Let's Discuss Mastering with Ian Shepherd

[00:00:00] So if you're right, Neil's just gonna do a bit of an intro and then

[00:00:05] Just going to I mean there's it's a really relaxed discussion between the four of us

[00:00:09] We've got some questions

[00:00:10] We'd love to sort of put to you and get your take on mainly around that

[00:00:14] so we'll start off with you know you and a bit about you and that sort of thing but then as

[00:00:19] I mentioned in the email would be great to talk about

[00:00:23] Self-mastering what your views are on you know that as a whole and that would then lead into we thought the

[00:00:30] online mastering

[00:00:31] Services where they are what you know what the thoughts are so we just wing it and see how we go if that's all right

[00:00:38] Yep, that's fine. Cool Neil over to you

[00:00:43] Hi and welcome to Sound Discussion

[00:00:46] Each episode we discuss a music topic which we have all had first-hand experience with

[00:00:52] This will be anything from getting started

[00:00:54] Recording playing live mixing mastering and everything in between most episodes

[00:01:01] We will have a special guest to bring their professional experience to the discussion

[00:01:05] So let's get started

[00:01:09] Today's guest is a British mastering engineer whose credits include Keen

[00:01:14] tricky

[00:01:15] Deep Purple Tina May the Royal Phil Harmonic Orchestra

[00:01:20] Culture Club

[00:01:21] Christine Tobin and King Crimson to name a few when he's not mastering

[00:01:26] Projects for top artists. He runs the production advice website and is the founder of

[00:01:32] Dynamic Range Day an annual event raising awareness of the loudness war

[00:01:37] He has been interviewed by most of the top industries

[00:01:40] Top magazines and he's also written articles for future music his online course home mastering class has been an absolute

[00:01:49] must for anyone

[00:01:51] Wanting to understand more about mastering

[00:01:53] and was actually a turning point for one of our journeys and

[00:01:57] He has created plugins with meter plugs specifically designed to improve the mastering process

[00:02:03] And we are delighted to welcome Ian Shepherd

[00:02:07] Thank you very much. Hi Ian

[00:02:10] Great to have you great to have you and yes was the turning point in my music journey was doing home

[00:02:17] Mastering masterclass it was the moment it turned me on to what mastering was and could be rather than

[00:02:24] Somebody telling me to turn up levels, but we'll get onto that later

[00:02:29] When was that?

[00:02:30] That was probably a decade ago probably ten years ago. Okay. Yeah something like that

[00:02:36] Let's let's relate it that outright. I'm not that up. Yeah. Well, I mean it was last week last week

[00:02:41] And

[00:02:43] I've been yeah, and I've been following your videos for forever

[00:02:48] and

[00:02:49] I'm not a mastering engineer, but it has helped me master some of my own stuff and realize that

[00:02:56] There's more to mastering than just you know

[00:03:00] Making it louder

[00:03:02] It certainly is. Yeah, absolutely. It's great here. Cool. So Ian could you I think probably a good place to start is the

[00:03:09] Obvious question of how did you get started in mastering? What sort of led you to?

[00:03:14] To being a mastering engineer and the sort of journey that got you there

[00:03:19] Yeah, I mean I was

[00:03:21] Unusual I think because well I say that at the time I was unusual

[00:03:27] Because I mean I didn't even know what a mastering engineer was when I started out

[00:03:30] I

[00:03:31] The reason I say I was unusual is I started pretty much straight after college. So, you know, I did my degree

[00:03:38] And came out knowing I wanted to work in the music business in studios

[00:03:42] and I just wrote letters to everybody I could find asking for jobs and

[00:03:49] One of the places that got back turned out to be an independent mastering facility called sound recording technology or SRT

[00:03:55] Just outside Cambridge in the UK

[00:03:58] At the time one of the leading independent mastering facilities, you know, there were the big names when if which have now closed unfortunately

[00:04:05] But

[00:04:07] Yeah, it was lucky because I was working for free in a studio around the corner from my house and actually I'd

[00:04:12] I'd gone to Luxembourg to teach English

[00:04:15] with my girlfriend he's now my wife and

[00:04:20] They yeah, they asked the guy I was working for where I was and he said I don't want to tell you because I want him to work

[00:04:25] For me, but he was super honest and said but the reality is I'm not gonna be able to afford to pay him

[00:04:31] To do that so I will tell you where he is and that I've always thought that was one of the best

[00:04:37] Job recommendations you could get really

[00:04:40] But so I was trained as a mastering engineer pretty much from from the get-go

[00:04:45] So it was it was kind of more or less luck. I didn't know what mastering was when I got into it

[00:04:50] Turned out I was perfectly suited to it, you know, but yeah, the rest is history. I guess

[00:04:57] Yeah

[00:04:59] Excellent, I mean it's it's one of those things that I don't think I don't think I've met anyone who says I

[00:05:04] Started off wanting to be a mastering engineer if you see what I mean

[00:05:07] I'm not not belittling mastering engineers in any way

[00:05:10] But I've never met a musician or a mastering engineer that that was their starting point was that's what I'm gonna do

[00:05:15] And I think we might touch on it later

[00:05:18] I think that's something that maybe is changing slightly now with the fact that I think more of the three people like yourself

[00:05:26] and the internet and YouTube more of the

[00:05:29] Behind the music part of the industry is now better known than it was in in the past. So I think there are sort of

[00:05:36] people

[00:05:37] Deciding that's gonna be their starting point and that's what they like doing and sort of

[00:05:41] Using that as their their aim for their career, which I think probably didn't happen

[00:05:46] You know 30 years ago. No back in the day it was

[00:05:50] You always had to explain to people what mastering was, you know, because the the company that I worked for also did

[00:05:56] CD manufacturing and cassette duplication at that time and people would kind of get in touch just wanting those services

[00:06:02] and

[00:06:04] You know the the the salespeople would say, you know, would you liked professional mastering and people go?

[00:06:10] What's that whereas nowadays it's almost it's gone completely to the other extreme whereas, you know, I think

[00:06:18] Not only do people know what it is

[00:06:19] I think people almost assume that it's more than it is or that it's capable of doing more than

[00:06:25] Maybe ideally it should, you know, I think there's almost too much emphasis put on the mastering stage versus

[00:06:30] recording and mixing

[00:06:32] So yeah, it's definitely flipped across and you know these days. Yeah, anybody can decide that they want to be a mastering engineer

[00:06:38] pretty much at any point and

[00:06:42] You know

[00:06:43] Reality is you don't even necessarily need any credentials, you know

[00:06:46] If you tell people you're a mastering engineer and they believe you then you're a mastering engineer

[00:06:49] Which I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that because I do think there's

[00:06:55] You know, I was mastering professionally within 18 months of having

[00:07:01] arrived, you know, I started off copying tapes and

[00:07:04] Being mentored by other engineers at SRT

[00:07:07] But within 18 months I was doing masters, you know for record companies

[00:07:12] And I've got hold of a couple of them, you know in the last year or two with the wonders of eBay

[00:07:18] and you know, I kind of put them in kind of

[00:07:21] Bracing myself to see what I was gonna hear they sounded great. I'm really happy with the way they sounded, you know if so

[00:07:28] It's not like you need that, you know, there's this traditional thing of oh, you spend 20 or 30 years being a recording engineer or producer or whatever

[00:07:34] And then you become a mastering engineer. I don't think that's necessary

[00:07:38] necessarily at all but

[00:07:40] I do think I was super lucky to be mentored, you know to have that opportunity

[00:07:44] I didn't even realize at the time how

[00:07:48] What a what a fortunate position I was in for that and and now I do and I think that's one of the reasons that I do the YouTube channel

[00:07:54] And the podcast and the blog and all the rest of it is to try and help other people who are interested in doing mastering

[00:07:59] Do a good job of it because you know, the

[00:08:03] Most people can't get a place in a professional studio and get mentored in that way

[00:08:09] Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I think you know partly they can't get a place in their professional mastering studio because there aren't

[00:08:18] On as many left as that used to be gonna be my thought too

[00:08:21] There's no word for anyone to actually do that anymore very few places. There's a few there's a handful, you know

[00:08:29] You know Abbey Road is still mastering

[00:08:31] Metropolis in London. I mean, you know and their places in the US

[00:08:36] Stirling Sound and you know some of the bigger facilities and some of them do still take interns, but I think it's just

[00:08:42] So much more competitive. I mean, that's the other thing right is that my degree was in physics and music which was literally

[00:08:48] Quantum mechanics and Bach corals, you know, it's not whereas and I think there were two music technology courses in the country

[00:08:56] Whereas now there's one at every college

[00:08:59] So as more people know about the opportunities that are available to work in the music industry and mastering is one of those choices

[00:09:06] There's just that much more competition for places, you know, so as hard as it was to get a place back then

[00:09:12] I think it's hundred times harder these days. Unfortunately

[00:09:17] Yeah, definitely. It's uh, I

[00:09:21] Think it's probably true of all parts of the music industry, isn't it? It's um, you know mixing engineers

[00:09:27] It used to be you had to work at a big studio

[00:09:29] You know and that's that's changed as well and I mean even big studios are you know, there are less big studios than there used to be that

[00:09:38] So everything is is diversifying. It's um, do you do you think the actual?

