership around the corner has no expert carburetor tuners left either. The big regret on my part is the reason - the almost total absence of reasonable remuneration for almost all working musicians. Tech people, who invented the modern world, honestly believe content should be free - but only to them. They're happy to charge listeners and make a profit.

I don't really know what the answer is, but future content will dry up if musicians can't make a living. Yes, the artistic imperative is very strong, but, you know, eating is important too.

 

[oivavoi]

I think this is legally naive.

For instance, the songwriter holds copyrights automatically. He can license someone to record the song. Then others can cover it without direct permission, but must pay the song writer. This in the simplest situations. And songwriters can sell rights to their music and how that works varies around the world.

Now you want to pay artists performing the work, but many of those don't own the music. What about the poor songwriter?

As for regulating pricing of streaming all I can say is I hope not. I can stream movies for half of your proposed $20/month. Somehow that makes music seem like a bad deal.

I don't know the answer, but I don't think your proposals would work or even be better in the end.

Briefly: Deezer is reportedly strongly considering the user-centric model. They wouldn't have considered it if it was impossible. There have also been several scientific studies into this (haven't read them, only saw the abstracts). So I think it's possible to find solutions to the issues you raise.

Concerning how much to pay: Back when I was a teenager I usually bought a CD a month. Considering my disposable income back then, that was a LOT more than what I'm paying for music today. These things have to do with expectations. People today have come to expect that music is free. We need to un-expect that.

Music is actually fairly costly and time-consuming to create. This should be reflected in prices. If I spend around two years of my life making a record (which I'm thinking of doing once I get less stressed out at work), I don't think it's unreasonable that individual listeners should pay what amounts to three big mac meals at MacDonalds for listening to it, if they like it and it means something to them. Again, it's about expectations. Newspapers were open and free/ad-based for a long time when the internet came, but have now gone back to subscription models. In the beginning people were objecting, but now it seems readers are getting used to it again. I fully expect something similar to happen with music, if it gets regulated (and one cracks down on pirating sites so it doesn't seem like an attractive option).

 

[RichB]

Mastering can be done at home but recording may need a studio so the dollar shift.
Live performances were on the rise before Covid and not that's shot to hell.

The only thing worse than some of the current overly compressed and clipped mastering is the remastering of previously dynamic performances.

My wife and I watched Yesterday. It was dynamic and in full surround and a wonderful experience.
It is not uncommon to find better music mixes in movies that have often have the goal of utilizing the sound system.

I just don't think most music mastering has at its heart to make an dynamic impactful experience.
Another great movie soundtrack is Bohemian Rhapsody. There are others.

- Rich

 

[Blumlein 88]

I started in studios in 1977, when mastering was a specific technical function, done for specific technical reasons, mostly about bass management with mass-market vinyl sales in mind. Would the bass kick Uncle Stan's stylus out of the groove? Would the groove width allow six songs a side? Was the DR survivable for contemporary domestic playback? And so on. It was a boring, narrow and limited job, to be honest. The glamour lay with the recording engineers and producers. (Not that any of us were "engineers" in terms of education or qualification - just customary titles.)

Then vinyl receded and the requirement for old-style technical mastering went away. New-style mastering became a kind of last-word, super-producer role - which was expensive. I was well paid, but I knew behind my back they were billing me out at an hourly rate like a white-shoe lawyer. That phase lasted 10 or 15 years.

Then indie production and finally streaming wrung every spare cent out of the process. The super-producer role devolved back to the regular producer, which in turn devolved to the mixing guys, which in turn devolved to the artist himself in his own basement studio and digital workstation. DR concerns, etc, were delegated to end-use consumer devices with heavy built-in digital processing.

So really the Capitol decision is logical. I bet the auto dealership around the corner has no expert carburetor tuners left either. The big regret on my part is the reason - the almost total absence of reasonable remuneration for almost all working musicians. Tech people, who invented the modern world, honestly believe content should be free - but only to them. They're happy to charge listeners and make a profit.

I don't really know what the answer is, but future content will dry up if musicians can't make a living. Yes, the artistic imperative is very strong, but, you know, eating is important too.

My thinking had been since mastering was for creating a master tape for cutting an LP master disk, then in the age of CD and digital you don't need mastering. Back in the early days when they sold RTR tapes as well as LPs, the RTR tapes were from the final mix as no mastering was needed the way it was for LP.

Of course mastering people disagree saying you have to have your music mastered or it is half baked. As mastering now mostly is about getting max loudness I lay most of the blame for loudness wars on it and find that one more reason not to master.

 

[Zensō]

In my experience, mastering that is worth paying for is expensive to the point of being out of reach for most indie musicians, and mastering that is affordable enough for the average working musician is not worth it. Fortunately, the tools available for self producing/mixing/mastering have improved immensely over the years to the point where, with practice and training, an artist can mix and master their own work to an acceptable level.

