Your post doesn't offend me, it's just kind of silly.

So, all ITB tools are toys and, more often than not, an artist that hires an ME -- presumably you? -- sees his career improve dramatically?

Is that all it takes? Whew! Secret level = unlocked!

This thread is still a pissing match? Not all products are for everybody. Not all great music is recorded under the best circumstances or in the most expensive studios. Some are. The listener - and in some cases the musician/producer/engineer/etc - doesn't give a rat's behind about the journey, only the results. Everybody has a different way of doing things and nobody should be made to feel guilty about the tools they choose to use (or not to use). Though if you are being a total butt-end about it, someone's probably going to call you out.

It's kind of a perverse version of the emperor has no clothes...

Some complain and moan about how things are made and lose any perspective of how the listener -- the final vote -- interacts with the final product.

Listeners don't know about how the sausage is made and couldn't give a single poop about my gear, an ME's signal chain, whether plugins were used, etc.

Sounds good? Is good.

Whether you're the only one who hears it, millions do, or anywhere between, it is what the people you do it for think about the end result that matters.

We offer options for many different types of musicians/engineers/producers/etc and hope that people make music that pleases them and their intended audience using the products that suit them to do so.

I didn't start this thread or post Lurssen Mastering Console in this sub forum for a reason. This thread proves I made the right choice.

Ha! Peter, even you're not that much a glutton for punishment!

Well, as I said, Silly or not, couldn't care less
Oh! Not presumably me, I don't need to market myself in forums, presumably a good decent mastering professional with the right toys can do wonders on upcoming artists, much more than these same artists using diy software tools...been there so many times... and yeah....I have seen albums bomb and albums glow modt often than not using a good ME.
Maybe I live in a whole different market than you (I am hispanic) or maybe I still live in a bubble! In any case, back to work.

Good luck!

Ha! Fair enough...

As far as as mastering engineer being a feature of more successful careers, I suppose that is true by default... If a band/artist is releasing tunes that are being played on radio released on CDs, etc it has to be assumed that the act is signed and that alone makes them really successful compared to most acts that never release an actual product!

You know Peter, I started this thread and didn't attack you or your product. In fact I think it is a Big Bang for the buck product. It is the future of this industry. I say that from a perspective of 40 years in the industry.

In the future there really will be little money to be made being part of the industry (unless you control the top 1%, which is what already happened but no one can accept it yet) so a product like this will have value. It already does.

Seeing the attitude portrayed in this thread is really disappointing. From both "sides". Which there shouldn't be sides but when products like this are presented as "the same as..." people will and do have the right to question what is being touted. So defending yourself doesn't come off well. I'm sure you feel personally attacked but this should help you with marketing in the future. Remember "perfect sound forever" came back to bite Sony and Phillips.

So yes, I do think every pro mastering engineer should side with a software manufacturer as it really is a way to make real money in the future.

No one seems to have problems using CLA compressors or Eddie Kramer EQ's and the like. We just need the Ludwig, Calbi, Jensen presets for mastering and we'll all be set.

Best of luck with the product Peter. It truly is a Big Bang for the buck and it will help people in the long run. They'll understand mastering better and signal flow (sort of).

Anyway, the future is now. It arrived today, it will be different tomorrow.

Enjoy the day everyone, you only get one... so don't miss out on it.

Nicely said and very true...

I just wish it wasn't..but I guess it is the way the buggy whip manufactures felt in the early 1900s when the new fad, the automobile, came out.

The effects from LANDR and other mastering software that "does it all" and makes the average Joe musician into "Mr. Mastering Engineer" is basically killing the way a lot of us have made money in the past but I guess to some that doesn't count as much as their own "bottom line"

IMHO mastering engineers on this forum who say they are super busy and are turning work away and are not in the top 10% are telling a rather large fib. No one I know in mastering is super busy except maybe people who are doing "on line mastering" for super cheap rates. The whole mastering industry is in the crapper and about ready for the big flush.

I keep saying this over and over and I have for the past five years and what I predicted back then is coming to pass. No one listens...

