Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Jerry Tubb wrote on Sun, 18 July 2010 23:56

I think what you're sayin' is that each time a song is downloaded illegally, it's pennies, nickles and dimes that don't end up in the artist & labels pockets. Money that might be used toward the next recording project, that might eventually find it's way to a real mastering engineer. So it's a loss to everyone involved, except the pirate. JT

BINGO!


If the average Joe Blow wants to have a song that was done by a famous artist they will down load it off the WWW and, sorry to say, it will usually be from an illegal site where the artist receives NO MONEY from the sale. If the artist is putting his music up on the WWW so he or she will get noticed this illegal downloading will not hurt them but if it is an established artist and or record company it does hurt them. It never seems like much to illegally down load one song from an artist but imagine if a million or ten million people did that and you are talking some serious money. Money that they subsequently don't have to spend on marketing, project development, recording or mastering.

A forum member on another site said that he thought mastering, as a separate career path would be gone in 10 years and the way things are going I tend to agree.

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Andy Krehm wrote on Sun, 18 July 2010 12:15

MEs are dealing with sound shaping and the media is only part of the equation. I.e., vinyl vs CD mastering vs mastering for internet only. So I'm wondering why you think the eventual obsolescence of CDs will affect our business? A well-mastered song is still going to translate better and sound better in an mp3/AC4 format than a poorly mastered one. I also don't see how pirating music is affecting us either. There is a never ending number of artists making tracks that will sound better with pro mastering. The last two years have been the best of my mastering career but I am very concerned about the other side of my business which is CD duplicating and replicating. As we all know, that part of the industry is on a down swing. I have noticed that indie artists still want some CDs to sell. I've also noticed that more and more of them are going for the short runs rather than plant runs. My mastering business is such that I would probably have a better net if I wasn't sometimes subsidizing the CD division! However, I have a very good and loyal staff and like the cross-pollination that having several services under one roof brings to the table. However, I am in no way dependent on that side of the business for a living so am not concerned for myself! Once again, I don't see media or pirating having a big influence on how much mastering work I get.

Many people today feel that hiring a mastering engineer for stuff that is going to go on the WWW as an MP3 is like throwing money away. They don't need someone to make their stuff sound loud (they can smash it themselves) they don't need "an album" to be consistent as there is usually only one song involved and most people will be playing the MP3 on their computer speakers or on their IPODs and many cannot hear the difference between an MP3 and a WAV file let alone tell if it was "mastered"

If you are having a good year then consider yourself lucky as there are a lot of other mastering facilities that have seen their business drop off by half or more as more and more music goes up on the WWW and the artist putting it there don't want or need to spend money for something that they think is no longer needed.

Keep on doing what you are doing but times they are a changing.

[odeon-mastering]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 05:34

Many people today feel that hiring a mastering engineer for stuff that is going to go on the WWW as an MP3 is like throwing money away.

Agreed but many more think that mastering is actually even more important these days.
I am pretty sure that you have the same opinion...so lets work with them and try to educate the rest.

As far as I am concerned music nowadays is rather expensive and if it was half the price people would not even be bothered to vist illegal sites.
The profit margin is enormous (www means u have a shop at every corner of every street in the world)...
the internet music shops could pay more money to artists and maybe it s them we should educate (although i think they are learning the hard way at the moment). Sorry for the off topic.

Anyways... indie music here in Greece is blooming and the need for mastering is still keeping me in business. We all know things will be different in 10 years as it was different ten years ago...the need for a good product and the appreciation of it, will still be the same though.

[urm eric]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 05:34

Many people today feel that hiring a mastering engineer for stuff that is going to go on the WWW as an MP3 is like throwing money away.

Are you not reading the replies to your posts? Three good full-time ME's (Andy, Macc and Robin) immediately said that their business is pretty much unaffected, yet you ignore this and still want to claim that your own crappy experience is the universal one. Clearly it's a local phenomenon.

Edit: four full-time ME's: Apostolis' post came through as I was writing.

[Thomas W. Bethel]

urm eric wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 08:05

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 05:34 Many people today feel that hiring a mastering engineer for stuff that is going to go on the WWW as an MP3 is like throwing money away. Are you not reading the replies to your posts? Three good full-time ME's (Andy, Macc and Robin) immediately said that their business is pretty much unaffected, yet you ignore this and still want to claim that your own crappy experience is the universal one. Clearly it's a local phenomenon. Edit: four full-time ME's: Apostolis' post came through as I was writing.