[00:09:44] The actual art of mastering has changed though in all that time

[00:09:48] Do you think the tools you use has changed? You know, it's in the box or it's not in the box or it

[00:09:53] But do you think the the actual sort of end?

[00:09:57] Product and concept that you're trying to create is now different to what it used to be

[00:10:03] I would say yes and no

[00:10:06] annoyingly

[00:10:09] What I mean by that is

[00:10:11] the so for me, you know, I mean I made the the the masterclass course

[00:10:17] 2012 so over 10 years ago. So yeah, you would have been on it really early. I

[00:10:23] Recently did some update videos to

[00:10:25] For people doing the course because I'm aware that it's getting a bit long in the tooth

[00:10:30] But the reality is that everything I teach on that course still holds up even to the to the point of how loud I recommend people master

[00:10:38] We could probably get onto the loudness topic later

[00:10:41] But you know, I'm a big fan of balanced dynamics rather than extreme loudness

[00:10:45] So I never recommended going super super loud. I still don't

[00:10:49] And actually the levels I mean the reason for that is that the levels that I was trained with and that I ended up

[00:10:55] Choosing were based on all of the best sounding stuff that was around when I started out mastering which is the early 90s

[00:11:02] and

[00:11:05] Streaming platforms streaming services these days have to be able to cater for modern super super loud stuff and

[00:11:12] The material from back in the day. So they're actually perfectly optimized for

[00:11:17] Kind of I guess more traditional mastering levels if you want to put it on more conservative

[00:11:22] Mastering levels so people can use the cut the techniques and strategies on the course to make super loud masters if they want to

[00:11:28] But it's you know, I recommend not doing that

[00:11:31] I think you'll get a better sounding result online on vinyl on CD anywhere

[00:11:36] using that so yeah all of the

[00:11:39] Methods that I recommend, you know, the software interfaces have changed a couple of the plugins aren't available anymore

[00:11:45] And there's a load of new plugins that are really really exciting and interesting to play with so you're right

[00:11:49] The tools have changed but the methods are the same having said that I

[00:11:54] Would never have imagined back when I mean, I remember when

[00:11:59] What's the story morning glory by Isis came out and we were

[00:12:05] Actually was it was a story was it the third one of those early oasis albums were super super loud

[00:12:09] And you know, we were kind of amazed at how loud it was

[00:12:12] And kind of you know, we were analyzing it trying to figure out what they've done to get it that loud and the answer was it was clipped

[00:12:18] and

[00:12:20] That was kind of I'd never have guessed that you were gonna get to death magnetic territory

[00:12:24] You know where stuff was I don't know five or six DB louder even the mat

[00:12:29] so that bit of it has changed

[00:12:32] the

[00:12:33] The what is considered a mainstream sound?

[00:12:37] has changed and I

[00:12:40] Think that's a shame because I think it's it's a red herring, but again we can talk about that if you want to do you think that

[00:12:50] With home home mastering or people that work at home or that people that work in in sort of like singular operations

[00:12:58] Do you think that that it's

[00:13:01] Almost better that these people maybe don't have as much experience in

[00:13:06] Recording or mixing and maybe they just jump jump straight into mastering, you know, they saw one of your courses or someone else's courses

[00:13:14] Or do having that experience of being a musician

[00:13:18] Recording mixing does that lend itself better to to understanding what you're doing as a mastering engineer?

[00:13:27] That's interesting

[00:13:29] because I

[00:13:30] Mean all my courses are

[00:13:33] intended to help people with mastering

[00:13:35] But a lot of people who take them

[00:13:38] Give me the feedback that they found it super helpful for their mixing and their recording as well because they understand

[00:13:46] Where they're going, you know what they understand what the final goal is of mastering

[00:13:51] And what it can do and what it can't do and therefore

[00:13:56] All the stuff that they need to get right at the beginning and I think also, you know mastering is very much focused on

[00:14:02] EQ and dynamics, you know, we don't have

[00:14:05] the reverbs the delays the choruses all that kind of super creative stuff

[00:14:10] Doesn't usually have a place in mastering. It's basically about level and dynamics and and tonal balance the EQ

[00:14:17] balance so I think that focus on EQ

[00:14:20] And I have a course called home mastering EQ aimed to help people specifically with that, you know, it's all about ear training and

[00:14:29] Understanding what a balanced EQ is and how it might change depending on the genre and all those and how

[00:14:34] EQ affects our perception of loudness and all that stuff

[00:14:37] So I think yeah, if you if you put in the work and focus on that stuff

[00:14:41] It's going to be beneficial and for me personally, you know, I mean I'd had I

[00:14:46] Had a few years in studios and live sound before I got my that first job

[00:14:53] And

[00:14:55] Then I was trained as a mastering engineer and but then the room that I was in was a multi-purpose room

[00:15:01] so it had a

[00:15:05] Recording setup, you know, it had one of the first 24 bit digital desks

[00:15:10] It had one of the first 24 bit digital tape machine

[00:15:14] And there was a Steinway piano in the you know through through the glass. It had a had a live room

[00:15:19] So and I got the opportunity to do some recording and mixing there as well and I think

[00:15:25] What I already knew about mastering helped me get better results with those, you know

[00:15:30] so

[00:15:32] Having said that for me as a professional mastering engineer having got that experience of recording and mixing and I've done a ton of

[00:15:39] mixing especially since then

[00:15:41] Is super super valuable and having some musical skills as well

[00:15:45] It helps you with talking to the clients help you with I mean one of the big things for me with mastering is

[00:15:50] You know, it's this weird thing because you you come in somebody brings you something where you they've been working on it for a month or six months

[00:15:56] Or a year or more

[00:15:57] And you say yeah, that's good

[00:15:59] But it'd be even better if you did this right and you just on your first lesson within four to six hours

[00:16:04] You make all of these changes to their music and the good news is that usually they love it

[00:16:10] But it's kind of weird to come in and say oh no you should do this this and this

[00:16:14] I think the only way you can do that is actually have empathy for what they were trying to achieve

[00:16:20] You know, I think mastering is all about listening to what's there hearing. What's good about it and understanding

[00:16:27] Where they're trying to get what they what they were trying to achieve and help them get even closer

[00:16:32] And I think you know if if you've struggled with getting a good bass sound, you know or Mike and go be guitar cab or

[00:16:41] You know too much hi hat in the drum overheads or whatever it is

[00:16:45] All of that stuff. It helps you talk into clients

[00:16:47] It helps you

[00:16:49] Understand what they're trying to achieve and what their challenges might be so you know, I think that both are true

[00:16:54] So yeah, that's another yes both answer for you

[00:16:58] Very good

[00:16:59] Very cool. So with that

[00:17:03] Do you find that?

[00:17:07] Is it beneficial for artists who are

[00:17:12] Deep in the process of recording mixing producing their music or maybe working with a producer

[00:17:18] I don't know to have these sort of like

[00:17:22] Premastering sessions where you can analyze the music and have them go back

[00:17:27] But you're not consuming mastering time, right?

