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[genericperson]

does every mastering house offer clients the opportunity to sit-in on the mastering session?

i would find it a bit annoying, personally.  but i'm not even pro yet, so i have no clout at all!

George Thorogood drinks alone, and I'd prefer to work alone  

[bigaudioblowhard]

I'm afraid we do, but we're still trying new ways to discourage it. I've stopped shaving and tried to get into some embarassing arguments with my ex-wife on the phone while people are in. Even charging more for attended sessions doesnt help. But it does make one work faster.

[MASSIVE Mastering]

I'm probably 80% unattended and I'd swap it in a heartbeat.  

Not that I mind working alone - I even take advantage of it to dial it in, and maybe come back to it the next day if need be.  Being able to walk away when you're not "primed" can be great, but it can also come back to bite you - You've got to get the stuff out.  You can't dwell on it and second-guess everything.  The time-chunks are huge waiting for returned calls and e-mail (which is EXACTLY what I'm doing right at this very moment while a project is sitting here and I'm losing time).  

But when they're there - It's true - You get finished in half the time.  No guessing what they're looking for (they're right behind you!), no phone calls or e-mails to figure out if "that noise" is there on purpose or if it was a f-up.  Instant feedback.  

S'wonderful, S'marvelous.  

[Jerry Tubb]

genericperson wrote on Tue, 05 July 2005 17:34

does every mastering house offer clients the opportunity to sit-in on the mastering session? i would find it a bit annoying, personally.  but i'm not even pro yet, so i have no clout at all! George Thorogood drinks alone, and I'd prefer to work alone

50/50 for us attended/unattended, personally I like having clients here to get instant feedback about sequence, spacing, CD text, watching them smile, etc.

I got to play pool with George Thorogood once back in 1979 back at the original Stubb's BBQ in Lubbock... alot of the blues greats use to stop by for great Q !

[Norwood]

Oh Stubb's...!
I grew up on that stuff.  Of course the bbq in austin's not to bad either.  Everytime I'm there Rudy's is on my list.

...back to the mastering discussion.

[jazzius]

97% attended......i believe you (i) get better results with attended sessions.....speshly if you have bad-boy monitoring......

[JGreenslade]

Unless you know the ME very well, unattended cuts are potentially suicidal.

If the ME has "ESP" or is Psychic, maybe unattended cuts are the way to go...

I guess you can write down thorough instructions, but unless you refrain entirely from "subjective" descriptions there's always going to be scope for misunderstanding - i.e. one man's idea of "dynamically intact" maybe another's idea of "pancaked" etc etc.

There are MEs I would trust 100% for unattended cuts, but that's only after using them a handful of times for attended cuts - it's a rapport / trust thing.


Justin

[Bob Olhsson]

I think attended ones tend to come out better although I do 90% unattended.

[carlsaff]

What Bob said.

To that I would add that my "redo" occurence rate is about the same with both types of sessions. In other words, I don't find that the percentage of attended sessions resulting in additional work once the band has evaluated the master to be any higher than that for unattended sessions (I think this is the expectation).

To the original poster: I wouldn't advise setting up your studio in such a way that attended sessions are difficult or impossible. You'll find that certain clients will demand that they attend, and you won't enjoy losing the job when you tell them they can't.

[Bob Boyd]

Most people just want me to post files for review on my ftp.  Even my in-town clients come to think of it.

Most of my sessions are unattended now but there is a certain satisfaction that can happen when they come to a session.  It also usually helps the client understand what was and was not possible and why.

[Sonovo]

I'd say about 70% attended.

I prefer it actually, it avoids a multitude of hassle, the client can help clear up any misunderstandings right there, and they get what they want the first time instead of (possibly) having to come back. Plus it gives them a big smile when they hear their mixes up on the big monitors as we dial things in. A great marketing device .

For clients I've done a lot of work with previously, in general we know each other well enough that I know what they want when the call comes in and they explain what they're aiming for in the release (i.e. I "understand their language", since everyone explains things differently - you'd be amazed how many bands show up and say they want a really "dynamic" master, when in fact they want a loud-as-h*ll master with absolutely NO dynamics ).

For new clients, I encourage them to attend if possible, and most do.

