Mastering in General (was: RPM08 Mastering?)

[Michael Z. - Noiseconformist]

Hi Martin!

> If I mastered Ilona's flute and
> piano concerto the same way I would with a pumping dance track, she'd
probably kill me... ;-)

That's what I'm talking about  ;-)

>>> ...which might mean that some overall
>>> reverb must be added...
>> help!!  ;-)
>
> Why? You do play your stuff live, right? Do you hand out headphones to
everybody? ;-)

no, not yet - but others did.
The playing-live discussion is a different one:
Sitting in the audience and listening is a very different thing then being
at home with your hi-fi and scrutinising a recording (to name two
extremes).
And of course for live playing you are doing a sound check.
I'd consider that as a pendant to mastering in a sense.
But with even more variables.
BTW, in SOS March08 there's a nice "Sounding off"-article about
mono-compatibility.
Which touches virtually all the problems we are discussing right now.
Starting with that the individual listening experience is an individual
one ;-)
Put this way, playing live is probably the only way to ensure that your
listeners have virtually the same listening experience (despite all the
troubles the most venues  bring with them).
And then again, of course standing next to the PA is different than
sitting on the side in greater distance or so.
As Gert pointed out: "Oh well ..."  ;-)

  :-) Michael.