I listen to all types of music but mostly all forms of rock, from soft rock to Death, Thrash & Black Metal, Acoustic, and a bit of Classical.
What inspires me in my work however, is music that SOUNDS good. (good players with good instruments, well recorded, well mixed and well mastered.)
a few examples of these:
Death: Symbolic
Sepultura: Roots
Live: Secret Samadhi
Sting: The Soul Cages (especially if your speakers are setup correctly)
Joe Satriani: Joe Satriani
Shawn Colvin: A Few Small Repairs
Merle Haggard: 1994
Semisonic: Feeling Strangely Fine / All About Chemistry
Martina McBride: Emotion
Jaco Pastorius: The Birthday Concert
"We're happy with the mastering on the album. Made all the difference." Rigger (rock/metal)
"Superb work on our latest record, everything sounds exactly as we had planned and wanted it.
Overoth will without doubt be working with MSB Mastering in the foreseeable future." Overoth (death metal)
"Darrell's a great guy to work with, really knows what he's doing and the work he did on my album was perfect. He maintained the life of the songs while enhancing the sound. He even taught me about CD text and ISRC codes. I'll definately be back" Wes Grierson (acoustic/pop/rock)
"We really can't thank you enough for the work you put in on our last three releases. Superb! You'll be hearing from us again." Chosen (death metal)
If you see MIXING as balancing the levels of different voices and instruments in a song, mastering is the balancing of songs in an album and optimising them so they sound as good as possible on whatever the end medium is. (hifi system, lofi (mp3 players), vehicles, radio and indoor PA systems (could be in mono)
This involves adjusting song volumes, stereo image, bass, removing hum and other noises and putting appropriate gaps between tracks.
To ensure your final master CD sounds as good as it can, please make sure you send me the original mixes (NOT a "mastered by the producer" CD). For example: 24bit WAV files (on a data CD, NOT an audio CD) in the sample rate that the files were recorded at. For more info, e-mail me at info@msbmastering.com or send me a message on myspace.
Many bands and producers unfortunately fall into the trap of insiting that their finished CD is as loud as possible. Although this is understandable, (especially in Rock and Metal) many don't realise that this can seriously degrade the sound of their music.
The end result is less exciting, less dynamic and even prematurely tiring to the ear, making the listener turn it DOWN to the level of background music.
The video below explains the basic principle. If you want to look into it in more detail, just google it, there are an increasing number of industry professionals calling on a "ceasefire" in the loudness wars, because our enjoyment of the music is suffering as a result of overcompression.
To anyone looking to get their mixed songs mastered: Darrell's a great guy to work with, really knows what he's doing and the work he did on my album was perfect. He maintained the life of the songs while enhancing the sound. He even taught me about CD text and ISRC codes. I'll definately be back" Wes Grierson PS. Check out my album!
Superb work on our latest record, everything sounds exactly as we had planned and wanted it. Overoth will without doubt be working with MSB Mastering in the foreseeable future.