 

[Inner Space]

My thinking had been since mastering was for creating a master tape for cutting an LP master disk, then in the age of CD and digital you don't need mastering. Back in the early days when they sold RTR tapes as well as LPs, the RTR tapes were from the final mix as no mastering was needed the way it was for LP.

Fundamentally that's what happened, although there were some useful hinge years where masterers collaborated on the best approach to digital sound. After that they had nowhere to go except a new enhanced status. Things were fairly big and corporate then, and the investment in plant, personnel and management habit kept the system rolling along, until client cash started running low. As @acbarn says above, adding value cost a lot of money.

 

[A Surfer]

... There are very few examples of recordings having a similar impact after the introduction of the ipod, and then spotify. The only example is maybe Adele? ....

Her first two albums were horrible sounding. Great music, poor recordings I find.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Given the 'vinyl revival' I would have thought Capitol would keep at lease some in-house lacquer mastering capability.

 

[watchnerd]

https://variety-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/variety.com/2021/music/news/capitol-studios-mastering-staff-laid-off-1234883994/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA=#csi=0&referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://variety.com/2021/music/news/capitol-studios-mastering-staff-laid-off-1234883994/

Not sure what to make of this. Recording business is good, but the market for mastering is declining.

It's an obsolete concept, unless it's for LP issues where you have to make EQ choices.

For digital native, it's all in the mix, not the mastering.

 

[watchnerd]

So you wanna go to a headliner's show?

View attachment 105909

I'm jaded, of course, due to the having seen prime Led Zeppelin from 50 feet for $6, and aging Pink Floyd right down front for $20.

View attachment 105910

That's a fair bit more than I pay for quite good symphony / opera / jazz tickets.

 

[watchnerd]

Unfortunately not many people know how to correctly arrange their songs and produce them on laptop. Mastering is still a must have skill.

Nahhhh.

You're confusing mixing with mastering.

I agree that most don't know how to arrange on a laptop, but that's not the job of mastering.

 

[watchnerd]

I'm amazed that mastering was still a thing after the original vinyl era.

I bet over half of ASR doesn't know the difference between mixing and mastering.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I bet over half of ASR doesn't know the difference between mixing and mastering.

Mixing is when you stop with 3db of DR left. Then you send it to a mastering guy who will stop when it has 0 db of DR in it.

 

[RichB]

Mixing is when stop with 3db of DR left. Then you send it to a mastering guy who will stop when it has 0 db of DR in it.

... and when 50% of the peaks are clipped.

- Rich

 

[watchnerd]

... and when 50% of the peaks are clipped.

- Rich

Who needs mastering engineers when you can "master for streaming" by using a Perl script for compression?

 

[RichB]

Who needs mastering engineers when you can "master for streaming" by using a Perl script for compression?

Artificial stupidity..

- Rich

 

[infinitesymphony]

The real value of a mastering engineer is having another set of ears to evaluate the overall vibe of an album, to apply corrections to tracks to get them more in line with the others (especially when parts or entire songs were recorded in different locations, with different equipment, or with different personnel) in order to give it a consistent sound signature, to improve translation across systems, and to determine how much dynamic range should be left based on the style/genre and artist or label preference (whoever's paying ).

Otherwise, even budget musicians can DIY the entire thing with a good set of ears. As other people have said, the hardware and software musicians have access to now are as good as or better than pro-level systems from not so long ago.

 

[watchnerd]

The real value of a mastering engineer is having another set of ears to evaluate the overall vibe of an album,

Overall vibe of an album -- I think that was an important concept when people listened to whole albums.

I'm not saying that doesn't happen from time to time these days (Daft Punk, Beyonce), but I'm not sure how much it matters for the vast bulk of playlist driven streaming.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Overall vibe of an album -- I think that was an important concept when people listened to whole albums.

Unless its a classical recording, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've listened to an entire album in the last few months.

 

[oivavoi]

Overall vibe of an album -- I think that was an important concept when people listened to whole albums.

I'm not saying that doesn't happen from time to time these days (Daft Punk, Beyonce), but I'm not sure how much it matters for the vast bulk of playlist driven streaming.

Yeah, that's one more reason why I dislike what streaming is doing to music. It's a fundamental shift to our musical culture. Of course, musical culture has always been changing. The orchestral classical tradition emerged when European society changed and there were royal courts who demanded that kind of entertainment, and who were so skilled at exploiting poor folks that they got an economic surplus which allowed them to pay composers and performers. Rythmic music like jazz/blues/gospel etc emerged because Europeans and Americans enslaved a whole lot of Africans and sent them to a new continent. So it's not like musical culture is or should be static, or that the musical culture of the past was in any way ideal.

But still, the album-based format of popular music was a rather nice kind form of musical culture, I think, which fused availability with some level of artistic intent and complexity. And now we're in the process of replacing it with something else. I'm not convinced that we're replacing it with something better.

Spotify's Daniel Ek is very explicit about it: He says that artists and musicians need to put out new songs much more quickly in order to make money, and that musicians can't insist on producing whole albums to perfection anymore.