Cheers,
Thor

[jfrigo]

It used to be mostly attended when I started, but over time, attendance has slowly been decreasing. Recently the attendance has dropped way off to the 50/50 mark mainly because I've moved out of the big city into a very pleasant rural setting. I've been pleased how many people are still sending work, now unattended, even though I've moved, and quite pleasantly surprised how many people are driving long distances to be present. They're coming from several states all around, sometimes a full day's drive, and getting a hotel or staying with regional friends. Luckily when the new room is finished, there will be attached accommadations for out of town clients, so that will be even better for everyone. This willingness to travel shows an appreciation for what I do and a commitment to their project that really makes me want to go the extra mile for them.

[Allen Corneau]

We're about 90% attended.

I like having them there for instant feedback, plus it's easier to create a good relationship with new clients.

The clients usually like the fact that they feel involved in their project.

I think the best way to go for me is where they come in and we get things "roughed in". Then they go away for a while (lunch, errands, etc.) and come back in when I've got it where I think it should be. After a listen-through and approval, we crank it out and cut a ref. (If you haven't figured it out, I'm a "process on loop-through" guy!)

Works for me!

[Ed Littman]

For the longest time I to small of a room to really have clients feel comfortable, so I would detour them from sitting in. The times they did sit in we did get to what they wanted faster.

Now with my new room I want all my clients to sit in. it sounds great looks great & is very comfortable to work & hang in! pix on the way.
Ed

[Thomas W. Bethel]

I prefer to have clients in attendance.

This is for three reasons.

1. Immediate feedback from the client.

2. Problems can be worked out in real time.

3. The client and their checkbook are there when the session is done, so you don't have to wait for mastered CD to reach the client and then have to wait to get paid.

Most of our sessions are attended. We do not charge extra for this service. We have found over the years that the benefits of attended sessions far out weight the problems with having a client at the session(s).

Recently I had a client that did not have time to attend the mastering session. He sent his bass player to sit in. The bass player likes BASS so the resulting master was had more bass than the client wanted so we wound up doing the mastering two times.

I think it is important to have the decision maker/ money person at the session(s) so there are no problems or questions afterwords. I believe very strongly in the *WYHIWYG principal when it comes to mastering.

We also did a mastering for a group that had "internal personal and artistic problems" and they all attended the session(s). All they did was fight the whole time they were here mastering. The group broke up shortly after their album was mastered. Each of the members of the group came back after the group mastering session to have their OWN mastering done so I got to do five mastering sessions for one project.


FWIW and MTCW

*What you hear is what you get

[Ronny]

Bob Olhsson wrote on Wed, 06 July 2005 10:14

I think attended ones tend to come out better although I do 90% unattended.

I'm about 85% non attended. Most of my clients I haven't met in person. I feel that I do better work when I'm by myself. It's hard for me to get on a roll when I have a client that wants me to explain everything that I'm doing, it slows progress down and takes concentration away. Especially when I'm tailing a fade and listening to very minute levels and they are jabbering away. I find that when I do the project, than they review it, I have to make less changes than if they attend.

Tom, I don't let the master leave my hands until I'm paid in full, that's listed in my contract, so I don't have the problem of not getting paid. I also require half payment on the estimate, before I start.

[Technotechno]

Theres an in house mastering engineer in holland I used a couple of times.  I attended twice and was told he only had fifteen minutes to spare despite booking one hour. Happened both times. Obviously he was uncomfortable with attented sessions. which I can understand/

Maybe this is something to do with the fact he used an Alesis Quadraverbs digital ins and outs as his convertors. He played the tracks from CD, patched in to the qudraverb and cut the plate there and then. I dont know if this is standard DA convertors in ME houses, but I didnt like it. Still, th ecuts did come out fine.

Another couple of times in London, it was again obvious the ME's didnt like me attending so its quite good to hear that you guys prefer attented sessions.




Ps
I edited this post after realising it was rather uncool to name the mastering house

[lucey]

mostly unattended ... with files by FTP back and forth

yet having clients here is usually good for them and disrupts nothing for me


either way works, as long as it's the right way for that project.

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Ronny wrote on Sat, 09 July 2005 07:08

Bob Olhsson wrote on Wed, 06 July 2005 10:14 I think attended ones tend to come out better although I do 90% unattended. I'm about 85% non attended. Most of my clients I haven't met in person. I feel that I do better work when I'm by myself. It's hard for me to get on a roll when I have a client that wants me to explain everything that I'm doing, it slows progress down and takes concentration away. Especially when I'm tailing a fade and listening to very minute levels and they are jabbering away. I find that when I do the project, than they review it, I have to make less changes than if they attend. Tom, I don't let the master leave my hands until I'm paid in full, that's listed in my contract, so I don't have the problem of not getting paid. I also require half payment on the estimate, before I start.

