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[chickenbop]

I read that Dave Fridmann mastered The Flaming Lips' yoshimi record-or I guess you could say that it was left unmastered.
Also-several years back a buddy of mine worked at a small mastering joint in Atlanta that was credited on Pearl Jam's Yield record.
He told me that Brendan O'Brien did as much of the mastering as the actual mastering engineer did.
I had a record done at this place and it was basically just a finished basement with an l2 and nearfield tannoys for monitoring.
Note-I am not an aspiring mastering engineer but just curious about these things.
Both of these records sound amazing to me,but I always hear that you shouldn't master an album yourself.
This advice seems inconsistent with the two albums mentioned above.
Thoughts?

[Bob Olhsson]

Lots of engineers get real involved in the mastering process when they don't like what they are hearing in the mastering room monitors. Plenty of albums get mixed in a lesser situation than the mixer would prefer and any problems it created will need to get straightened out in an attended mastering session. This doesn't necessarily mean the mastering engineer plays less of a role and it's a very different thing from "self-mastering."

Major label projects have so much money riding on them that most labels won't entrust mastering to anybody they don't have a substantial amount of experience with. There's more involved than just the sound and a screwed up master can cost many thousands of dollars.

[bblackwood]

No matter how good the engineer, he'll never have what a separate mastering engineer brings to the table:
1] experience mastering records
2] doing so every day in a controlled and accurate environment
3] fresh perspective

That last one is a biggie. As Denny Purcell used to say, 'You only get to hear it the first time once...'

Not to mention that the two examples you mention are a vanishingly small percenatge of records being released every year by the 'top-level producers/engineers' - most everyone uses separate mastering for a reason.

[lucey]

self mastering can only work well when:

a) the engineer has the self-discipline to be able to let go and re hear it for the first time in the mastering session
b) another facility is used, with different monitors and room.
c) an in house mastering tech is there for feedback and/or collaboration