On-line mastering services — anyone used them?

[slewis]

i know of CDBaby, Landr and a few more — has anyone used services like these for song mastering? They seem very affordable and “plug-and-play,” from what I’ve seen, but I have to wonder how satisfied people have been, using them, especiall6 for acoustic guitar and singer/songwriter type stuff... Any experiences?

[rick-slo]

Most of these online places if you send them a recording track you have made I would have to think what they would
do with it would be a very automated process. Mainly a volume boost, compression (hopefully not), and perhaps a high
pass filter. No person is going to be listening to your recording and adjusting your recording by ear.

Expect to pay a considerably higher price to a place that will do hands on listening and will work with you back and forth
about what you both agree sounds good.

[Bob Womack]

I've used both Abbey Road mastering and their online service. They master through their analog processing chains.

Bob

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I've used both Abbey Road mastering and their online service. They master through their analog processing chains.

Bob

I think by "online" the OP means "automated." Nowadays I'm pretty sure that every conventional mastering operation is "online" in the file-exchange sense.

[islandguitar]

I have used Matty Harris in Calif. for my last project (self produced, "home grown" CD. His web site is:
www.mixandmastermysong.com

Great service......music engineer degree from Berklee music in Boston. While I think these folks nowadays have to be tuned into hip hop and all of that genre, he did a nice quality sensitive job with my instrumentals. The tune in my signature was both mixed and mastered by Matty. His process allows for input from the artist and feels very collaborative.
He's worked with some very high powered artists, including Kelly Clarkson and seems to really enjoy what he's doing.
This was all file exchange/drop box work......but also a nice 20 minute phone conversation as well with multiple emails exchanged during our process, which I appreciated a great deal.

[Rudy4]

I've done some recording projects for a few different people and they then worked with an on-line mastering service. I believe that the folks I did projects for paid somewhere around $50 per song if I remember correctly.

There are lots of folks hanging out their shingle doing this sort of thing, so it's good to have a personal recommendation from someone if possible. You generally get what you pay for, so don't expect much from someone who's advertising an entire project for a budget price.

I liked the finished mixes that they got back, but I can honestly say that I didn't hear a lot of difference between "mastered" mixes I provided to them using Terry West's mastering plug in (mHorse P3 or P4) and some of his pre-sets, tweaked a bit for the source material.

Some of the on-line mastering sites have a service to do a "sample track" with them to see if you like the result of what they offer.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by slewis

i know of CDBaby, Landr and a few more — has anyone used services like these for song mastering? They seem very affordable and “plug-and-play,” from what I’ve seen, but I have to wonder how satisfied people have been, using them, especiall6 for acoustic guitar and singer/songwriter type stuff... Any experiences?

Yes. A friend of mine & I submitted 3 very different tracks to LANDR, eMaster & CkoudBounce. We also sent them to Abbey Roads and we did 2 masters of them ourselves. One using Ozone 8 Advanced in "auto" mode (using the assistant) and one that I did "the old fashioned way".

Track one was upright bass & voice. Track 2 was 2 acoustic guitars & 2 voices. Track 3 was a full band (drums, bass, keys, guitar, mandolin, percussion, lead & backing vocals).

In general we found that the "self-serve" online services were ok. Not great, not horrible. They are certainly better than nothing. I don't remember all the details (we did it a while back), while they were all acceptable as-is, they were not what we would have done and we felt we would have had to apply a little EQ to them all to re-balance the mastered file to our liking.

Abbey Road was nice - but we both felt it was a little too "hot". Great balance otherwise. We did the option where you don't get to pick the mastering engineer (assuming that's how most would go, since it's the cheaper option). The thing we kept coming back to is that these were all done by a human...so we weren't sure how repeatable the results would be. We felt that each engineer would have their own "sound" and that if we ran the same 3 tunes again we would get different results from a different engineer. We both felt that if we had had the chance to talk with the engineer beforehand we would have had a great master...but that's not what there quick mastering service is about. So we called it "really good".

The Ozone 8 Assistant mode was quite good. Not over compressed/limited or too hot. It was a great starting place and we felt it was probably better than any of the self-serve options right off the bat. It wasn't as balanced as the Abbey Road master, but it also wasn't as hot. So kind of a split the difference kind of thing. We did not tweak the Assistant settings at all so this was Ozone's work. We both felt it would be relatively easy to get this master real close to where we wanted it with just some small tweaks.

Of course we liked our "handmade" master the best...but what's better than getting exactly what you want? Especially when you're really picky...and we both are.

My advice to people who ask is usually "buy Ozone and you can get better results than the self-serve options with the Assistant...and you can tweak all day without paying anything extra. If it needs to be better than that just pay a mastering engineer".

