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[Jay Summers]

Greetings mastering dudes! Just out of curiosity, on average how long do you spend on each track? I had a mastering guy tell me that he averages 5 or more hours per song. That seems long to me but I'm not a mastering guy. Every mastering session I've ever attended has spent a couple of hours per song, max. I can see it being more in special circumstance, but on average, 5 hours seems like a lot. How much time do you typically spend per song?

PS Sorry if this has been discussed before. I did a search but didn't find anything specific.

Thanks all!

[pmx]

5 hours per song seems a bit too long for mastering, and too short for mixing. 5 hours per album sounds more reasonable.

i tend to do 2 songs per hour, with the first one taking a bit longer sometimes.

[TotalSonic]

5 hours per song is an inordinately long time!  There's been plenty of times that I've completed entire albums in that time.  I'd say it usually takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour per track for me - generally average around 30 minutes.  If things are really out of whack or if it's hard to suss out where the client wants it then maybe an hour and a half - but these cases are pretty rare.  And sometimes when you're on a roll you can nail it in say something like 15 minutes as well.  Generally the first couple tracks in an album take longer but once you have a good sense of where things need to go and how to get them there the remaining tracks go quicker.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Jerry Tubb]

Jay Summers wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 09:59

How much time do you typically spend per song?

On average, 30 minutes per track, more/less if needed.

JT

[lowland]

Hi Jay,

In very broad terms as it depends on the material, I suppose I spend 30 minutes to an hour listening to and processing the first track in a project, with perhaps 15-30 minutes per song thereafter - some go quicker than that, some slower. Once I've got the feel of the thing as a whole I may come back and tweak the first song or two in light of my understanding.

To me 5 hours per song is complete overkill: that's maybe a week for a typical album! No commercial mastering establishment I know of could afford to take that long, they'd speedily go out of business; more importantly, I don't think it's necessary if you have reasonable grasp of what you're doing. I do remember a chap called Bill Roberts claiming time taken of that order some years ago, but I don't believe he was in what I would think of as the mainstream of mastering work.

[urm eric]

My typical day includes at most only 6 critical hours in front of the speakers - that covers a 10-12 track CD.

I can't imagine what you'd be doing to have to spend 5 hours on a single track. Sounds like music micromanagement (i.e. fussy, intrusive, mastering) at its very worst.

Cheers,

Eric

[bblackwood]

I spend whatever time it takes, but that typically averages around 20-30 minutes/track.

[Allen Corneau]

If it's an attended session then I usually spend 30-45 minutes on the first song and towards the end of an album I'm up to 15-30 minutes per song.  Client involvement (needing to hear before/after on all the songs, etc.) will stretch things out a bit.

Yesterday's session was 15 songs (well, actually 2 songs were basically the same) and we loaded, processed, spaced and cut ref CD's in 6.5 hours.

[Viitalahde]

5 hours per track is a lot. For me, it's 20-30 minutes per track, first track takes usually a little longer than that.

Typical album is done within 4-6 hours, depending on a lot of things.

[jdg]

maybe he meant 5 hours per album?

how many times can you listen to the same track in 5 hours?

4min song, 75 times on loop.

[dcollins]

lowland wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 08:40

I do remember a chap called Bill Roberts claiming time taken of that order some years ago, but I don't believe he was in what I would think of as the mainstream of mastering work.

Ahh, Memories......

I think a half hour sounds about right here.  Sometimes a bit less, rarely a bit more.


DC

[dave-G]

dcollins wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 12:47

lowland wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 08:40 I do remember a chap called Bill Roberts claiming time taken of that order some years ago, but I don't believe he was in what I would think of as the mainstream of mastering work. Ahh, Memories......

Boost a dB, add a ground rod. .. these things take time.

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Approximately 30 minutes per song with the first one taking a bit longer.

I had a client who went to another local mastering engineer who took hours to do the mastering including 20 to 30 minutes doing "custom fades". He was cheaper than we are but the client still spent a bundle for all the "custom" work.

I have also had clients tell me that they spent over an hour per song with some engineers at attended sessions. I have other clients who have told me that the engineer just did the mastering, never asked for guidance or feed back. Spent exactly the same amount of time on each song and told the client that "I have done the best I could so don't bring this back if you are not satisfied as I will not redo any of it.

Different strokes for different folks...

[lowland]

dave-G wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 17:59

dcollins wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 12:47 lowland wrote on Fri, 19 November 2010 08:40 I do remember a chap called Bill Roberts claiming time taken of that order some years ago, but I don't believe he was in what I would think of as the mainstream of mastering work. Ahh, Memories...... Boost a dB, add a ground rod. .. these things take time.

Had to do a little search to remind myself of some of the shenanigans -

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/5726/0/0/1 436/

- brought it all flooding (ha!) back. Brad, your posts in that thread prove conclusively that Americans do in fact have a grasp of irony.

[Waltz Mastering]

About the same as everyone else here... 20 min average per song...sometimes slower - sometimes faster.