Should You Use a Dedicated Mastering Engineer?

[@peteturn1782]

Interesting comments. I recently decided to use some savings to try out a professional studio for one of my many songs to see what I could learn from the process then improve my mixes before sending and hopefully meaning less work for engineer. This company agreed to do mastering but said my song wasn’t ready and needed more mixing. I asked if they could specify but they wouldn’t and instead said they could do mixing for me. They quoted £850 and frankly I can’t afford that. I guess others can’t and those with little money therefore have little access to professional help. Much great music could be getting lost. Such a shame.

[@MoonshiftAudio-ft7oh]

I hear you Pete! In a way I respect that the studio were open that your track needed more work at the mix stage, I think some mastering engineers out there would just take the money and do the master, though it's a bit off that they refused to tell you what the issues were. £850 is getting to the more expensive end of mixing too I'd say. It is a tough one when budgets start to get in the way of creative processes. The good news is that you can learn a lot yourself these days. It takes time and practice, but you can get there!

[@peteturn1782]

Thanks. I am indeed trying to learn as much as I can so that I can do best mix possible in home studio then send it for professional tweaking etc. hopefully that saves time in studio and ultimately costs. 👌

[@MoonshiftAudio-ft7oh]

@@peteturn1782 For sure! That will definitely help with the costs. One option to consider if you're starting to get there with your mixes, but aren't quite there would be "stem mastering" - instead of giving the engineer every individual audio track you would supply just the stems of your track (eg drums, bass, vocals). This gives the engineer more control over the balance than just mastering, but is much more affordable than a full mix. To give you an idea of price I would expect to charge around £120-150 for this, which is I'd say indicative of the market rate :)