[Brent Hahn]

The nature of acoustic guitar recordings pretty much indicates that they're not going to require genius-level problem-solving to make them acceptable. My wife has worked at a few world-class mastering joints, and they've seen some doozies. I can't tattle, but the problem-solving in some cases -- major label stuff -- is pretty remarkable.

[jim1960]

I recently had this song mastered via Abbey Road's online site. I paid an extra fee to have Geoff Pesche do the work and I was very happy I did. It was a good mix to begin with but Geoff really did make it better. When me and the other person involved with the production listened back, we both were impressed by how much clarity Geoff brought to the vocal. I wouldn't hesitate to use them again.

The cheap online mastering sites don't interest me. I'm willing to pay for the ears, years, and skills of a professional. I'm not willing to pay for an algorithm.

[KevWind]

As per the above replies it depends on the specific service
And I would agree in general a services value, is probably proportional to cost
I do not think an algorithm based automated system is likely to be as valuable or effective as an actual human listening to the track.

[ezcawi]

I use landr, I've been pretty happy with it. From what I've experimented with (fingerstyle solo), it generally adds gain and doesn't mess with any reverb/eq you put on before hand. If the original file is too loud then it does some compression. For couch guitar youtube videos I think the quality is fine, but if I were trying to make a record or monetize things somehow I would probably pay for a professional.

[Ty Ford]

I've been mastering here for about ten years; recording and mixing for over 30 years. I won't do it without the client here. I need input from them, in the moment, in the space.

First I listen to the tracks for clipping, EQ errors, zero crossover errors and anything that catches my ear. I don't mind working on tracks that have been somewhat limited or compressed, but this does limit my options. Sometimes I ask for a remix.

We talk about the order of the tracks, the keys of the songs, the energy levels of the songs, the endings, the length of fades, the space between the songs, anything about which my client may have concerns. Do intro levels need to be raised a little to better match the energy of the preceding song? No stock settings. And, yeah, there's more to it than that.

Even if they do these things online, you're not in the same space experiencing the same sound and feeling it. I'm sure there are places to which you can send your work that have people with a great deal of expertise and probably more sophisticated gear than I have. This is just how I do it.

[slewis]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

I think by "online" the OP means "automated." Nowadays I'm pretty sure that every conventional mastering operation is "online" in the file-exchange sense.

Yup. Good clarification. (OP here)

[slewis]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

Yes. A friend of mine & I submitted 3 very different tracks to LANDR, eMaster & CkoudBounce. We also sent them to Abbey Roads and we did 2 masters of them ourselves. One using Ozone 8 Advanced in "auto" mode (using the assistant) and one that I did "the old fashioned way".

Track one was upright bass & voice. Track 2 was 2 acoustic guitars & 2 voices. Track 3 was a full band (drums, bass, keys, guitar, mandolin, percussion, lead & backing vocals).

In general we found that the "self-serve" online services were ok. Not great, not horrible. They are certainly better than nothing. I don't remember all the details (we did it a while back), while they were all acceptable as-is, they were not what we would have done and we felt we would have had to apply a little EQ to them all to re-balance the mastered file to our liking.

Abbey Road was nice - but we both felt it was a little too "hot". Great balance otherwise. We did the option where you don't get to pick the mastering engineer (assuming that's how most would go, since it's the cheaper option). The thing we kept coming back to is that these were all done by a human...so we weren't sure how repeatable the results would be. We felt that each engineer would have their own "sound" and that if we ran the same 3 tunes again we would get different results from a different engineer. We both felt that if we had had the chance to talk with the engineer beforehand we would have had a great master...but that's not what there quick mastering service is about. So we called it "really good".

The Ozone 8 Assistant mode was quite good. Not over compressed/limited or too hot. It was a great starting place and we felt it was probably better than any of the self-serve options right off the bat. It wasn't as balanced as the Abbey Road master, but it also wasn't as hot. So kind of a split the difference kind of thing. We did not tweak the Assistant settings at all so this was Ozone's work. We both felt it would be relatively easy to get this master real close to where we wanted it with just some small tweaks.

Of course we liked our "handmade" master the best...but what's better than getting exactly what you want? Especially when you're really picky...and we both are.

My advice to people who ask is usually "buy Ozone and you can get better results than the self-serve options with the Assistant...and you can tweak all day without paying anything extra. If it needs to be better than that just pay a mastering engineer".

Good info, Steve; thanks!

[muscmp]

then, the ultimate question is: did the people who paid quite a bit end up making more money off their product than the people who paid less, and, more than the people who did their own?

or should that be a separate post?

play music!