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Topic: Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences? (Read 33027 times) previous topic - next topic
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Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Is there any1 that can post a mastered piece of music Vs unmastered to see the difference?

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #1 –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mastering

What specifically are you curious about?  Multi-track versus stereo mix, final level mix, DSP effects ... the differences are immense.

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #2 –
If you want to do a little work yourself, you can grab the multi-tracks for one of the tracks off Nine Inch Nails' The Slip and pick up the mastered version of the album from theslip.nin.com (free). Just assemble the multi-tracks in your DAW (Audacity should fit the bill), bounce it to a stereo file and you'll get a rough idea of what "unmastered" versus "mastered" can be like.

Just understand that this will only demonstrate one particular example and isn't necessarily representative of all of the differences commonly observed. In some cases, the difference between mastered and unmastered can and will be significantly more subtle.

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #3 –
the reason I ask is because a lot of bands I listen to post myspace songs but usually they are not mastered but the songs sound great still

usually the songs are posted a month or two before the cd comes out just wanted to see the difference between a final mix and a mastered mix


Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #4 –
Nowadays with the Loudness Race, the process has really become more like amateuring... making music unlistenably loud.

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: airtas on
the reason I ask is because a lot of bands I listen to post myspace songs but usually they are not mastered but the songs sound great still

usually the songs are posted a month or two before the cd comes out just wanted to see the difference between a final mix and a mastered mix


Mastering is not a well-defined process, so comparing any recording post mastering to its pre-mastering self will tell you nothing that has general applicability.

Mastering can involve as little as simply putting the songs into a certain order, or adjusting levels so that they seem to have a desired level, or any of the other things that people have already talked about.

Often, mastering is done to make the recording seem a loud as all the other songs on the radio, and that can be pretty brutal.

If you like a sort of natural sound to your recordings, you might hope to get everything you hear pre-mastering.

Compared to the popular songs of today, popular music through the mid-1980s was pretty well not changed very much by mastering.


Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: airtas on
Is there any1 that can post a mastered piece of music Vs unmastered to see the difference?


It's an interesting one. Mastering used to be the process which basically involved applying the final coat of polish to the recording and making sure that it'd sound as good as possible on a wide range of sound systems. These are considerations that aren't necessarily made in the recording studio. A good example was a song that my band recorded last year. In the recording studio, it sounded fantastic on the high-end gear they had there. They then plonked a version of it onto CD for us to listen to in the car on the way home and it suddenly sounded less good as the snare drum hits were way too loud and sounded like machine guns going off. A good mastering engineer will spot this by testing the music on cheaper kit and smaller speakers and would therefore suitably tweak and attenuate the drum hits to compensate until the music sounded good on both expensive gear and on a cheap stereo.

Of course nowerdays, mastering has become somewhat of a dirty word due to the loudness war and the ridiculous amounts of compression, limiting and clipping that the mastering engineer subjects the music to, all in the name of volume. Therefore, unmastered versions of songs can sometimes sound better than the mastered versions as they usually lack this level of butchery. A good example is if you acquire the unmastered bootleg of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Californication album. It isn't quite as complete and polished as the final mastered CD release, but it doesn't have the awful clipping and distortion that the CD release has. As a result, I think it sounds miles better.

Hence the problem. Stuff from MySpace can sound very good as although mastering can improve the sound a bit here and there, modern mastering usually outweighs this goodness by butchering the dynamics of the music and filling it with clipping and digital distortion. Hence in comparison to modern CD music, the higher dynamics of the stuff on MySpace can often result in a generally fantastic sound, despite the lack of mastering. Of course, the best approach would be to compare unmastered music with properly mastered music that hasn't been subjected to the loudness treatment, but that's not very easy to do these days due to the lack of properly mastered music that's obtainable alongside an unmastered copy.

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #7 –
Remember what mastering *originally* meant, in the 50s -- it was in large part the process of massaging the two-track tape signal so that it could be played at home on an *LP*.  This was because there was no consumer delivery format, back then, that  could really present the master tape as is.  (Reel-to-reel came closest but it was always a tiny niche market.)

Conceptually, with the advent of digital, mastering could have become nothing more than running the master tape into an ADC , then sequencing the tracks and setting levels and inter-track spacing.  But in fact, two-track mixdown masters don't always sound so great; sometimes even on LP, effects and parts were added during LP cutting, and these have to be recreated digitally; and mastering engineers want to justify their own existence, like the rest of us ;>  So mastering continues, though it can hilariously difficult to get a precise definition of exactly what it IS.






Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #8 –
y'all are being to complicated.  mastering is preparing audio for release to the public. record. set levels. apply desired filters/compressors/whatever. track. done.

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #9 –
FROM A RECORDING STUDIO PRODUCER/ENGINEER.