Yes I read every post...

I personally know people who are doing mastering that are having problems. Since I have no way of telling if people on this forum are, in fact, telling the whole truth or just putting up a good front I guess I have to go with people I personally know. It is also VERY dependent on where you are located globally and who your clients are/were. One of my really good friends and a he!! of a good mastering engineer was doing about four mastering days per week up until two years ago then he started dropping off to where he is today which is currently about 1 mastering job per month. He will be the first one to tell you that many of his clients are web based for music sales and now say they "really don't need their stuff mastered" I have another friend who says that he is doing most of the mastering for clients because they have no budget for mastering and don't really see the need for it if their stuff is going up on the WWW.

YMMV and if you personally are not affected by any of this then I hope and pray that it stays that way. Other people are affected by this and have seen their mastering businesses get to the point where it is no longer profitable to keep their doors open and they have gone on to "other things".

If I wanted to I could say we are having the best year in the 16 years we have been in business but it would NOT be because of our mastering and it is only that we have diversified that we are able to keep our doors open and people employed.

I tend to be honest about things where some people put on a   and tell everyone that everything is all rosy and GREAT! I am not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but if you read other forums and if you look in any of the popular audio magazines you will find that a lot of people, some of them very famous, are predicting that mastering, as we knew it, will not  be around for very much longer. Only time will tell who is right.

Where I live is not ideal for having clients come to me to have their stuff mastered. The town I live in has about 8,000 people in it and we are located in a cornfield about 35 miles from the nearest large city. Many of my returning clients have to drive over an hour to get here which they say is worth it but new clients don't seem to want to travel that far. Our town has a cable coop for our ISP and it is not the swiftest when it comes to things like downloading or uploading files. (One hour to download or upload one CDs worth of music) The town's telephone wires are circa 1920s and 30's and are very noisy and so we cannot get good DSL service. I have spend a large amount on my physical plant and the equipment therein but it would be a real PITA to move it somewhere else and with the declining fortunes of mastering would probably not be a good business move. We have diversified and are making a good comfortable living but I would like to do more mastering which is what I live for. Maybe everyone else you have quoted lives in a large city and has good access to FTP up and down loading.

[Silvertone]

I understand where you are coming from Thomas.  Your business, as mine are in "fringe" parts of the country and the "local" scene just can't support the rates or service really. Personally I rely on Hollywood and the movie industry to keep my doors open... thank God for Hollywood!

Locally, many of the engineers and studios that use to use my service now do it themselves... a "good enough" mentality prevails and they sell that to their clients... which is really a disservice to them but hey, the studio gets to make more money and these guys know that most of the product will never go anywhere anyway.  Also I hear (from the engineers no less) "this is just for downloads so when we do the CD we'll get it mastered for real". What??? I say to them, "but you only have one chance to make a good first impression"!

(The funny part of the equation is that if the engineer really believes in the product they insist that I master it as they want it to sound the best it can!!! However this is not the norm anymore.)

The amount of full CD's I use to do have been cut in half... I'm in year 15 as a dedicated mastering facility and over the years the music industry business has stayed pretty flat... as the popularity of mastering started to grow more and more BS mastering services started to pop up.... mediocrity has become the norm in the industry now. So now this "good enough" mentality prevails with many of the engineers and artists I know.  

This is so different from when I started in the industry thirty years ago... sad in many ways and why many of my colleagues don't even work in the industry anymore.  

Mastering has always been a necessary/unnecessary evil IMHO and even though I work as a mastering engineer I wish the goal was to have a skill set that would not need mastering... from what I see (hear) mastering is needed now more than ever yet the consumer could really give a crap...

Yes, free has hurt and helped to maim the industry but we've also crippled it from the inside as well. When mediocrity rules people just don't expect much and sure as hell do not want to "pay" for it!

As Mix magazine put on their cover back in 2006... "Where's the money?",  Judging from what the magazine looks like today, they never did find out where it was either!  Since Mix WAS the industries largest magazine it should be a telling sign...  

Good luck to everyone!

