Recording - September 2021 - 57

Inside the
Studio
with Mark Hornsby
A Producer's Opinion
E
ver heard the
term 'radio-ready'? Contrary
to what you may have heard, mastering isn't
about pumping up the volume or making things
radio-ready-it's about bringing a project together
and formatting it for various destinations. Back in
the '90s, before the music business fell off the cliff,
mix masters were busting at the seems to be the
loudest thing on the radio-back when radio was
the format. Now, we've got streaming, CD, vinyl,
cassette (yep, they're back), Bluetooth, vending
machines, air pods, noise-canceling headphones,
Pono, Amazon, Tidal, HD tracks... Somebody has to
keep track of it all while the rest of us record music!
Enter the black art of mastering...
Where is the mix going? (literally)
In Geoff Emerick's book, Here There and Everywhere:
My Life Recording The Beatles, Geoff details
his journey working at Abbey Road in the '50s, and
later recording The Beatles. One of the big takeaways
from his story is how he
was trained to be a recording
Who
Is the
Mastering
Engineer?
The blame game
Mastering engineers get blamed for a lot of stuff. A few years ago,
Metallica released the album Death Magnetic. Produced by Rick Rubin
and mastered by Ted Jensen, the album is, sadly, flat out distorted. Not
a subtle audio geek kind of distortion-just a square wave of a mix. It
was so bad that the fans noticed and took to the web to throw Ted and
Sterling Sound under the bus. There was even a petition. But-it wasn't
his fault. Ted posted later on a forum: " In this case, the mixes were
already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say,
I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here.
Believe me, I'm not proud to be associated with this one, and we can
only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash
against volume above all else. "
Wow, that took guts. But good for him! The lesson here is clear:
it's not always the mastering engineer's fault when something doesn't
sound good. If they ask you for a mix without the L2, give it to them.
What's the worst thing that can happen? They come up with something
better? For years, when I lecture, I have kept a Pro Tools session with a
track from Death Magnetic level matched with a track from Master of
Puppets, which came out in 1986. The goal here is to make an A/B
comparison of how the two sound against each other when volume isn't
an issue. It's pretty telling.
engineer. Back then,
before you were allowed to
record an album, you had
to learn how to master an
album. Wait, what? That's
right: if you didn't know the
technical specifications of
the destination format, how
could you be expected to
make a recording for said
destination? When Sgt.
Pepper's first came out, it
wasn't 'mastered'. It was a
straight transfer, and that album did pretty well.
Today, how many of you even know what the YouTube
loudness standard is? Think about that for a minute.
YouTube is the largest music playback service in
the world. If you release music, it's probably going to
end up there. Shouldn't you know the specs before you
print that final mix? Hold that thought...
54 RECORDING September 2021
Recording - September 2021

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