Different strokes for different mastering situations.

I personally do not have a problem with clients in attendance at a mastering session UNLESS they are asking me a lot of questions or want to write everything down that I do (just for the record-sure right - and so they can do their own mastering the next time around <grin>)

I had a problems recently with a client that had sent me some work to do and he and I were obviously listening to different monitoring setups since he was hearing the polar opposites of what I was hearing. At one point I asked him to check the phase on both speaker since the comments he was sending me would lead me to believe he was listening on out of phase speakers. I kept doing what he asked and he kept saying I was going the wrong way. I put in a lot of time and energy into the project, just as I do for every project, but he and I were NOT hearing the same signal and the long distance communication and lack of a unified listening setup was hindering the whole project. He finally admitted he was listening to the material on his computer speakers which "simulated" surround sound and in his car in rush hour traffic. Since this was "world music" and featured lots of acoustical instruments and since he did not want me to "over compress it" I did what he told me to do. I have worked with this particular musician before and was very pleased with the professional relationship we had during that previous mastering experience. After this go round I would not consider doing any of his work again UNLESS he and I were in the same room.

How you guys do it by "remote control" is a mystery to me and I stand in awe of your prowess in mastering with out a client present.

[Nathan Eldred]

All unattended here.  I like being able to work at leasure, and take breaks when I want to and come back to it with fresh ears and brain....maybe in an hour, maybe in 6 hours after taking a hop over to Disney World for the evening.  They can demand tweaks the day after after they play it for every family member, friend, and internet forum member.  

[Ronny]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Sat, 09 July 2005 14:48

Ronny wrote on Sat, 09 July 2005 07:08 Bob Olhsson wrote on Wed, 06 July 2005 10:14 I think attended ones tend to come out better although I do 90% unattended. I'm about 85% non attended. Most of my clients I haven't met in person. I feel that I do better work when I'm by myself. It's hard for me to get on a roll when I have a client that wants me to explain everything that I'm doing, it slows progress down and takes concentration away. Especially when I'm tailing a fade and listening to very minute levels and they are jabbering away. I find that when I do the project, than they review it, I have to make less changes than if they attend. Tom, I don't let the master leave my hands until I'm paid in full, that's listed in my contract, so I don't have the problem of not getting paid. I also require half payment on the estimate, before I start. Different strokes for different mastering situations. I personally do not have a problem with clients in attendance at a mastering session UNLESS they are asking me a lot of questions or want to write everything down that I do (just for the record-sure right - and so they can do their own mastering the next time around <grin>) I had a problems recently with a client that had sent me some work to do and he and I were obviously listening to different monitoring setups since he was hearing the polar opposites of what I was hearing. At one point I asked him to check the phase on both speaker since the comments he was sending me would lead me to believe he was listening on out of phase speakers. I kept doing what he asked and he kept saying I was going the wrong way. I put in a lot of time and energy into the project, just as I do for every project, but he and I were NOT hearing the same signal and the long distance communication and lack of a unified listening setup was hindering the whole project. He finally admitted he was listening to the material on his computer speakers which "simulated" surround sound and in his car in rush hour traffic. Since this was "world music" and featured lots of acoustical instruments and since he did not want me to "over compress it" I did what he told me to do. I have worked with this particular musician before and was very pleased with the professional relationship we had during that previous mastering experience. After this go round I would not consider doing any of his work again UNLESS he and I were in the same room. How you guys do it by "remote control" is a mystery to me and I stand in awe of your prowess in mastering with out a client present.

FTP works wonders for receiving material, sending the refs and the final after any client requested retweaks, Tom. You can down or upload at the same time you read this newsgroup. I have return clients in Oz, Scandinavia, Europe, Japan, London and other cities in the UK, a couple in South America, no way that all can attend. The farthest that attends is a fellow in Greenville SC, he drives 12 hours round trip and stays a couple of days. Local jobs come mostly from self producing bands and I also do remote recording for the local high school bands and a couple of orchestras. That makes up the other 15%. Brunswick and surrounding islands only have 70,000 peeps and too small to support a large music scene, most of my work comes from people on my recording newsgroups and from people that have heard their cd's. Last count I had just under 5,000 members, everything from home recordists to a few pro facilities. If I remember correctly, you come from a small town yourself, how you get enough local mastering work, not being in a large city is what mystifies me.  

