Samc wrote on Tue, 08 June 2010 16:34 |
Ed Littman wrote on Tue, 08 June 2010 16:03 |
IMO this is what is part of the job. If they didn't want a remix no prob...go forward. it's all in knowing when to make a suggestion & how to word it...as everything might have someones ego attached.
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I hear what you're saying Ed and even agree with you, but when a mastering engineer declares that his advise will make a client's CD 'better', or make it sound as if they always know (more than the artists) what's best for the them, that sounds very pretentious to me. It even smacks of disrespect for the clients; just look at the thread title...
Maybe one day the client's will find a place where they and their work are accorded the same respect accorded to James Taylor...despite their inexperience.
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At least in my case it is not a "my way or the highway" and I treat everyone with the utmost respect but some clients, especially newbies, seem to not have the ability to self critique their own material. I have done literally hundreds of albums and I kinda know what sounds like something that will "make it" versus something that is destined for the 500 copies in the closet syndrome. I listen to their material, I make some suggestion and if they say they are happy with the music and the problems and no problem I do my best to make it sound GREAT. If they take my suggestions then they can go back, fix what is wrong and come back and I can master their materials. I am not a producer and don't play one on TV but I have been around the block a couple of times and usually can hear some problems that maybe the artist failed to hear. Especially with self recorded - self produced albums the artist is so close to their music that they lose all perspective and literally cannot hear where problems exist.
If I am working with an established artist and I hear something weird you bet I will mention it and if I am told "hey that's what I wanted" then fine we go on from there. It is their call and I respect their judgment.
I find it appalling that some mastering engineers here would hear problems, chose to ignore them or never mention them to the artist, master the music and take the artist's money and feel good about it.
IMHO music is suppose to be a collaborative undertaking and even at the 11th hour there are some problems that are so easy to fix and so unnecessary that the artists should be made aware of them and AT LEAST asked if they hear them and if they want to fix them before the CD or whatever is finalized and made available to the masses.
A while back I purchased a CD that was HDCD encoded. It was a collection of acoustic songs that had to do with the Mark Twain TV series and was published by a top level record company. I listened to the songs and at the end of the song someone had tried to fade them out AFTER the CD was encoded in the HDCD format and there was all kinds of noise introduced. It was really really bad. I called the record company and told them the problem. They were "concerned" and offered to send me a new CD (which also had the same problems) later I purchased the same CD but it had been fixed. Why no one at the record company "noticed" this is a complete mystery to me but it finally got fixed and hopefully my phone call and others raised the alarm. This is a well respected company with some of the top mastering engineers in the world working for them and this got released to the public. It was probably not a million seller but those kinds of mistakes should not happen if everyone is doing their jobs and really listening to what is being released and at least is letting people know about the problems so they can be fixed.
FWIW and YMMV