I think we are all so worried about our own businesses that we fail to look around and see what is really happening to the audio profession as a whole.

Maybe people will wake up and smell the roses but I kinda of doubt it.

Gentleman,

Perhaps I am doomed to fail or maybe my efforts will be insignificant in the end. But I had to try.

The DMS project will attempt to provide the general public the correct information about mastering.

This 'craft' you know so well and it's kinda like second nature to all of you is a mystery to the ignorant artist, new comer (newb) and lay people of the world.

They have no clue as to how specialized and awesome is the stuff you guys do day in and day out.

The DMS will show the public what real mastering engineers, their studios and their equipment are all about. They will see that there is an order of things and several levels of work excellence, experience and ethics (this reminds me that I should add a control filter for 'years of experience' ).

Maybe I am wrong but by organizing this community and giving the artists and producers multiple choices, you might all benefit from each other. Your union will be your strength.

Call me a fool optimist but I think there is room for all these mastering options (human, robots and software). An by educating the public of the differences, and letting them compare and understand the choices in pricing levels, i think the need for real mastering engineers (of all levels) will never cease to exist.

Lastly, I want to assure the mods that I am not here to spam but to help members of this forum (if they let me).

May you all have a great weekend.

Boris.

erased because will be misinterpreted.

So you tell these guys thy their opinions aren't valid because they are informed by their perspective? That's exactly what you just did... Except that you had the decidedly awfulness to ridicule their gear and business acumen to boot.

Awful...

Keep thinking that it's gear that makes the man... Ridiculous.

You are right that luck has a lot to so with it. You're apparently lucky to be fully booked, huh? Good for you. But don't mistake for luck for skill.

Let's keep it classy...

teebaum


Originally Posted by teebaum View Post
sorry larry & thomas, but i think you interpret a lot of your personal situation into the music/mastering-business.

since i'm working in this metier (>25 years) "the business going down" and the reason is IMHO obviously: 99% didn't reach their goal. music-business was always feeded by dreams and illusions, it's natuaral that the most get disappointed.
for them it's easier to search the problems otherwhere - but it will not change anything.
look to your business and try to realize, what the full booked colleagues (and many of us are full booked) make different.
you are maybe both great mastering engineers with a lot experience and your are both gentle persons (at least in this forum), but your services and your workstations looks - sorry to say it so direct - outdated.
it's ok to have old equipment and a modest page (as example bernie grundman), as long as you have a lot of jobs, but the clients in 2016 have other needs and when your business going down you maybe just haven't considered this enough.


From an erased post.

I am really glad you are fully booked. You are also in Europe which is very different from the USA. Within 100 miles of my studio there are 500 recording studios, all of them offer "mastering" as part of their services. I really doubt that the same thing is happening in Switzerland.

Keep up the good work and keep making lots of money.

(Just to be clear the concept of fully booked means that you are busy all week long and have a waiting list of clients waiting for your services???)

As to my workstation. Sure I would love to have the latest and the best analog gear but I am not making enough money to support that ideal and most of my clientele care more about how good their stuff sounds instead of what equipment I use.

Again I wish you continued good luck and I hope you continue to be prosperous. You have a GREAT setup and a nice web page (I wish it was in English also but...)

sorry, thomas, the reason i erased the post was that i think i should not give you my (i think now unwanted) suggestions in public - can looks very arrogant and caught you on the wrong foot.

i was some years a go at a similar point with my setup and i realized, that i have to invest more into my business to generate also more output.
it's not only about the results of my work, it's also about what the possible clients expect to get.

today everyone have some plugins and make "mastering", so you have to define your business and reach a higher level of clients to survive.

if you wanna develop your business, you have do be sometimes very merciless with yourself - with your setup it would be also difficult for me to get enough jobs in europe (and i didn't mean primary the possible results, i just talk about the impact to people who see your page).

i worked also many years with a humble setting compared to the clients i had and realized after a investement, that i get now much more jobs from the established artists and the major companies.

Thank you bgood.

