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[Alécio Costa - Brazil]

http://www.mcdsp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=v iew&id=277&Itemid=42

[Thomas W. Bethel]

It is still the man or woman behind the mastering desk that makes something sound the way it does. You can have a room full of the best equipment or a DAW full of plug-ins but if you don't have the necessary skills, experience and ears it will be just that.

Almost every week someone comes out with a "new" plugin or changes to a an existing plug in and they get someone famous to say "this is the best thing since sliced bread" and all the readers of MIX and EQ suddenly go out and purchase them so they can sound like (insert name of a famous mix or mastering engineer).

It is NOT the gear or the plug-ins that make the most difference it is the person using the gear or the plugins.....

FWIW

[tom eaton]

Agreed... the larger issue is that EQ and Mix exist to sell you stuff.  Advertorials, reviews and straight up ads all try to convince you that what you have isn't good enough.  The ads pay for the delivery of the content...and so the content has to deliver dollars to the advertisers.  Even this place is littered with ads (4 on this page I'm typing on)... but the content here is so good that being pelted with ads is worth it.

-tom

[Matt_G]

Personally I thought the McDSP ML4000 sounded to 'hyped' or unnatural when I tried the demo. I have owned & still use some McDSP plugs so I had high expectations, but unfortunately they didn't meet them for me. To me it sounded like what a radio broadcast chain would do to your music, even using the more subtle settings sounded too coloured for my tastes.

Matt

[brett]

the article sounded too hyped up. He is trying to get more business like every other studio. They need the extra mastering revenue so he is just putting that out there. "We encourage our clients to not master, and we do it inhouse" The artists ends up with a mix guy, in a mix room, mastering their stuff. They get a loud mix. Not a mastered record.

[Masterer]

Keep in mind the source. Dave's probably a very talented guy, but by his own admission he not much for mixes that sound good. I read in an interview he did a while back that he's much more interested in mixes that sound "new" and "exciting" not necessarily "good'. It's an interesting philosophy and one that I'm not entirely opposed to under the right circumstances, but we shouldn't be at all surprised that he wouldn't care much about mastering and finds that slapping a plugin limiter on a mix sufficient for his [and his clients needs].

....plus, then he gets the money.

[tldave]

Not to be an ass or anything, but that photo of him with his leg up like that REALLY makes him look like Jabba the Hutt. I can just hear him saying "These plugins are my kind of scum."

[Masterer]

tldave wrote on Thu, 23 August 2007 00:59

Not to be an ass or anything, but that photo of him with his leg up like that REALLY makes him look like Jabba the Hutt. I can just hear him saying "These plugins are my kind of scum."

That's not nice.

[bblackwood]

tldave wrote on Wed, 22 August 2007 23:59

Not to be an ass or anything, but that photo of him with his leg up like that REALLY makes him look like Jabba the Hutt. I can just hear him saying "These plugins are my kind of scum."

Thanks for the insight, it's very helpful.

[jazzius]

Dave Pensado is a very good mixer.....i imagine he can just slap a limiter across the 2 and consider it "mastered"........of course there's a lot more to mastering (as a business) then that.

[bigaudioblowhard]

jazzius wrote on Fri, 24 August 2007 15:35

Dave Pensado is a very good mixer.....i imagine he can just slap a limiter across the 2 and consider it "mastered"........of course there's a lot more to mastering (as a business) then that.

Yes, you have to slap an EQ across as well.

bab

[tldave]

I agree. I'm sure Pensado is capable of mastering his own mixes, but I'm confident the people paying the bills on the recordings of the artists named in the article are still going to be enlisting Bob Ludwig, Bernie Grundham, or Sterling mastering engineers.

This stuff is typical marketing aimed at the studios who want to try and do it all under one roof. The article should simply read:

Got Pro Tools? Here's a way to take your clients for a few hundred more with our plugin!

I used to keep the Waves Mastering bundle on my old workstation because inexperienced artists would ask me if I had it like it was a benchmark of quality, since that's what the studio they recorded in had, or what someone in an article had. Just like the classic question, "you've got Pro Tools, right?"

I don't think something like this will become the new Masterlink due to the huge product market we have now. I don't think any single product can hold out like that piece was able to. Used to be you could name 10 pieces of gear and pretty much guarantee it was in every pro studio in the country. Now it's a shot in the dark, but in a good way. As long as the engineer isn't using all this new versatile stuff to commit more sonic atrocities.

[Alécio Costa - Brazil]

hey, guys you've forgotten the dither!!
 

[Masterer]

Not to make too much out of this, 'cause in the end it's not that big of a deal
...But


I think the advertisement is a little oversimplified and slightly misleading [that might be the definition of advertising!]. Dave is a pop music mixer, and as such I'd venture to guess that most often he is not mixing entire records. Singles and 3 or 4 songs per LP is pretty typical for pop records. When the records come together they get mastered and probably not by Dave.

I'm sure, in the larger context of a full LP that Dave's shit ["good" and loud though it may be] get's treated like any other track that the mastering engineer gets. If it need something to fit into the overall picture of the record, it get's it.

I could be wrong but I don't think the man is sitting around water-marking references, entering ISRC codes and making DDP masters for the plant in a mix room at Larrabee.

I think he's probably making his really cool and exiting mixes sound cool and exiting and loud [we all know how much the clients and the A&R appreciate that].

I might have to check that ML4000 out [shit, advertising works!].

[Matt_G]

Masterer wrote on Sun, 26 August 2007 01:43

I might have to check that ML4000 out [shit, advertising works!].

Trust me when I say don't waste your time.