[urm eric]

Thomas Bethel: [/quote] I personally know people who are doing mastering that are having problems. Since I have no way of telling if people on this forum are, in fact, telling the whole truth or just putting up a good front I guess I have to go with people I personally know. It is also VERY dependent on where you are located globally and who your clients are/were.[/quote]

Fair enough - you seem rather sad inasmuch as you don't trust the positive-minded posters; whereas I see no good reason at all not to (except maybe over-developed and under-controlled cognitive dissonance strategies). Also, I do know Macc very well and he's *steaming* ahead at the moment - and he hasn't burned a CD in many many months: me too - just down the road; oh and Nigel `Lowland' Palmer just down the road too - never been busier.

The `VERY dependent on where you are' is quite right: but that's what my words `local phenomenon' meant.

East Anglia is *buzzing* (even though 10% and increasing of my clients are actually from the US).

Still bugger all to do with illegal downloading as far as I can see.

[compasspnt]

Also note that rhe music/recording/indie/live scene is much more vibrant in the UK.

[odeon-mastering]

Most of the people who would avoid mastering as an unessecary cost are usually hobbyists...people who mainly upload their music on myspace and add many friends (hoping some of them will actually listen to their home brew tracks)

Illegal downloads are about mainstream music which is , was and will always be mastered.

After all illegal cracked software, could be very much responsible, for the increase of the music being produced. Much of this music is also getting mastered.

If we want to be really honest the only real effect that the srhinkage of profits has to our profession is maybe the fact it's pushing the rates we can charge downwards (although this is mainly because of the large supply in mastering these days).

This is a nice article that I have bookmarked (maybe it was someone's recomendation in this forum)(not directly related to this thread but good food for thought)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloade rs-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html

Stay positive

[lowland]

compasspnt wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 14:18

Also note that rhe music/recording/indie/live scene is much more vibrant in the UK.

In that case I feel even more fortunate: although the start of the year was quieter than previously, currently it's bonkers (in a good way).

Who knows how long this will last, but I'm not really feeling that the download thing is a problem, while picking up lots of lovely new customers.  This has given me a heartening sense that people out there know of me beyond my previous mainstay areas, and I'm also seeing a steady trickle of clients who previously used 'the big boys' in London and realise that 1. overheads have a significant effect on the mastering bill and 2. that a house ME in a large well-known facility won't get better results than an independent like myself (and many here) by default.

[Jerry Tubb]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 05:14

A forum member on another site said that he thought mastering, as a separate career path would be gone in 10 years and the way things are going I tend to agree.

Naturally, I strongly disagree with this statement, for all the same reasons we've discussed before in the 10 Reasons to use a Real Mastering Studio thread. I don't think those reasons have changed.

One of the top reasons is that many of our regular clients are mix engineers and producers who don't want to do the mastering themselves, in fact really dislike doing it, so they bring it to us. When clients approach them about doing a project, they build in the mastering costs so there are no suprises.

Another top reason is that many folks that are self-producing and engineering realize that their skills and rooms are not adequate for quality mastering, so they bring it to us for mastering, and perhaps a little advance mix consultation.

We're having one of the busiest summers ever. I even worked all day yesterday (Sunday) which is against my general principals, just to catch up from last week.

JT

[urm eric]

odeon-mastering wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 08:52

Stay positive

Absolutely: stay positive and move on. It's the more difficult option - so much easier to stand still and whine - but really the only way to run a business and live a life and not be storing up myocardial mischief.

(Clearly being in the East Anglian region for a few years did you a lot of good ... )

Cheers,

Eric

[urm eric]

Jerry Tubb wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 09:18

We're having one of the busiest summers ever. I even worked all day yesterday (Sunday) which is against my general principals, just to catch up from last week. JT

Good to hear it Jerry!

(The busy summer of course, not the sabbath-busting)

Cheers,

Eric

[Waltz Mastering]

Tom B, sometimes you have some of the most depressing post I read on the internet concerning music business in general.

The week before last was my best week ever  (mastering), followed by an average week, with this week looking to shape up pretty nicely..still have some projects booked a month or so in advance but not a full calendar, but I don't sweat it and haven't sweated it since I opened my first studio 24 years ago when I was 22.

If the industry is getting you down, make a plan, adjust, and get on with it. 2 cents.

When has the music industry ever been predicable?

...back to work

[urm eric]

Waltz Mastering wrote on Mon, 19 July 2010 09:51

When has the music industry ever been predicable?

Shame on you and your optimism Tom W! You are clearly not reading or taking seriously enough what the very famous people are saying in the popular audio magazines!

Cheers,

Eric