Reddit reviews The Mastering Engineer's Handbook: The Audio Mastering Handbook

I can sum it up in a joke my friend told me once:

"How do you make a small fortune with a recording studio? Start with a large one."

But seriously. Do not go to college to become an audio engineer. If it is something you like to do, buy yourself some recording gear and start recording yourself and bands. Do some for free, once you get good at it, start charging for it.

Make these three books your education:
Mixing Audio by Roey Izhaki -http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Audio-Concepts-Practices-Tools/dp/0240520688

Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski - http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engineers-Handbook-Second/dp/1598632515/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346257656&sr=1-1&keywords=mixing+engineers+handbook

Mastering Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Owsinski - http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Engineers-Handbook-Audio/dp/1598634496/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346258717&sr=1-1&keywords=mastering+engineers+handbook

Read every last word of these books until they are burned into your brain. Then send me some of your money for giving you such great advice and saving you the ridiculous expense of audio engineer school. A theoretical and technical fundamental knowledge is important, which you will get from these books, but it won't mean shit unless you actually put it to use and get experience recording and mixing people! Good luck!

This and this are the best books I've found. Lots of info on eq, compression, effects, mic placement, etc.

Yes definitely follow this advice.

Mastering is the process that makes all the songs in your album sound like they belong together. You use EQ, compression, limiting (and possibly other effects a la reverb and delay) to make them sound part of a cohesive whole.

Be wary of advice that says you've got to hard limit stuff too, especially if your music is going to a lossy bitrate compression destination like YouTube or iTunes. Lossy file formats like .mp3, .aac, and .wma do not take well at all to slammed tracks.

I recommend reading 'The Mastering Engineer's Handbook' by Bobby Owsinski. Its an interesting read about the history of mastering and examines the processes of mastering for vinyl, CD, digital delivery, television, movies, etc... There's loads of interviews with world-renowned mastering engineers too that will be sure to set you on the right path. Owsinski's other two books, 'The Recording Engineer's Handbook' and 'The Mixing Engineer's Handbook' are also great tools for the independent musician and/or novice audio engineer.

Like all things audio, you have to listen. If your ears are telling you something is wrong, then something is wrong. Also, listen on many different sources. Put your work on a CD and listen in your car or at work or in shitty mp3 on crappy earbuds! The people buying your record will be listening in all of those situations so you might as well know what they are going to hear!

I guess my last piece of advice would be that if you're not mastering on an expensive stereo system—and I do mean very expensive, like $20,000 per channel kinds of expensive—you should probably be filtering high and low frequencies. If your system can't reproduce low end (less than 50-80 Hz) or high end (greater than 16-18 kHz) accurately, then you must include a high-pass filter and a low pass filter before you start doing anything else in the mastering process. The reason mastering engineers and facilities are so expensive is because they can hear things that you can't; both because of their experience and ear training as well as their equipment and signal path.

The mastering engineers handbook
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1598634496
The mixing engineers handbook
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1598632515

Highly approve. Read them about 10 years ago and they are amazing. They also have been updated since I believe.

The guide I just linked, despite being written for a specific commercial product, has lots of good conceptional information that be applied to whatever tools you have at your disposal to work with. It is a widely recommended resource for learning the fundamentals of mastering techniques.

Besides, I think your expectations for what people will put into reddit posts is a little screwy. Mastering is a huge topic. Its is an art form in and of itself, not a simple procedure like side-chain compression or programming a specific synth patch. Introductions to the art of mastering take up hundreds of pages. If you want to understand a huge topic, read a book. If you want a few pointers, tips, or tricks, ask people on sites like reddit.

The Mastering Engineer's Handbook is a great one. I haven't read it, but I did read "The Recording Engineer's Handbook" by the same guy. It's a combination of his own experience and (mostly) a collection of knowledge by top level mastering engineers.

This question can best be answered by reading about mastering and how it's done. I recommend you check out books like Owsinski's The Audio Mastering Handbook. Here is a directly relevant quote from it:

>Mastering is the process of turning a collection of
songs into a record by making them sound like they
belong together in tone, volume, and timing (spacing
between songs).

> Mastering is not a set of tools or a device that music is run through and automatically comes out mastered (despite what the adverts for these types of so-called “mastering devices” say). It’s an art form that, when done conscientiously in its highest form, mostly relies on an individual’s skill, experience with various genres of music, and good taste.

This tends to break down if you're only mastering a single track, say for a dubplate, but even 12" releases have two to six tracks that need to be stylistically and sonically married.

Hopefully this also hints at why it's a good idea to have someone else master your music. An experienced mastering engineer is similar to an experienced violinist — yes, you may be a great composer-violinist, but you're not as good as a true virtuoso like Itzhak Perlman. The nuance of interpretation that such a player can impart to your music is likely beyond anything that you're capable of or initially intended.

Of course if you feel like you can handle it and you have a vision that must be carried through the mastering stage, go for it. There's really no reason why you can't master your own material, just reasons why you probably shouldn't.

The Mastering Engineer's Handbook: The Audio Mastering Handbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598634496/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_RUHoDbKMHKJ0G

Haven't personally read this one, but was able to check out his book on mixing, which explained concepts to me very thoroughly and concise.