[00:17:30] So it's not like here's my song for you to master and then you come back with a laundry list of things of you know

[00:17:35] Take a look at this take a look at that

[00:17:37] Maybe there should be a pre-mastering session where that is the only objective is let's let's look at this

[00:17:43] Before we master make sure that everything is where it should be go work on it and then come back

[00:17:49] And then we can approach it again

[00:17:52] So in theory, I think that's a great idea

[00:17:56] In practice it rarely happens

[00:17:59] Usually my experience is

[00:18:02] The mastering happens really last minute, you know probably days before the it's due to go to the plant or to be uploaded or whatever it might be

[00:18:10] No time. There's no time

[00:18:12] Often the clients are absolutely sick of it. I mean, I know that there are some mastering engineers who

[00:18:18] One of the first things they do is just keep kick things back to their clients

[00:18:21] You know, they're like, oh no no you do this this this and this

[00:18:24] And their clients love them for it

[00:18:26] That's not me. I

[00:18:29] I tend to kind of take the view that they've

[00:18:32] You know sweated but it's blood sweat and tears over this this thing to get it to where it is

[00:18:37] And yeah, I want to assume that everything there is intentional and as they want it to be

[00:18:44] Unless they tell me otherwise, you know, so even if I think there's something that might benefit from

[00:18:50] Adjusting in some way. I typically will master it first

[00:18:54] And then you know kind of say to them, okay, here's my take

[00:18:57] I'd be really interested to hear how it would sound if we tried this this and this

[00:19:03] You know if you'd like to see how that works out it would be great to get an alternative version

[00:19:08] But that's entirely up to you which is a much more kind of and that's just a you know

[00:19:12] I don't know that might be maybe is the way some people are trained or just some people's instincts

[00:19:16] Maybe it's just, you know, though the type of clients you have whatever it is. I think they're both valid approaches

[00:19:23] The

[00:19:24] So yeah, I don't really feel it's my job to tell them. Oh no, you did this this this and this wrong

[00:19:29] You know, I can offer a perspective if so for example if the mix comes in super hot, which is something happens a lot these days

[00:19:36] I know from experience

[00:19:37] I'll be able to get a better version better master if I can get them to step back on that a bit and I may end up

[00:19:44] Redoing a lot of what they were trying to achieve sonically, but it just gives me much more flexibility to achieve that much more control

[00:19:51] So that's something that I might request or you'll find I don't know some kind of technical issue whatever that

[00:19:58] Maybe it would be good for them to to look at

[00:20:03] But I do think there's a

[00:20:06] Lot of value in yeah

[00:20:08] Understanding what can be achieved at mastering what can't so for another to take the exact opposite every so often somebody will bring

[00:20:14] Me in a master and say or a mix and it's like here you go. I didn't use any compression at all

[00:20:19] and at that point my heart sinks because

[00:20:23] Depending on the genre, you know and depending on how much automation they used and all the rest of it

[00:20:28] It could be fine, but more often than not actually

[00:20:31] It really would benefit from some gentle compression. You know, we all know where

[00:20:36] And or maybe even some mixed bus compression whatever and if you leave too much of that to the mastering stage

[00:20:41] It's just gonna be a real challenge to get a result that that sounds right so

[00:20:46] In the real world what I find tends to happen is, you know

[00:20:50] clients

[00:20:52] The standard of what they can achieve improves

[00:20:55] Over time because they hear that that first album come back after mastering and then oh, okay

[00:21:01] And maybe we have some conversations and then next time, you know

[00:21:03] They've got that in mind and they're getting closer and but I mean, you know also everybody is learning all the time so

[00:21:09] Me included so, you know, it's not surprising that things

[00:21:13] Improve I think the other thing to say is just very quickly

[00:21:19] For me I always there's a saying I like I don't know who coined it, which is you know

[00:21:24] How can I tell you what I think until I've heard what I have to say

[00:21:27] And the same thing applies to mastering very often I can listen to something

[00:21:31] You go, I think it's gonna be about you never really know until you get your hands on the faders, you know

[00:21:34] You're turning the dials

[00:21:37] I'm saying that as though I have hardware EQs. I'm mostly in the box these days

[00:21:42] It's it's a click the mouse whatever but yeah

[00:21:44] I need to get in and it's even with something that sounds amazing

[00:21:48] And you think I'm not gonna have to do anything once you once you start balancing with other songs and get into that process all kinds of things

[00:21:54] kind of occur to you and

[00:21:56] Become apparent

[00:21:58] So in terms of not spending any mastering time for me that wouldn't work because I almost have to master it before I know

[00:22:05] What I think fit if that makes sense

[00:22:08] Yeah, no that makes total sense. Yeah, so you said something interesting you said that I

[00:22:13] People will will just be like oh, I didn't use any any compression on my on my mix

[00:22:19] Do you ever have clients that say well?

[00:22:22] You know what we'll just fix it in the mastering kind of like recording engineers or we'll fix it in the mix

[00:22:29] They don't usually admit it to me but I know for a fact that's happening

[00:22:33] You know, it's because more people you know, we all have egos

[00:22:38] We like to feel that we're good at what we do right so it's you know

[00:22:40] It's having said that you do have clients. Well, the thing is right the clients who come in going

[00:22:46] Oh, there's so many problems with this. I had so many you're gonna hate this is gonna be a nightmare

[00:22:51] Those are usually the ones where it sounds amazing

[00:22:54] And you know very often the ones where it doesn't sound so great often they have no clue

[00:23:01] It's I always reminds me of people auditioning for the X Factor, you know

[00:23:04] There's the ones where the judges go. You're terrible. What?

[00:23:09] You know just shocked

[00:23:12] So yeah, I mean, I think I do think people expect a lot of the mastering process

[00:23:17] And I think that's that the blame for that lies with mastering engineers

[00:23:21] you know, it's

[00:23:22] When I started out when I was trained

[00:23:25] The tools of a mastering engineer would often be just EQ and a limiter and you barely used the limiter anyway

[00:23:30] It was there for protection to prevent, you know anything going over

[00:23:35] Whereas now

[00:23:36] Kind of really digging into the sound and using all kinds of creative stuff

[00:23:42] Is expected in mastering that's what people think the process is

[00:23:46] and

[00:23:48] You've got to the point where you know

[00:23:49] There are the you know AI tools that let you rebalance elements of the master and only EQ certain instruments in the mix and all this kind of stuff

[00:23:56] Which I think goes beyond

[00:23:58] Really what mastering should be, you know, I think there's a big value in separating the mastering from the mixing process

[00:24:05] Just in terms of mindset and I think you know mixing is about balancing

[00:24:10] The tracks within a mix to make a song

[00:24:13] Whereas mastering is about balancing the songs within an album or an EP or a playlist or whatever to make an album

[00:24:20] Or a collection of songs make it make them all work together as best they possibly can

[00:24:25] and I think

[00:24:27] It's just too

[00:24:29] William orbit I saw speak once and he talked about the role of a producer and he said one of the things you've got to be

[00:24:34] To do is change your focus. You've got to be able to zoom right in and think about is that kick drum clicky enough?

[00:24:39] How does it sit with the bass guitar? Is there too much?

[00:24:43] I don't know where's that rumble coming from? What's what's that amp buzz and then zoom back out and okay

[00:24:47] Okay, is the song making me want to?

[00:24:50] Laugh or dance or cry or sing or whatever the emotional intent of the music is so that's an extreme change of focus as it is

[00:24:57] So then zoom back out again and try and have a perspective on an entire album

[00:25:02] Including songs that you probably haven't recorded a mix yet. You know, I think that's too much to ask

[00:25:06] I think it's much better to get everything you can as good as it can be at the mixed stage

[00:25:11] Take a rest and then come in and approach with a fresh perspective

[00:25:15] during the mastering so

[00:25:17] Did I ask the question that should be separate? Do you think that artists should not master their own stuff or like not artists but well

[00:25:27] Do you think artists should master their own music or should should?

