Customer Reviews

The Mastering Engineer's Handbook (Mix Pro Audio Series)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book does not outline the steps involved in the mastering process. It is just some interviews with different mastering engineers. Instead of talking about how they go about mastering a project or what they listen for, they brag about their cool customized gear and how little signal processing goes between the source and the final output. Yet at the same time saying how much they are improving the sound.

You get the history of mastering.
You get how they schedule their day.

I was hoping for more of a real "handbook".

This is the companion volume to "The Mixing Engineer's Handbook" by the same author. The format is the same, solid help for common problems and tasks, with interviews of many of mastering's top guns. However, compared to the mixing book, the advice here is a little less specific, a little more vague. It's helpful, to be sure, but there's more philosophy and less applied science.

Also, I was disappointed that a significant amount of material in this book was literally cut and pasted from the mixing book. I felt like I had bought only half a book, or that I had bought some of the same book twice, or something.

Despite these minor flaws, this IS a good book, and I'm not disappointed at all. And the interviews are wonderful.

The honest truth is that if you want a book telling you how to master and how to apply mastering to your work...THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR YOU. YOU'RE BETTER OFF GETTING THE BOOK BY KATZ!!! For beginners that don't have a clue where to start this book is for you. Throughout the book Bobby O explains the entire mastering from how it's done to the equipment used, how the equipment works and precautionary measures to take before mastering your work. I see why people got pissed off with this book because they wanted to know how to master their project...but instead bobby o. tells you the theory behind mastering for example, how various equipment work, mastering for different media as well as what to buy what the equipment does and the effects they have on the mix. I would recommend this book to anyone that is hesitant about mastering or doesn't have a clue about it. This book will inform you of the process from how it's done to the equipment used and so on...so that in the end you can make your decision on whether or not you want to master your own projects. Awesome book.

As Owsinski carefully points out, the most essential elements for a mastering engineer cannot be obtained in any book because they are the same as for any of the other fine arts: a great pair of ears, a refined sense of musical judgment and experience. Without those, the aspiring mastering engineer is at an extreme handicap. As far as equipment goes, Owsinski demonstrates that mastering engineers use very expensive gear because of the cleanness of its circuits and the very minute amount of adjustments they can make, as opposed to the gross knobs and dials of ordinary equipment. All that anyone could ever possibly hope to glean from the collective wisdom of the greatest mastering engineers of our day is in this book, including the most scathing indictment I have ever seen against the current industry trend toward hotter and hotter CDs. Great work from a master that includes in-depth interviews with all the top mastering engineers in the United States. Those who are looking for step-by-step instructions on how to operate specific pieces of equipment for specific situations in the studio had better look elsewhere. That's not what mastering is about. This book is what mastering is about.

What a complete waste of text! Want to learn mastering? Don't actually expect to learn ANYTHING from this book. You'll learn though on how mastering engineers complain and whine about the state of the industry.... and that's about it! Reading these other reviews makes me wonder if these people even read this book at ALL! The first review says the book is great, and that it tells you nothing! Wow, just what I wanted to spend my money on, nothing at all. No, one book will NOT teach you everything you need to know about mastering, but this book teaches you NOTHING about mastering, except 'less is more' philosophy. Ok, there you go, you just learned everything you needed from this book from me. In short, dont' waste your time or money on this book. Would you want to read a book on car mechanics saying that 'hey, forget about being a mechanic, it's too tough!' and then continue on for several hundred pages? This is what this book is!

There is one thing I must say here in defense of this book. Most people who have not dedicated there mind to learning the real craft of mastering may find this book boring. There are no shortcuts. This book explains every single process involved in the so called "black art" of mastering, and in great detail (with the masters). What more could you want? The techniques are there and they are plainly obvious. If you are not familiar with mastering terms and technical jargon then yes, it may be over your head. If you don't understand fundamental pitches and harmonic frequencies, then you may not understand the section on EQ. I could go on but the point is this:
Familiarize yourself with terms before you purchase this book or you will remain lost.
It has helped me tremendously

Earle Holder
www.hdqtrz.com

Bobby Owsinski has tapped into a format that really works for this book, as well as the also excellent Mixing Engineers Handbook. Who better to teach the dual black arts of mixing and mastering than the best in the business. These books intersperse interviews with the pros throughout the well thought-out chapters. The emphasis is not on 'what to do' it's on 'what these people do' combined with some basic wisdom. It's fascinating to hear these mastering engineers gripe about how everyone wants their recordings to be as loud as possible - and then admit that they all go to work on monday and compress the bejesus out of the tape because the customer wants it anyway.