When I began recording artists, there was a much more clear definition of "mastering."  That was back in the 80's when most equipment was analog. To get music to an acceptable sound at which it could be affixed to marketed media such as tape, vinyl, 8-track (gasp), it had to undergo what we termed "universal compression," phase correction and overall equalization. That was because when signals were mixed to two-track, the audio dynamics would become supersaturated and muddy. And those issues generated sidebands, phase cancellation, etc., that would not necessarily be noticed or happen while listening to the separate track mix. You may have heard the old term "tape saturation" at one time. This was a characteristic of the media and could not be avoided, thus, the need for "final polishing" of the music was required. Some studios performed mastering in-house but many artists/labels wanted to go to mastering houses because the mastering process was (and still is to some degree) an art with specific parameters. By having a different "artist" doing the final polish, items that were missed at the recording phase, mix-down phase, etc., would be caught and a more "commercially acceptable" release would be created.

ENTER DIGITAL

Tape saturation no longer exists (with the exception of those engineers that simply won't learn technology and move away from razor blades- they know what I mean). Phase issues are corrected through left/right analysis at the same time mixing is done, compression can now be done at different bands while also altering the mix, if necessary. Quite honestly, the mastering process now involves the entire recording process, rather than a "let's make the best out of what has been mixed." Meaning, if the final outcome doesn't allow the vocal nuance to show through, we can immediately go back to that track and mix it up along with the compression being applied to the overall two-track output.

END RESULT

Mastering is now not a separate process in the digital age! It is incorporated throughout the final stages of mixing. I now do a pre-master mix (formerly termed "final mix") then begin to apply my multi-band compression and eq's, limiters, etc....but when I do that, I can also go back and re-adjust my mix to interact with my "mastering" processors to bring out the absolute best in the music and MOST IMPORTANTLY; the mood and message the artist is attempting to get across to his audience. Result is that the music of today provides the user with a much more acceptable degree of high-end fidelity while also providing the artist with the ability to make his message clear and draw the audience' emotions that he/she wants to affect.

There is no final definition of mastering to read. It has now become an inter-mixed part of the recording process and not a product in and of itself!

Example
The Professional Recording industry engineers, like myself, reference the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication album as an example of what older mastering houses have become. It is believed that the mastering of the album was done after a final mix-down of the tracks. Stuck with a clear mix-down, there probably was not a whole lot to do to make the sound better. BUT what HAS happened within mastering houses is this race to produce the loudest tracks within the digital realm. The problem is that to increase the overall "loudness," over-compression is applied with "brick wall" limiters actuating at very low levels (like around -6 to -7db). This kills the overhead of the music and causes digital clipping...clearly heard on that album to a trained ear.

The separate mastering houses are no longer necessary or needed. Further, they are quickly becoming known as "Audio Butchers" because their resulting product MUST be different than what they received...so, unnecessary things are being done to the audio tracks. These unnecessary changes produce a recent phenomenon termed "ear fatigue." Ear fatigue is why you cannot listen to more than 3 songs at one sitting of your favorite artists' new album.

The music on myspace sounds better in many cases because of two reasons: 1) it IS better as-is or 2) it was done at a studio where the producer/engineer had access to each of the mix tracks, not just a two track mix-down.

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #10 –
There's an umastered version of Red Hot Chili Peper's Californication around. It sounds significantly better than the overcompressed and clipping CD version.
Blubb

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #11 –
Quote
There's an umastered version of Red Hot Chili Peper's Californication around. It sounds significantly better than the over compressed and clipping CD version.


You can thank Vlado Meller for that and just about every other record he has ever mastered including (What's The Story?) Morning Glory from 1995 by Oasis (Now that suffers from atrocious mastering). I am just using him as an example.
budding I.T professional

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: HotshotGG on
Quote
There's an umastered version of Red Hot Chili Peper's Californication around. It sounds significantly better than the over compressed and clipping CD version.


You can thank Vlado Meller for that and just about every other record he has ever mastered including (What's The Story?) Morning Glory from 1995 by Oasis (Now that suffers from atrocious mastering). I am just using him as an example.



You should read the quotes from Vlado Meller in a new book called 'Perfecting Sound Forever'.  Guaranteed to raise your blood pressure.   

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Boiled Beans on
Quote from: krabapple on
You should read the quotes from Vlado Meller in a new book called 'Perfecting Sound Forever'.  Guaranteed to raise your blood pressure. 


Well, get ready for this!
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-f...ller-rocks.html
where people actually like his mastering.



He's well-employed, so certainly someone likes his work.  Oasis did!

FOr the OP, there's also a great example of unmastered vs. modern mastered at the start of that thread.  (Actually Meller didn't smash that one as hard as he has in the past)

Mastered Vs Unmastered Song....differences?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Boiled Beans on
Well, get ready for this! http://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-f...ller-rocks.html where people actually like his mastering.
Actually it seems like there's a strong love/hate reaction there, among the blind assertions that the MP3 is always inferior and several other silly misconceptions. They're definitely artists, not scientists.