[00:25:32] Like people who are the recording engineer the mix engineer and then should they also

[00:25:37] Like should they always hand it off to somebody or do you feel that like well if you mixed it you should

[00:25:42] You know take a course and

[00:25:45] master it yourself

[00:25:47] I don't think there's any should you know, I think I mean it's absolutely possible to master your own music

[00:25:53] I think it's much much harder. I think my own experience

[00:25:58] I've mastered some stuff that I've recorded and mixed and

[00:26:02] I like to think that I did a great job of it, but

[00:26:05] When I'm doing it, I'm aware

[00:26:07] It's one of the advantages to mastering is having that distance from all the rest of it and just coming to it fresh

[00:26:14] You know traditionally mastering is done quite quickly

[00:26:17] If it's done by another engineer, it's somebody who knows nothing about the project and one of the things that they bring to it

[00:26:22] It's just that first impressions thing, you know because you might have been working on an album for months

[00:26:29] or even a song for whatever and you're so into the details and all the rest of it

[00:26:35] But it's really hard to kind of have objectivity and to know whether it's achieving what you want. So

[00:26:41] And that's the that's the bit that's really hard if you want to master your own music is is the mindset is just

[00:26:47] Managing to step out of you almost need to be a different person, you know and approach it in a different way

[00:26:52] So and then the other thing is probably you don't have access to any alternative monitoring

[00:26:57] so, you know one of the big challenges with

[00:27:00] Recording and mixing especially, you know in a home studio environment is it's it's probably not an acoustically treated

[00:27:06] You know professionally built studio

[00:27:09] Which can be absolutely fine, but every room has a sound every monitoring system has a sound even the top places in the world

[00:27:17] Have quirks and things that are not quite right

[00:27:22] One of another benefit of mastering is taking it into a different

[00:27:25] Environment so that somebody can say oh hey, there's it's all a bit boomy at 70 Hertz

[00:27:30] Let's just that's probably your room, you know, let's just there probably wasn't enough in the room

[00:27:33] So you probably pushed it a bit hard. We'll just even that out and it sounds much better in here

[00:27:37] If you're trying to do that in the same room where you mixed and recorded it

[00:27:41] You're not going to hear that differently

[00:27:43] So one of the things I recommend on the on the mastering course is is getting some kind of alternative perspective

[00:27:48] You know and it could be a hi-fi system. It could be listening in the car. It could be on earbuds

[00:27:54] Or you know a really high quality pair of headphones

[00:27:58] Just to give you an alternative perspective so you can hear it fresh

[00:28:02] so I think

[00:28:04] All of those things make it much harder to master your own music, but it's definitely possible, you know

[00:28:11] I've done it people who do my course do it all the time

[00:28:15] So yeah, it's just kind of adds to the challenge. I

[00:28:19] Think that's um, people ask me all the time, you know, why can't I just master my own music and my answer is you of course

[00:28:25] You can absolutely anyone can master their own music. I agree 100% in I think the biggest thing for me is

[00:28:34] If you have mixed if you've recorded your own stuff and then you've mixed it and then as you let's say your room has a

[00:28:41] Bumper 100 Hertz. So you've recorded it hearing that mixed it hearing that now

[00:28:46] You've mastered it hearing that all you're doing is just baking in the same

[00:28:50] issue every time and just sending it even if you even if you're like look, I haven't got any money

[00:28:56] I can't afford to get a mastering engineer to do it

[00:29:00] We'll come on to online

[00:29:02] Automated mastering in a minute, but even just sending it to a musician friend and saying

[00:29:08] Hey, look, can you take a listen where you normally listen to music? So again, not a professional studio

[00:29:14] But wherever you sit and listen to Spotify listen to Apple music put it on and go how does it sound?

[00:29:19] because I think that the thing you're probably I would imagine in you're very similar to me

[00:29:25] You haven't touched your setup for quite a long time. You've got the same speakers you've used for years

[00:29:29] It's in the same place in the room it so you have heard

[00:29:34] Hundreds and hundreds of songs in that listening position and you know what they sound like, you know on your speakers

[00:29:40] I'm sure your room is beautifully treated, but even if it wasn't

[00:29:43] You know what things sound like in that room

[00:29:46] And that for me is the is the primary takeaway for why you shouldn't not can't but shouldn't master your own music

[00:29:53] It's just to have that

[00:29:56] Somebody put it through something that they know where it sounds and say

[00:30:00] Actually your low end is twice as high as everything else I listen to in here not saying you've done a bad job. That's just

[00:30:06] The room you've mixed in or your mix or and and I think that

[00:30:11] That that's the thing I always say to people is it's not about keeping mastering engineers in work. Although that's great

[00:30:18] It's more it's more just about if you want the best results for your project a fresh pair of ears in a room that they know

[00:30:26] Makes if you will make a massive difference over doing it yourself

[00:30:30] Taking out their skills as a mastering engineer even just that fundamental will make a big difference

[00:30:35] Well, it's it's really no different than then

[00:30:38] Producing your own music right, you know, you've written the song you and your acoustic guitar. Okay sounds great

[00:30:45] Let's record some electric guitar and then you know, maybe you play drums or you program your drums

[00:30:51] but you probably gonna benefit better by having other people

[00:30:58] Contribute their ideas and they're feeling to your song

[00:31:01] So it's it's very similar to having a different perspective come in and listen to your music with separation and with with

[00:31:09] no bias of

[00:31:11] You know what they've heard or what they know of you

[00:31:15] And you're gonna get a better result because of it same with with making music same with mastering same with mixing

[00:31:22] You can do it all yourself. Absolutely and and there's there's a benefit to doing that a cost savings

[00:31:28] But be you you learn things right, you know

[00:31:31] you'll learn how to

[00:31:32] Mic up your amp and you learn how to

[00:31:36] Listen to your music and react to it

[00:31:38] But you're also missing out on outside influences. Yep, I completely agree

[00:31:45] I mean, it's fun as well. At least I think it's fun. Yeah, I really enjoy mastering

[00:31:49] I really enjoyed learning new stuff learning new skills kind of feeling like, you know

[00:31:53] The

[00:31:54] Uncapable of doing that even if I eventually ask somebody else to do it because I think they might do an even better job

[00:31:59] I mean on the downside

[00:32:01] I mean again

[00:32:01] I I kind of shy away a little bit from should or shouldn't you know because it's almost like that kind of says

[00:32:07] Oh, you're wrong to do this. I just think there are some really compelling arguments for why it might not be the best idea

[00:32:13] I mean another one is just you might not enjoy it

[00:32:15] You know that there are people I know who are absolutely capable of mastering in terms of you know, they have the gear

[00:32:21] They have the ears

[00:32:23] All the rest of they could do a great job and they just they're not interested

[00:32:26] You know there because lots of people that are all about the music for example, you know, and it's

[00:32:31] Yeah, you know, there are so many musicians that I've worked with who I

[00:32:34] Do all of this stuff and they go oh, yeah, my voice sounds great

[00:32:37] And I'm like, you know, it's not just your voice everything sounds better now

[00:32:40] But that they're the singer that that's what they're focused on right and that's the most important thing

[00:32:44] I mean to them and probably in the song in general so

[00:32:48] The other thing to say is you know, it takes it's I one of my other kind of favorite sayings is that mastering is simple

[00:32:55] I think there's lots of stuff out there makes people think it's super complicated

[00:32:58] You could have you know stacks of EQ and compression and plugins and

[00:33:03] Technical details and all the rest of it. I mean it is a technical kind of

[00:33:07] Discipline but like I say basically it's get the level right balance the EQ make sure the dynamics work, right?

[00:33:15] So it's simple that doesn't mean it's easy

[00:33:17] You know, it's it's like anything else. It's like learning. I don't know maths

[00:33:22] you know, it's pretty simple to understand the concepts but if you want to be good arithmetic or algebra or whatever it is you have to actually

[00:33:30] Put in the hours, you know, you have to do your 10,000 hours or whatever it is

[00:33:33] And again, there's lots of people who just don't want to do that by the time they've got to the album is mixed

[00:33:37] You know, that's where the lion's share of the work in terms of the emotional content the creative stuff all the rest of it goes

[00:33:44] When you get to mastering it's just making sure that that stuff translates effectively and kind of is is optimized

[00:33:49] And of course everybody wants the best for their music

[00:33:52] They don't necessarily want to spend hours learning how to achieve had had to do that. So yeah

[00:33:58] As a high school math teacher, can I quote you to my students?