I always seem to get attacked here on GS when I just try to offer up any opinion. It is why I stopped posting for years. Many of my other colleagues like Bob Katz, Stephen Marcussen, Paul Orofino, Geoff Daking, Anthony DeMaria and the like stopped posting years ago for the same reason.

Old professionals with years of knowledge just trying to share it and being personally attacked or put down is what drives Gearslutz down. A shame because valuable knowledge is being lost. Gearslutz can be such a great site for knowledge... but you have to sift through all this pedantic rhetoric to find it now.

It is thoughtful people such as yourself bgood that gives me hope and allows me to keep posting. Thank you.

Here I had just recommended teebaum in another thread for mastering only to have him personally attack me in this thread. Super unprofessional (and again part of what lowers the discourse here).

One just need watch any commercial or trailer for any Hollywood movie and they hear my work, or go to actual films and hear my work in them. Watch any Galaxy 6 phone, World of Warcraft, Wonderful World of Disney commercial, etc... and you are listen to my work. 8 clients nominated for Grammys over the last 10 years, etc...

Yet my equipment isn't up to par? My website is not relevant?

I have done more beta testing for more manufactures of pro audio gear than anyone else I know. Many of you on this site use this gear everyday. I continue to do beta testing, yet I am put down for being ancient... I love that sh*t man.

As for Thomas he COMPLETELY understands what secondary markets are like, in an oversaturated industry, made up of mostly non professional audio engineers who claim they are experts but who really just lower the craft in general while confusing the end user of such services... But Thomas doesn't need me standing up for him. His body of work speaks for itself.

Anyway best of luck to Peter and Gavin with their product.

Thanks again bgood, you give me hope for the future.

This thread should be closed now as it was my pointless sense of humor that led to all this mess in the first place. I never meant for anyone to be attacked or to have to defend themselves. My "jump on board" statement was my attempt to bring humor to an otherwise serious question of the future of mastering. Oops, my bad.

Have a great day everyone, you only get one, enjoy!

Larry DeVivo
Silvertonemastering.com

sorry, larry, it was NEVER my intension to "attack" you.

if your business going well, there's no reason to think about changes.
but i read so many post from you how bad the business get in the last years and i know many engineers, with less experience and less nominations than you, who are very good booked, i just try to get you a perception from distance - not to offend you, but i had many times in my progress moment where people (also students or less experienced persons) gave me suggestions whe first annoy me, but send me in a long term in the right directions.

mea culpa - i respect you and your work, i just try to gave you a idea, what you can do to bring your business up. it was presumptuous

Happens to every digital industry. Just the latest victim :(

This discussion is surprising in many ways, especially since it appears to be such a hugely popular one. The IK software is, firstly, not the "future of mastering", neither is it a competing influence and I fail to understand the perception that it may be. Especially, since mastering is not processing.

The audio industry has gone through massive shifts since I first stood in front of my mentor still very much wet behind the ears, and even more so since I first picked up an instrument and started my musical progression learning my first pentatonic scale:

Analogue Tape > Digital Tape > Digital Audio Workstation
Vinyl > Cassette > CD > DVD-A > SACD > .DSF downloads > Blu-Ray > Streaming Media > BW64 locker
Mono > Stereo > Binaural > Ambisonics > Channel-based 5.1 > Channel-based 7.1 > Scene-based 9.1 > Object-based 9.1 or 11.1 > Dolby Atmos 9.1.2 > scene-based NHK22.2 > Dolby Atmos 24.1.10 immersive audio

In all of the above, the threat regarded here as imminent and decisive (specifically this IK software or anything similar) is in fact four or more technological shifts back. The puck is moving much more rapidly than the music industry and the audio software industry is able to cope with. In many ways the music industry is still in the unenviable position of being left behind the other media industries.

Many are much too concerned with where the music industry puck has been, instead of moving as rapidly as possible to where the puck will be - and then outperforming the others that may have reached that point prior.

The progression hasn't changed one iota, just the individual's willingness to keep progressing, learning and working much harder and faster than the next engineer.