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Ronny Morris said "If I remember correctly, you come from a small town yourself, how you get enough local mastering work, not being in a large city is what mystifies me."

We have had to diversify a lot. We do radio shows, on location recording, restoration, reclamation of water or fire damaged tapes and records, forensics, small run CD and cassette duplication,lay-backs for video, video restoration and copying to DVD from obsolete video recording formats plus our normal mastering. We now have two full time studios and I have added two part time interns.

I think diversity is the key to staying with the game in today's market where every high school or college student has a computer in his bedroom and is using it to record, mix and master his or her own recordings and those of their friends.

[genericperson]

what do you do for forensics?

i watch Court TV crime mystery shows once in a while, and i find that stuff fun to watch.

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Mostly cleaning up tracks that were recorded in bad situations such as having the recorder buried in the bottom of a women's purse under a lot of stuff and sitting on her compact where the noise from the cassette decks motor transferred though the compact to the microphone in the recorder and the motor noise was louder than the voices. Or where someone thinks parts were edited out of a conversation on their copy and we have to compare the original with the copy on a word for word basis. Or cleaning up a bad trans Atlantic telephone call with lots of flanging and phasing going on enough that you could hear a husband threatening to kill his wife when he got back from England. (That one had a very happy ending as the FBI and police met him at the airport.) Most of the stuff is not to entertaining to listen to and most of the time when we have to process this I have a sheriff or Marshall sitting here so the "chain of evidence" is not broken. Some of the stuff is pretty gory like the 7 hours of self testimony from a serial killer we had to copy to CDs and make copies of for the judge, jury and attorneys.

Most of the stuff is just boring but it helps pay the bills.

By the way most of the stuff you see on TV in shows like CSI is made for television and the software does not presently exist.  The TV shows would make you think that you can take out all the background info and only leave the voices. We are not there yet. Maybe in a couple of years.We don't have all the forensic "goodies" but do well with what we have.

[Ronny]

genericperson wrote on Sun, 17 July 2005 12:14

what do you do for forensics? i watch Court TV crime mystery shows once in a while, and i find that stuff fun to watch.

I do some forensics myself, Tom, but there just isn't enough work and it's a small sideline for me. Most of what I do genericperson is restore illegible sections of phone recorders and answering machine converstions, cassette,  mini cassette and chip recorders. Some of the digi recorders use telephony and only 8k sampling with 4 and 6 bit word and it's a task restoring low res material compared to 16/44 and above. Than I record the material to cd's with 2 second pauses at the beginning of the specific sections that they want to use, so they can skip to those parts when they play them in court. These are mostly civil cases, the big time murder and corporate stuff goes to one guy up north. New Jersey, IIRC.    

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Forensics probably makes up less than 5% of our total work. I would like to do more local mastering but as you pointed out we are in a small town and there are lots of $20.00 per hour mastering place around the Northern Ohio area. Most of the people who run them don't really know what they are doing but they are CHEAP! and that is what a lot of people today are looking for.

[dcollins]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Sun, 17 July 2005 14:57

Forensics probably makes up less than 5% of our total work.

Do you have to have some kind of certification to do forensics, or can anyone just hang out a shingle?

Quote:

Acoustik Musik, Ltd. Room With a Veiw Productions

eye b4 eee 'cept afta vee?

dee cee

[masterhse]

dcollins wrote on Sun, 17 July 2005 20:31

Quote: Acoustik Musik, Ltd. Room With a Veiw Productions eye b4 eee 'cept afta vee? dee cee

Acoustic

Music

But now I'm just being pedantik.  

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Sun, 17 July 2005 17:57

Forensics probably makes up less than 5% of our total work. I would like to do more local mastering but as you pointed out we are in a small town and there are lots of $20.00 per hour mastering place around the Northern Ohio area. Most of the people who run them don't really know what they are doing but they are CHEAP! and that is what a lot of people today are looking for.

Thanks for pointing that out. I guess that is why you are as good as you are - you catch the things that no one else does. I have changed my profile. It was a slip of the finger when typing it in. Thanks again!

[Thomas W. Bethel]

masterhse wrote on Sun, 17 July 2005 20:53

dcollins wrote on Sun, 17 July 2005 20:31 Quote: Acoustik Musik, Ltd. Room With a Veiw Productions eye b4 eee 'cept afta vee? dee cee Acoustic Music But now I'm just being pedantik.