[00:34:06] It's the same for everything right, I mean, it's you know, you want to be good at football. You got a you got a play football here

[00:34:11] But yeah, I think in particular maths is one of those ones where

[00:34:16] You can for me anyway, you can read a thing and go. Oh, yeah, I understand that

[00:34:21] Very different thing

[00:34:23] Understanding it and being able to do it

[00:34:25] You know, especially under exam conditions or you know in in the middle of late night coding session or whatever it is

[00:34:31] You're using the math for

[00:34:33] Yeah, my students are gonna hear your pocket to hear the podcast. Yeah

[00:34:38] That's at least I did one good thing anyway

[00:34:44] The mathematician all right there we go

[00:34:49] I'm a better mathematician than I am an arithmatician

[00:34:51] Let's put it out there if any of your students feel bad for not knowing their times tables yet

[00:34:55] I'm there with them. I'm not good with numbers. Sorry, but

[00:34:59] That's a worrying statement, isn't it?

[00:35:03] I know that lots of mathematicians are really poor with numbers

[00:35:07] That's a whole other tangent

[00:35:11] So I think I think one of the things that I was really keen to touch on while we had you on the podcast and we've kind of

[00:35:18] Circled around it and mentioned it a couple of times is is the online automated mastering

[00:35:24] Services I've got I've got my view and you know, I'm happy to talk about it

[00:35:30] but I'm really interested to see where

[00:35:34] what your thoughts are on them and

[00:35:37] Do they have a place do they do you think that they are

[00:35:42] What's the word I'm looking for do you think they are

[00:35:45] Professional, you know for people especially a lot of the people listening to our podcast are gonna be people at home

[00:35:52] Writing music at home recording music at home

[00:35:54] You know, they're not gonna be signed artists in Abbey Road with all the things that go with it. I mean maybe

[00:36:01] And if you are

[00:36:03] A note and let us know who you are and what you recorded

[00:36:09] Get his hands on this episode. Yeah, like what's up with that?

[00:36:13] Well, in which case I'm likely not come on. We'll have you on as a guest it would be great

[00:36:19] But yeah, I'm really interested because it's one of the things that people ask me about a lot and obviously

[00:36:27] All the guys here will know at least once a year

[00:36:30] I will have a project from a client and I will master it and I will run it through

[00:36:35] three or four of the online mastering services and

[00:36:39] Then make them a BC DE and just send them out and say pick which one you think is the best master

[00:36:46] So far I've won correct boys so far. I have won on these shootouts, but I mean

[00:36:53] Yeah, because they're getting closer. There's no doubt

[00:36:57] Well, yeah, there's certainly some when you did that

[00:37:00] I remember there were somewhere

[00:37:01] I liked some elements of the online mastering and I like some elements of yours and I said if you can go buy in

[00:37:07] These two and I didn't know which one was which I said if you can combine, you know a and and see

[00:37:12] I think we have a winner right and I didn't know which one was which

[00:37:17] Sorry, and I cut you off. No, it's I mean so you kind of asked a bunch of questions in there

[00:37:25] The only if I can remember them, I mean yes, they're absolutely valid, you know, I mean, they're amazing, right?

[00:37:30] It's you they have

[00:37:33] automated

[00:37:34] To some extent what I spent 25 years learning how to do

[00:37:38] That and and they do a reasonable job of it so

[00:37:42] and

[00:37:43] They are a lot cheaper usually than

[00:37:46] Getting a human mastering engineer to do it and they're a lot easier than you know

[00:37:51] We just talked about all the reasons you might not want to learn how to master music, but if you

[00:37:55] Don't want or can't afford or you know, whatever to go to a pro mastering engineer then

[00:38:01] But you might still want those, you know those results of consistency and translation or the rest of it

[00:38:06] Then yeah, you might still want your music mastered. So they definitely have a place

[00:38:11] One of the things that I hadn't imagined when they kind of first came on the scene was the way that people would use them

[00:38:18] Right, so there are people who use them just to kind of get an idea a kind of ballpark and get

[00:38:24] That's how it could sound which is kind of interesting, you know in terms of what I was saying about alternative perspectives

[00:38:28] There are people who upload stuff

[00:38:32] Get it back and go no, that's quite not right not quite right and they make a tweak and they do it again

[00:38:36] And they might do that ten times

[00:38:38] And depending which service they use they might still be coming in cheaper than getting a professional mastering engineer to do it

[00:38:45] You know the fact that I'm a professional mastering engineer doesn't mean I think that's the best way

[00:38:50] To do it, but it's absolutely a valid approach. I think

[00:38:55] Okay, so I'm gonna do a video about this, but I'm gonna give you a sneak preview

[00:39:00] It won't be as good as the video because I'm just telling you about it

[00:39:02] But so I went to a studio event last week in London really nice new studio

[00:39:08] World heartbeat studios

[00:39:13] Near about to see power station

[00:39:15] Those are interested

[00:39:17] Really nice space kind of had a had an Abbey Road vibe about it the sort of the shape of the room

[00:39:22] There's a really nice piano there fantastic control room SSL console all the rest of it

[00:39:27] And so I did the thing that you do which was sneak into the control room to get some some photos of me at the desk

[00:39:33] and

[00:39:35] So the first one I took was just an arms length facing me thing

[00:39:40] And my phone doesn't have a flash that faces me

[00:39:43] So it does this thing where it flashes the screen at you to get a bit of extra light

[00:39:47] And then I somebody said oh, do you want me to take one?

[00:39:49] So yeah, I handed them the phone and they took a couple as well. So when I got back home

[00:39:54] I thought well, I want to share these that was the point of taking them

[00:39:58] But they had this kind of really cool lighting in the control room that basically made everything look purple

[00:40:03] And I thought well, it would be nice if I didn't look purple

[00:40:07] So I just hit the wizard, you know the magic wand tool in the photo editor

[00:40:13] To see what happened

[00:40:14] It was super interesting because the the one that I took a hands length with the where the screen flashed

[00:40:20] It came out really well

[00:40:22] I look human. I look like human color

[00:40:25] And the shot still looks really good. So I thought okay great

[00:40:28] I'll do that for the others as well when I click that magic wand tool for the other images that were taken without flash facing the other way

[00:40:35] It was bizarre literally inverted the colors, right? They were bright yellow and green

[00:40:41] I mean you wouldn't it's like it was posterized. It was like somebody, you know use some kind of wild Photoshop filter on it

[00:40:48] So it's like okay. Well, that's completely unusable and I thought oh, it's interesting

[00:40:51] That's because the thing flashed and there was more light in one of them and the other and the algorithm can't handle

[00:40:55] The audio and that's a really long wave. That's how I think about all of these online

[00:41:00] I don't want to call the mastering services right? That's my big issue is I don't think they should be called mastering

[00:41:06] Because they're not I mean if you think about all the things we've been talking about so far

[00:41:10] And we'll carry on talking about you know an alternative perspective an experienced ear

[00:41:16] Somebody else's

[00:41:18] Studio where they've spent 10,000 hours doing something having empathy for what you're trying to achieve

[00:41:23] Emotionally connecting songs on one to another in exactly. Yeah all of those things. That's what a person does right?

[00:41:30] And however cool these AIs are there are no people there if there was a person there

[00:41:35] They would never have done what that wizard button does when you click it because you know

[00:41:39] That's the Photoshop equivalent of what we have in terms of the automated

[00:41:43] Sound processing services, you know, it's it it will it'll do some stuff that hopefully will make it look better

[00:41:49] and I don't know maybe 70 80 percent of the time

[00:41:52] It'll actually work pretty well and you get results pretty good and

[00:41:56] Well, maybe not a 70 or 80 percent a good chunk of the time it does something that I'm kind of like

[00:42:00] Well, it's different, but I don't know if it's better. It's just kind of okay

[00:42:04] Maybe and then every so often it'll do something utterly bizarre

[00:42:08] But yeah, there's no people involved so for me, it's not mastering

[00:42:12] It's just automated sound processing

[00:42:14] Automated sound enhancement or whatever you if they called any of those things that would be absolutely fine with me

[00:42:20] Which is not to say that you can't use them and

[00:42:23] Get great results because people well, I don't know whether they get great results. They get they get decent results

[00:42:28] You know, it's

[00:42:29] Because that's my experience as well is whenever I do I do a master

[00:42:34] and then compare it to the online services

[00:42:36] people prefer my masters even when they're loudness matched and

[00:42:41] I

[00:42:42] prefer them and

[00:42:45] Yeah, for me mastering is all my making the music sound the best it can possibly be and so I feel like why take a shortcut

[00:42:52] Right at the final stage. You know if you have spent weeks and months recording mixing

[00:42:57] Your the songs writing the songs all the rest of it, you know

[00:43:01] If if that was a photograph if you were a photographer and you'd taken hundreds of photographs and pick the one you wanted to enter in a competition or you know, whatever

[00:43:10] Pass on to the client for the website. You wouldn't just bang a photoshop filter on it at the end of it

[00:43:15] You know click the button and that's good enough

[00:43:16] You know, you you put real care and attention and time and love into it

[00:43:20] And that's I think what mastering is as well. So yeah, that's a really long answer

[00:43:26] That's a really good answer. Yeah, really good and I like

[00:43:30] the

[00:43:31] What was said kind of early on in that?