I am not sure where you got the money to upgrade your facilities but here in the US of A if you need money you have three basic choices. Either take out a bank loan, take out a second mortgage on your house or have some rich relatives or friends that can stake you.

If someone wants a loan from a bank for a mastering studio - forget it. The bank will basically laugh at you if you want the loan to open up a "recording or mastering studio" as the failure rate is at an all time high. They need some assurance you are "going to make money" before giving you the loan. You could probably get a loan for almost any other type of business before the bank would loan money for a "music related studio".

You can take a second mortgage on your house but you still have to pay off the mortgage even if your business isn't making money after spending all the loan money fixing up your place.

And friends and relatives are a great source of personal loans but not for thousands of dollars.

Today most mastering comes into us from the WWW. I believe in being honest so I show clients what I have and use. I do not steal pictures from other mastering studios nor do I list equipment I do not own or use and I don't say I use a Manley compressor if what I am using is a Manley plugin.

I see sites all the time that list hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment but they never show a picture of their "mastering studio" because it is probably in their basement or bedroom and they are using cracked plugins on a cracked DAW.

I also see sites where they list hundreds of top tier clients but if you look up the client's CDs on the WWW you don't see any mention of their studio or the engineer.

My mentor has a world class audio and video studio here in Ohio. His hourly charges run from $80.00 per hour to over $400 per hour and he is making money and he has the gear and the knowledge to attract only the best top tier clients but he made most of his money and connections before the whole industry fell apart. There is another studio in Cleveland that just went belly up. The studio was always booked and looked like it was going to be a success but then came the sell off of equipment and the closing of the studio. The word on the street is everything was not as it looked and the studio was not doing well for the past two years.

I hear what you are saying about the perception of the studio and the gear. This is true both on the WWW and it person but I, and many others, are stuck in the "how to I afford better equipment and facilities when most of our current clientele are looking for the cheapest rates they can find and think that anything over $10.00 per song is "gouging".

I still maintain that Europe is a different place then here in the US of A when it comes to mastering and there are no where near as many bedroom or basement studios as we have here. If you look up mastering in Zurich I see there are approximately 12 studios offering some type of mastering but if you look at someplace like New York or LA you have pages and pages of studios on the WWW all offering mastering. It is a totally different scale.

I wish you only the best and I hope you continue to be fully booked.

Thank you teebaum.

I've reinvented myself many times in this industry, after a while you just get played on following trends that don't last. I've been though the "diversify or die" phase all the way to the "specialize and survive" phase. These were probably before your time... 70's 80's and early 90's. Yes actual articles were written about these trends and even the AES joined in. None of these trends ever last but people jumped on board none the less (and wasted many years).

So I thank you for your advise but really it isn't anything I haven't either heard or lived through already.

Yes, I make the same or slightly better money than I made 10 or 20 years ago but the economy of scale is out of control. When I can't pay my bills bringing in 4 to 8k a month something is seriously wrong. So that is the perspective I come from.

Friends of mine are now retiring with 6 figure a year pensions but I'm still competing with 15 year olds working out of their parents bedrooms who call themselves mastering engineers. With no creds what so ever! I'm sure you can see how things can get a bit frustrating. Trust me when I say, you will see it as you age.

So no, I don't believe this is a healthy industry despite some doing well in it. It may be healthy for those people but not the majority of people in the industry. Come on, even Fletcher left the business! That in itself is a huge statement if you ever knew the man.

Anyway, my insights are pretty pointless to a younger generation. I find most to discount the past and could care about learning anything from it. Their parents have built them up so much that they think pretty highly of themselves to start. I stopped taking interns as I kept being insulted by trying to teach them basic signal path interigty. I wish my parents boosted my self esteem that much, instead they just gave me a work ethic (personally, something I find lacking in today's society). Sad, but I blame the parents not the kids.

Anyway Gearslutz moderators please close this thread. It was stupid and pointless to start. Thank you.

Enjoy life everyone, it is very, very, very short... and you "probably" only get one!

Larry DeVivo
silvertonemastering.com