Acoustik Musik, Ltd. was suppose to be a play on words. We wanted to limit our mastering to acoustic music (that never happened). I chose the European spelling to give it a more continental fare, if you will. The name works well,  the spelling is actually German and we do all kinds of music mastering but I liked the name and the spelling and our logo so much that we stuck with it. Hope this helps!

[masterhse]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Mon, 18 July 2005 06:02

Acoustik Musik, Ltd. was suppose to be a play on words. We wanted to limit our mastering to acoustic music (that never happened). I chose the European spelling to give it a more continental fare, if you will. ...

I was just teasing Tom. It's kool ...

[Jason Poff]

How often do you run into the problem of the client not being familiar with your listening space and demanding changes that you know aren't going to work? It would seem  the client probably wouldn't want these changes if he/she were referencing on a system they really knew.

Jason

[Tomas Danko]

Shouldn't that be Akustik, in german? Or rather something like Akustische Musik. Then again, my grammar is always out the window and gone all haywire whenever I write my lyrics in german.


...then again, I'm always rather drunk whenever I write german lyrics.

Cheers,

Der Danko

[dcollins]

Jason Poff wrote on Mon, 18 July 2005 10:26

How often do you run into the problem of the client not being familiar with your listening space and demanding changes that you know aren't going to work? It would seem  the client probably wouldn't want these changes if he/she were referencing on a system they really knew.

Naturally this does happen, but you might remind the client that you work in the room every freaking day, and might know more than they about the monitors.

Diplomatically, of course.

Yet there are also guys that can "get it" to the point of making constructive comments after 16 bars, so there you go...

DC

[Thomas W. Bethel]

Jason Poff wrote on Mon, 18 July 2005 13:26

How often do you run into the problem of the client not being familiar with your listening space and demanding changes that you know aren't going to work? It would seem  the client probably wouldn't want these changes if he/she were referencing on a system they really knew. Jason

That's why I always have the client take the material, after it is mastered and play it on systems they are familiar with before committing to a final "master".

Sometimes however one can find "familiar" monitoring setups that will not do justice to the mastering like the lady I did some work for and she kept insisting that it did not sound good on her car stereo. Well I went out to listen to her car stereo and found that all the tweeters were blown that it rattled like a tin can struck with a stick at 70 Hz and that she had both her bass and treble controls full on. When I pointed this out to her she said but the commercial stuff sounds great.....so I went in a got two "commercial CDs" and we proceeded to listen to it and then to what I had just mastered and low and behold they all sounded the same - BAD. She was so use to listening to the system that she was literally making up the missing parts on the CDs she played back but since mine was something "new" she did not have a frame of reference. She finally agreed that the commerical stuff and the stuff I had mastered sounded the same. Case solved.

[Trillium Sound]

Thomas W. Bethel wrote on Tue, 19 July 2005 05:13

Well I went out to listen to her car stereo and found that all the tweeters were blown that it rattled like a tin can struck with a stick at 70 Hz and that she had both her bass and treble controls full on.

[genericperson]

it's surprising someone paying for pro mastering had such a lame car stereo.

[turtletone]

I have a lame car stereo.

Stock am/fm cass Jeep stereo with a sound bar over my head.

bass and trebble all the way up.

Talk radio sounds awesome on it going 80 with the top down.

At least that's what I remember when I drove it last, 3 months ago.

Not much need for a car in manhattan.

[Bob Olhsson]

I have worse than lame, a factory installed Bose!

It turned out to be a useful enough reference point for excessive boomieness that I've never replaced it.

[turtletone]

Oooh, you have boomieness... I wish I hade anything resembling boom. I get more fart than boom. My car stereo sucks so bad that my grandmother asks me to turn it down even when i'm playing lawrence Welk.

[bblackwood]

genericperson wrote on Wed, 20 July 2005 19:51

it's surprising someone paying for pro mastering had such a lame car stereo.

You really think so?

Is there such thing as a car stereo system that isn't lame? I have a pretty nice rig in my car, but it doesn't hold a candle to a decent system in a room, imo...

[Ronny]

bblackwood wrote on Wed, 27 July 2005 09:35

genericperson wrote on Wed, 20 July 2005 19:51 it's surprising someone paying for pro mastering had such a lame car stereo. You really think so? Is there such thing as a car stereo system that isn't lame? I have a pretty nice rig in my car, but it doesn't hold a candle to a decent system in a room, imo...

No fan of Bose by any means and completely abhor their big wave ear trumpet techological break throughs, but I can think of one advantage, if the master passes the car test on Bose, it'll sound good on just about any system.