[00:43:34] with

[00:43:36] These AI services being a useful tool for for some parts of the process, you know, maybe they're not

[00:43:44] The best option for finalizing a song. Maybe they are right

[00:43:49] Maybe it's a $5 demo, right and you just want to get it loud enough and throw it on SoundCloud and call it a day

[00:43:57] Right, okay fine. You don't need to pay that's your goal if that's your goal

[00:44:00] Yeah, that that's good enough, right? If your goal is to master an album, right?

[00:44:05] Right the songs Lee, you know, you know master the entire album

[00:44:09] So you're

[00:44:11] Excuse me

[00:44:11] so you're going from one song to the next and you get that feeling of an album you can't get that from these services at least yet

[00:44:19] Right, I genuinely think they ever will because I don't think

[00:44:25] I'm not saying

[00:44:27] I mean artificial intelligence is a super interesting topic

[00:44:31] Something that I'm really interested in anyway, but I was listening to

[00:44:36] An episode of my one of my other favorite podcasts the infinite monkey cage. Don't know where the unit guys know is

[00:44:43] Super what's his name?

[00:44:47] You'll have to edit this

[00:44:49] I

[00:44:51] Brian Cox Brian Cox there's this amazing physicist Brian Cox. He works at CERN

[00:44:58] He presents like TV programs on the wonders of the universe or the rest of it. There's him and a

[00:45:05] bunch of other clever science people and always a comedian

[00:45:10] And it's one of those super frustrating shows where they talk about stuff

[00:45:14] And it's just getting to the interest bit interesting bit and then somebody makes a joke and derails it and you're like no

[00:45:20] No, talk more about that

[00:45:21] But I literally just listened to an episode on artificial intelligence about this and they were saying it's not artificial intelligence, right? It's

[00:45:28] superfast

[00:45:30] Statistical information processing based on massive databases, right? So it can produce stuff that looks I mean

[00:45:37] We've all had this you just chat to you PT and you put something in and it sounds like a person

[00:45:41] It looks like a person and then it says something that's completely wrong

[00:45:45] Like I saw something where I credited somebody with designing

[00:45:48] the SSL bus compressor, right? This is an audio

[00:45:53] piece of text

[00:45:55] That person had nothing to do with that that piece of kit

[00:45:57] You know, it just it had pulled in the wrong piece of information from the wrong place and he didn't know

[00:46:02] So I do think it's gonna get more and more

[00:46:06] Quotes intelligent or clever or convincing but I don't think it's ever gonna understand emotion, right?

[00:46:12] Because it's never gonna be a person even if it's an intelligent thinking machine

[00:46:17] You know science fiction stuff if it's gonna be howl or the you know, Skynet or whatever still not gonna be human

[00:46:23] It's not gonna have

[00:46:25] Had a boyfriend or girlfriend and has heartbroken at 15 and being bullied and you know struggled with maths homework

[00:46:32] And all that stuff that we all have in common so

[00:46:36] I'm really skeptical about whether it's ever, you know, what about those times when you have a

[00:46:42] Super angry raging song sung in a really cold clinical detached style because you're so angry about the person there

[00:46:49] And you record it with that sound

[00:46:52] How's the machine gonna understand that and make the appropriate processing choices?

[00:46:57] You know to bring out the emotion of that and it might through luck, but I'm not convinced that it ever but

[00:47:04] Absolutely for kind of quick demos for you know just

[00:47:09] Sending something off to a client

[00:47:11] Okay, it is it

[00:47:13] It's completely valid and it is usable for those things, but I also

[00:47:17] I'm thinking of doing a course saying called something like

[00:47:21] How to master your music better than an AI every time guaranteed even in your home studio with the tools you already own

[00:47:29] Because what's a pretty long title, but I like it. I genuinely think that's possible, right?

[00:47:33] I think I need I need to really figure out. I think I could give you

[00:47:37] You I think without doing the super long in-depth mastering course

[00:47:40] I could teach you a set of rules and some useful parameters some useful starting points where most people could get a result

[00:47:47] That is as good as or better than the AI tools just by kind of doing okay to do this then do this then do this

[00:47:54] Because

[00:47:55] That's the bit they can do right? That's the easy bit that kind of going beyond that to make it the best it can possibly be

[00:48:00] that's a whole other thing but

[00:48:04] Really all you need is a decent EQ good limiter and a little bit of

[00:48:10] Maybe some dynamics processing

[00:48:13] So yeah, there you go another really long answer

[00:48:16] No, I think that's brilliant. I mean I I

[00:48:19] Completely agree the thing for me about them is

[00:48:22] They go they they run their analysis and they say oh that that's a rock song

[00:48:26] Therefore I have my EQ curve like this and it should look like that

[00:48:31] and

[00:48:32] That's great

[00:48:33] If you've written generic rock that happens to fit into that algorithm of what the EQ curve should look like

[00:48:39] It it's the bit that slightly frustrates me every time is like when you use them

[00:48:45] It will say listening, you know, and it's like it's not listening. It's not listening at all

[00:48:49] It's running some noughts and ones through an algorithm to come out with what the

[00:48:53] Listening is what a mastering engineer does before they touch anything. They press play and go right

[00:49:00] What have I got?

[00:49:02] and generically categorizing music and

[00:49:05] Slapping a EQ curve because this is rock music is actually the problem with modern rock today

[00:49:14] Yeah, you had the 90s which was amazing and like, you know all different types of rock and

[00:49:20] different

[00:49:21] Explorations of different feelings and and different styles of rock and then the 2000s happened

[00:49:28] And it just seemed like well

[00:49:29] Here's the formula for a great rock and we're gonna we're gonna record everything

[00:49:35] Super loud and just like this and everything's gonna like on on your rock station

[00:49:40] It's all gonna sound the same and it does and it has no punch to it has no emotion to it

[00:49:46] It's gotten better since then but what I was the 2000s in general right generic and boring

[00:49:53] There's a great point in there that I want to pick up on one of the

[00:49:57] The AI tools that I have more time for is

[00:50:01] the

[00:50:02] Mastering assistant in ozone the isotope have done. I think the thing that's clever about the way that they not so much the results it gets

[00:50:09] Because I'm not convinced that they're

[00:50:12] Necessarily well, I'll come back to that why I think they're not necessarily as good as they could be

[00:50:16] But I think that the approach that he uses because it's it's not like you press a button

[00:50:22] The thing goes in and comes out as a sausage, you know, it's

[00:50:25] It does some analyzing a

[00:50:28] Listening in inverted commas and it comes up with a bunch of suggestions and you can then choose whether or not to follow any of that

[00:50:34] You know, you've got a list of processes

[00:50:35] You can say okay, I'm gonna keep that EQ curve

[00:50:37] But I don't like that the ESO that it put on or the stereo with processing or whatever whatever it is

[00:50:42] I like that approach because and that's I think a really interesting way that people are using AI is

[00:50:49] Okay, so that's what the AI thinks it should sound like what do I think about that?

[00:50:53] There's a problem with that of course because you're still listening on the same

[00:50:57] Speakers that you've been listening on all this time

[00:50:59] There's another thing about going to a mastering room is it is somewhere that somebody has spent their professional career?