This book is a very equipment agnostic - meaning it's useful for the homestudio user with a DAW or tape machine or for the pro studio user. he does, however, mention a lot of the famous eq's and compressors for the sake of completeness.

this is a highly recommended book and one that i often find myself referring to.

I don't know what it is about mastering engineers in general- they always point to all these tools and then kinda tell you not to use them. this ones no different and there are no real case studies. as a for instance "because I come in blah blah decibels which is hot I would use this transparent compressor set at x threshold as opposed to that compressor that might color too much and so on and so on. now that would be a novel book indeed especially if it had a famous name guy.
at one point one of them chuckles " he thought he could put his record through a rented massenburg e.q. and skip this mastering process. he came back and said it sounds worse". well I own a gml parametric and you know it's not that difficult to understand and I have never "made things sound worse" with it.why couldn't this "expert" help this person and then go into a section on parametric (details not b.s.)?
I am beginning to think that there isn't really much to this mastering stuff and that all you really need are 1) a talent for what a song sounds like 2) really good hearing that you haven't ruined 3) alot of expensive (very expensive) equipment.
could it be at the end of the day that there isn't much to write about "art wise" and so these guys tell you nothing-I may not like any of these "mastering audio"
books! my opinion, the art is 90% in the recording/mixing process anyway.

Some of the other reviews have nailed it - this book is really only helpful if you know absolutely NOTHING about the mastering process. I thought I was a novice, but after reading this I'm not so sure. I know the basic process of mastering, and am decent at using EQ, Compressing and Limiting. I hoped this book would give me some tips on exactly how to effectively master different types of tracks and what equipment to use to achieve specific results...you know, fattening up tracks, multiband stereo widening, how to get max volume...but nope, none of that is in here. As others have mentioned, there really is very little about how to actually master a track; it mostly just overviews the basic concepts, such as what is red book, what equipment is used in mastering (with only brief bits about HOW stuff is used), what is bit depth, etc. Most of this is really basic stuff that you would learn in 15 minutes of googling "how to master audio" (if you make digital music you SHOULD already be pretty familiar with bit depth, what compressors and EQs are, etc.) The entire second half is dedicated to interviews, none of which I found particularly helpful in any way and found myself skipping a lot of because it had no relevance to my situation. Learning how many lacquers get cut in a month and how much custom built analog gear these guys have really doesn't help me. I'm glad they ask what their set up is, but why not "give an example of how to master track X"? One or more of the engineers even says that you need to sit in and watch someone master. Well, why not include a DVD or step by step example of what someone did to master a piece? THAT would be extremely helpful.

Overall, I probably did take a few things away from this, and it's never bad to review, but honestly I think I learned more from a 15 minute video titled "how to master a track with waves plugins" that showed a guy, you know, actually mastering a track. Again, if you know absolutely nothing about being an engineer than this will get you started, but don't expect to to come away with any real skills.

One of the most liked reviews here says that the book does not teach how to do the actual mastering. Bull! Not only does the author give sequential, detailed instructions, but the interviewed experts also give specific, detailed instructions. Maybe the reviewer that dissed on this book was looking for something dramatic and exciting and maybe this book is too subtle. But guess what? The world's best mastering engineers make SUBTLE, EXACTING tweaks when they master. My advice is to go listen to the work of Doug Sax, Bob Katz and the others that are interviewed. These guys mastered hundreds of gold records and they know their business and are willing to share their secrets. This is an excellent resource, in part because it teaches patience, proper setup, patience, a measured approach and patience. These guys know how to listen and that takes patience and attention to detail. Did I mention patience?