Keep up the good work.

Thanks for your comments. I totally agree with your statement that an artist should invest both their time and money on the things that will help further the quality of their songwriting. For some having a home studio helps, for others it can be a distraction. A serious studio will often spend thousands of dollars on room treatments alone. That’s a lot of guitars, or keyboards, etc. I see many home recording enthusiasts spending a few hundred dollars on the latest plug-in that promises to make you a mastering engineer overnight, but would suggest that without proper monitoring as well as years of practice, that for about the same expense you could have the job done by a professional.

With regard to a set of great mixes requiring individual attention I would say absolutely. A great mix may require less processing than one of a lesser quality, but a set of great mixes still need individual attention. There is no preset, or one setting that will work on every song. The density, level, key of the song, arrangement of the instruments, mood, etc. all require different EQ, compression, and approach. Even when mastering a live concert where the the concert was recorded on the same night, same setup, same mics, etc. it may require some changes in level from song to song different noise reduction techniques, or other processing to bring out the best in the performances.

As mentioned in the article price will vary with experience and the methods that mastering studios use to charge will vary. Some charge per hour, some by song, some by minute, and some a flat rate for an album or EP. Some studios also have a special rate for independent artists, “after hours” rates, or have a choice of engineers of varying rates from which to choose.

For a young band that is just starting out I would budget a range of somewhere anywhere between $500 to $800 for a full album (10-12 songs) with an experienced engineer. One has to realistically consider how many albums the band will sell in order to pay off costs for recording, mixing, mastering, replication, graphics, marketing, etc.

Of course the results matter more than price alone. Check out some of previous work the engineer has done, or better still ask if they offer a demo of their work before diving in. Judging a studio by price or gear list alone can often be misleading.

My son is in a metal band. They are thinking of having a CD recorded. Mixed, Mastered, Digital sound. I read all of your information above, but what would be a good figure,
in terms of having something like this done. How much per song, would be a fair price to look for or an average price.
We are in the process of just beginning to look into this and I would just like to know what a decent a fair price would be, per song, to pay and to have something nice. I know that there are probably those studios that charge too much and then those who charge very little and then you get what you pay for. I would just like to know what the middle of the road price is, they are a great band and we want something decent, but not out of the ordinary.

Sincerely,

Dante

http://www.myspace.com/donnafullman

Great article here this is fantastic. A lot of great info that I will certainly remember. We do a mixture of recordings of both professional album releases as well as a regular once a week lo-fi recording that we give a away for free. The pro album we got mastered, and it was well worth the cost, however we stayed away from mastering the give away stuff since the ROI didn’t seem as reasonable.

I would use a bit of compression and EQ on the two track just to give the free recording a higher volume, but my ears definitely lack the talent and the perspective to do the mastering process any justice. So the recordings lack significant power and polish, and we don’t use them on any first impression.

If you want to take your recording seriously, for any type of professional endeavor….get it mastered.