[00:51:06] Getting the room to sound amazing to understand exactly what they can hear that

[00:51:09] Monitoring is as neutral as possible and you know, all of those kind of things

[00:51:15] Then you come to the other issue which is all of these

[00:51:20] All of these AIs yeah, they're sampling

[00:51:23] In the statistical sense as in they're using as samples as examples a

[00:51:29] huge range of stuff that's out there right so it could be you know

[00:51:34] death leopard at one end and

[00:51:38] Cradle of filth in the middle and

[00:51:40] Metallica at the other end with the foo fighters thrown in and all you know, whatever they choose as their data pool

[00:51:46] Mm-hmm

[00:51:47] a

[00:51:48] That's a limited pool and it's gonna be it could be skewed early

[00:51:52] It could be skewed late some of them off for you, you know kind of 90 sound versus 2000 sound

[00:51:56] That's maybe a step in the right direction, but all of them are averaged right and who wants their music to be average

[00:52:00] You know yeah, it's like I mean yeah, you don't want to be so extreme that it's unlistable

[00:52:05] But it's for me. It's being on the edges and pushing the boundaries that makes stuff

[00:52:10] Interesting, you know if by definition all of those tools that they kind of tell you

[00:52:14] Oh, here's what you know kind of 80% of

[00:52:17] Hip-hop sounds like today and it's like okay. Well, there's a lot of hip hop out there

[00:52:22] So I'm gonna sound like a lot of other hip hop if that's you know kind of what I go for so I think that's just a fundamental

[00:52:29] challenge they have

[00:52:31] There's one different approach which is used by waves because as I understand it

[00:52:36] Piper Payne who's the mastering engineer who helped them develop that system was she was basically the one who?

[00:52:42] Find tuned all of that stuff. So in some ways if you get your much music mastered by that

[00:52:48] Then it's a bit like getting it mastered by her maybe

[00:52:51] That kind of feels maybe like a bit more of an interesting approach

[00:52:53] so maybe we have a future where we can't have you know, you can have your

[00:52:58] AI pipe of pain or your AI Bob Ludwig or your AI Ian Shepherd or whoever it might be

[00:53:05] Maybe that's interesting. I

[00:53:07] Except okay, so another point. Sorry. I know I'm talking on and on but I keep thinking of things

[00:53:11] I don't have feel I have as a mastering engineer a sound there are mastering engineers out there

[00:53:17] Just like there are producers who put their stamp, you know, you send it to them to get their sound

[00:53:22] That's not me right as I said at the beginning. I'm all about okay

[00:53:26] What have has been brought to me? What were they trying to achieve?

[00:53:29] How can I get the best possible result for that?

[00:53:32] Whether I like it or not

[00:53:34] Whether it's how I would have done it or not, you know, I kind of move it in directions that are

[00:53:39] Informed by my opinion of my taste and I'm lucky that most of my clients love the results

[00:53:44] but

[00:53:47] Well another thing you have a sound and you don't know it

[00:53:51] Well, I mean there are there are things about sound that I like, you know

[00:53:53] I like space depth with clarity openness impacts all those kind of things

[00:53:58] So, you know, I find it less enjoyable to work on something that's super dense

[00:54:04] controlled

[00:54:05] harsh

[00:54:07] Middle-Een Monho all those kind of things, but if that's what the client wants to achieve

[00:54:11] I

[00:54:12] Understand that and I can I can still take it take it in that direction. You know, I'm not

[00:54:16] I've mastered almost everything for I always like to say from bagpipes to birdsong

[00:54:21] Which is literally true one thing personally I find challenging is steel band music

[00:54:25] I really like the sound of a steel band in the world

[00:54:29] I just have yet to hear a recording of it that I liked

[00:54:33] But it doesn't stop me doing a good job mastering any of those, you know

[00:54:38] I'm not a massive fan of bagpipes either, but I can still make it sound good. You know, so

[00:54:44] Yeah, I feel like it would be hard to encode my

[00:54:48] Process or my sound as a mastering engineer because I don't really feel that I have one

[00:54:54] Another thing I always like to say is that balance mastering is about balancing not matching

[00:54:58] Right, we're not making the loudness of all the songs the same

[00:55:01] We're not making the EQ balance of all the songs the same

[00:55:03] We're just balancing them so they work well against each other

[00:55:06] So that the loud stuff is loud and the quiet stuff is quiet the big stuff is big and the

[00:55:11] Intimate stuff is intimate

[00:55:13] So yeah, you could have different albums from my career that sound wildly different to each other

[00:55:19] They still sound exactly the way I think they should with my mastering engineers taste

[00:55:22] But it all depends what they're meant to be and what the client wanted as well

[00:55:27] Well, maybe maybe there's a time in the future that exists where you know top name mastering engineers get their own sort of you know

[00:55:36] mastering GPT interface right where people can have their song AI mastered by

[00:55:43] Insert name here. You know, I don't know maybe that's where things are eventually headed. I wouldn't be surprised

[00:55:49] I'm not really sure what the point is. I kind of feel like

[00:55:52] Getting them to do it for you have a conversation with them that you know

[00:55:54] That's one of the huge things about mastering is, you know, one of the another problems with the black box

[00:55:58] You know the site that you upload and down you can't talk to it

[00:56:01] You can't you know, it comes back and you think well, it sounds good, but there's a bit much base tough

[00:56:05] I mean some of them have you know, you can tweak it

[00:56:07] But then you're you're back into doing the work yourself and if you if you go to a mastering engineer

[00:56:12] You're going to them for their opinion if you go to an AI you're going to it for its opinion in inverted commerce

[00:56:18] So at the point where you kind of say no, I don't like that

[00:56:20] That's when it all gets a bit weird for me, but yeah, I'm sure that'll happen. I'll be amazed if it doesn't

[00:56:29] Amazing great. I really interesting insights. I think

[00:56:33] It's something that's only gonna come along more. I don't think I can't see them going away

[00:56:37] I do think I agree. I mean I find myself green with you a lot to be honest in but

[00:56:44] Well, you're biased

[00:56:47] You know, I think it's my choice he's been brainwashed. Yeah

[00:56:51] It's a

[00:56:54] It's that conversation as well if you've got I mean, I'm quite lucky

[00:56:58] I've got lots of clients who come to me a lot for their project

[00:57:00] You know basically if they've got a project they come to me every time

[00:57:04] but all of them are a conversation around

[00:57:07] Even when it like somebody I've worked with for years and years and years. They'll send me something

[00:57:11] I'll send it back and

[00:57:14] Because we've got a bit of a shorthand. I'll be like here's the master

[00:57:17] I think it's what you want, but tell me if it isn't if you know because as you've said they've got a vision for that project

[00:57:24] They know what they were aiming for and there are times where they're like, yeah, look it sounds great

[00:57:29] But you know, I was hoping for it to be you know, well

[00:57:33] Luckily, I never get into conversations about louder, which is I never get a conversation where I was wanting it louder

[00:57:41] Which is quite nice these days

[00:57:43] I think that has definitely changed a bit and I think the streaming services have helped with that with their normalization

[00:57:49] but

[00:57:51] It's interesting that I have one the other day and I don't know how you

[00:57:55] Sort of process it. I have one the other day where

[00:57:58] They wanted me to master some backing tracks for them to use live

[00:58:03] So not the full vocal not the lead guitar because it was a vocalist and a guitarist and they're gonna play

[00:58:09] Haven't got full band so they had a they it's their songs they've written just without the vocal and the guitar

[00:58:15] And actually mastering it was

[00:58:18] It was a bit weird. It was like I've got no vocal. I've got no lead guitar in it. I've just got lots of left and right

[00:58:25] I've got lots of

[00:58:27] bass and kick drums down the middle

[00:58:29] And they actually did come back to me and say could you make it louder?

[00:58:33] Because through our PA what we really want it is it to be virtually all of sound that just sits behind

[00:58:40] But that was quite a challenge and it was a little bit like, oh, okay

[00:58:44] Yeah, I get why you want that to be less dynamic much more sort of in your face as a as a live thing

[00:58:51] but yeah, do you get do you get those sort of requests for

[00:58:55] slightly more unusual

[00:58:58] You often get unusual requests. Yeah, I

[00:59:02] Remember I did one for Matt Johnson who was in the band called the other

[00:59:06] Back in the 80s. There was an album of film music he did it's I wish I had a copy of it

[00:59:12] It's now super rare cost like 150 quid or something on the collector's sites

[00:59:16] But yeah, there was one that he wanted distorted and at that point

[00:59:20] I all I had was super clean mastering stuff in the studio apart from a mono Joe meek compressor

[00:59:27] so we ended up

[00:59:30] Cranking it through that and we had to run the left and right channel separately

[00:59:33] In order because it was a mono

[00:59:36] So yeah, definitely get bizarre requests. I mean, it's really interesting that example you say there because I I

[00:59:43] wonder if they recorded the

[00:59:45] Vocals and the guitar if they had I would have asked for a mix with them

[00:59:50] Mastered it with those in place and then just swapped it out for the because that that's what happens to me more often

[00:59:55] It's somebody comes in and they say okay

[00:59:56] We've got the instrumentals as well. So can you just run them through with the same settings?

