[brandondrury]

My experience with mastering was very similar. So much of the work we do to make a mix kick ass is tossed out the window in the interest of letting the listners keep their volume knobs set to a lower setting.

My mixes tend to be boxy, boomy, and muddy. I find that when I play back major label recordings on my monitors they sound super hi-fi, thin, super mid scooped, and super bright. So, my mixes are usually translate with the inverse of what I hear in the major label cds.

I find it amazing that your mixes translate mega bright on NS-10s. The NS-10s I heard were extremely bright and bitey. When mixing, it hurt everyone in the room to be in there. I remember holding a magazine in front of my face to black out some of the high end. It was real pain and it was something I would expect to be exposed to in a POW camp. Maybe it's just differences in rooms or whatever.

Back to the mastering. The only problem with us non-$5k per song mixing guys is that our issues aren't relative. This was the thing that blew me away about Wagener. He could setup a mix (without really thinking about it much) that was masterable. My mixes are not that masterable because sucking out all the mud in the bass guitar, for example will make the drums sound thin or make the vocals harsh.

Maybe it goes back to my monitors / room issues again, but yesterday I intentionally pretend mastered the mix I was working on to be painfully brittle on my monitors. On my home theater rig, it still sounds boring. Back to the drawing board!


Brandon