[01:00:00] And especially if it's intended for them to perform over his backing tracks, I think that's absolutely fine

[01:00:05] I mean

[01:00:06] It's a slightly weird because if you've got some dynamics processing then it might react a little bit differently to the mix without

[01:00:11] The the main elements being in there, but I mean that you know, there's not much you can you can you can't really second guess that

[01:00:17] What if you did the stems or something like that? Well, I mean stems is a whole other

[01:00:22] Yeah, I mean that the exact likes and then yeah exactly the same thing applies with stems is

[01:00:27] Yeah, you if they did a mix where all of those were hitting a bus compressor

[01:00:32] Which would react to the to all of them together and then you separate them out

[01:00:35] There are things you can do with side chaining and stuff to try and emulate it. I think it's probably more

[01:00:42] Unless the bus compression is a major major element in the in the sound it's probably more effort than it's worth, you know

[01:00:48] Because usually the point of stems is it's going to be changed in some way

[01:00:51] They're gonna have different control over the balance or whatever

[01:00:54] So if that's going to be different why not have everything else different now

[01:00:57] The interesting thing I was going to say though about that example is I wonder whether they made the right choice because

[01:01:03] live

[01:01:05] performances especially vocals

[01:01:07] Often tend to be much more dynamic than recordings

[01:01:10] So if your backing track is super super compressed

[01:01:13] I can see a risk where at some points the vocal is going to seem seem way too loud and other points might be get buried for example

[01:01:21] It's hard to know. Maybe they've they probably hopefully they've got all that dialed in

[01:01:24] You know, they've got their the compression settings and all the rest of it and they're gonna rehearse and fit it all in

[01:01:28] But it's it's kind of an interesting if somebody asked that me to do that

[01:01:32] I would be the same as you I'd be kind of thinking well, okay

[01:01:34] What exactly is the right approach here for this? You know, it's

[01:01:39] So yeah

[01:01:41] You get all kinds of requests you just have to do your best with it

[01:01:45] Yeah, absolutely

[01:01:47] Unless they wanted it flat so that the front of house guy could like bring it up whenever they wanted to I don't know

[01:01:53] Yeah, I mean, I didn't you know, it wasn't crushed to death

[01:01:57] That you know for DB of every but they just wanted it brought up

[01:02:01] Just so it had a little bit less dynamics and I the one I thought about I thought

[01:02:04] You know, I can kind of see why you'd want that if you're in a live environment

[01:02:07] You don't want quite so much

[01:02:11] Dynamic range maybe as you do when you're listening on, you know headphones and that sort of thing

[01:02:15] So it's got a bit more life. It's a bit more just impactful for but actually I mastered the original album as well

[01:02:20] So it was a bit like

[01:02:21] And actually one of the things I did was carve out a little bit of EQ where the vocal would sit just so that when they're

[01:02:27] Then doing that live and they're trying to mix that there's a little bit of space there for it to kind of sit

[01:02:33] So hopefully it'll work. I don't know. I'm not on the tour with them

[01:02:36] So I may never find out but hopefully it'll be good

[01:02:39] They'll find a way to make it work. It's you know, it's just it's more of an interesting kind of theoretical question

[01:02:43] Rather than saying there's anything necessarily wrong about it. It's um, yeah, it's an unusual unusual challenge

[01:02:49] It's all good. It's live music. You just use what you get

[01:02:53] Yeah

[01:02:54] absolutely

[01:02:55] Well, I think we probably should wrap it up. I appreciate you know everybody's time and

[01:03:01] It's been amazing in I absolutely loved love chatting with you on it

[01:03:04] I think the more I more these guys talk to me about mastering the more

[01:03:08] I know Nate's have many occasion where he's like, ah, okay

[01:03:11] I could probably think about that when I'm producing and mixing and everything and I'm sure it's even more

[01:03:16] Yeah, as well. So um, yeah, I'm not a mastering engineer

[01:03:20] But I find the process fascinating and and I I always glean something from, you know

[01:03:26] What I send a ban

[01:03:27] And I'll say real quick when I was starting out

[01:03:32] A couple of years ago and I was still kind of learning my room and you know doing the car test and all that stuff

[01:03:39] Thankfully, I'm I've gotten beyond that and I have confidence in what I'm listening to but when I was not so confident

[01:03:45] I would use the ozone mastering to see what it would do

[01:03:51] And I wouldn't apply the exciter and the compression but the EQ curve was always fascinating because it would tell me where

[01:03:58] There were some issues with my two mechs, right?

[01:04:01] And so then I would take that EQ curve maybe apply it or tweak it from there to

[01:04:08] smooth down, you know, some of those

[01:04:11] Peaks and whatnot those resonances that I'm obviously not hearing in my room, you know

[01:04:16] But the the AI is saying oh, yeah, you got too much at 70. Let's let's bring that down a little bit, huh? Yeah

[01:04:23] Yeah, it's that's exactly that's the kind of I'm hearing more and more people doing that

[01:04:27] And I think that is a valuable kind of

[01:04:31] Piece of information to add into it. It's interesting. There's I've heard of people using

[01:04:36] Room correction software in the same way, right? So there's thinking way

[01:04:39] Yeah, so now works where it's intended to make your monitoring as flat as possible in terms of the EQ response

[01:04:45] There's people using that to

[01:04:48] Find out what the problems might be and then try and improve them by adding acoustic treatment or tweaking the position of the monitors

[01:04:57] Or yeah, whatever the listing position, whatever that might be

[01:05:00] That's a really interesting way. I mean, that's one of the you know

[01:05:04] That's one of the most interesting thing. I think about all of these new tools is

[01:05:08] Finding out what people do with them, you know, the all the creative

[01:05:13] Purposes that the original design is never imagined people would use for them. So, you know, it's it's quite an exciting time

[01:05:19] But especially bullies AI stuff come in, you know, I mean

[01:05:23] Despite saying yeah, yeah, I'm absolutely fine with it. I probably talked down the idea of AI mastering fairly

[01:05:29] firmly but

[01:05:31] it is amazing technology and

[01:05:33] You know, it is it's great that it's giving people opportunities just to to get better results without having to invest

[01:05:40] Invest a ton of time and money. So, you know, I think all of that is very positive

[01:05:47] Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, we'll have you back for sure for a part two

[01:05:53] You know in a while and sort of see where the AI landscape has taken us

[01:05:57] Because as with anything technology wise, you know wait five minutes and it's gonna change completely

[01:06:04] Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see which which direction it goes in

[01:06:07] Hopefully it'll move things for the better, but we'll we'll see

[01:06:10] We'll see. That's life in general with AI though

[01:06:16] Well, look brilliant thanks Ian really appreciate it. Yeah

[01:06:20] I've enjoyed it. Thanks for having me. Well, we'll definitely stay in touch and let you get you back on at some point in the future

[01:06:26] Yeah, it'd be great

[01:06:28] Fantastic. Thanks for taking the time and it's great to meet you. You too. Thanks so much. Cheers everybody

[01:06:34] All right. Cheers. Take care

[01:06:51] Thank you for listening to sound discussion your hosts are Ben Holmes Neil merchant and me Nate Kelms

[01:06:58] Our theme song is composed and recorded by Jojo Timmerman

[01:07:02] You can find us on the internet at sound discussion podcast comm or you can drop us a line at sound discussion

[01:07:09] podcast at gmail.com

[01:07:12] Additional show notes for this episode can be found on our website or in the description area of your podcast player a

[01:07:18] Big thank you to our guest for taking the time to chat with us today and to you the listener

[01:07:24] For taking time out of your busy schedule to be part of our discussion

[01:07:28] We look forward to having you join us again next month on another episode of sound discussion

[01:07:34] It's not like you press a button

[01:07:37] The thing goes in and comes out as a sausage