Question for Ian... do you think an approach can be adopted to create an 'assisted' mastering process/tool that ensures you don't kill your mix?

As a mastering engineer, pre-master in Nashville is usually referred to here as a "hot mix" from the mix engineer that gets sent to the artist to approve the mixes to simulate mastering/loudness. Then we get the mixes without the loudness etc..

Great show guys! Thanks for creating great content.

Seems that Greg Wells wasn't so shy to put his taste into code:  "What separates a mix from a master? No need to think about it when you’ve got the Waves Greg Wells MixCentric plugin". So instead of using online services you can simply by a plugin and you're done, right? http://www.waves.com/plugins/greg-wells-mixcentric

from what I've heard the mix engineer put an l2 on the mix (just so they could listen to it loud as if it was mastered) and Bruce decided he loved it and wanted to print that...

bad remasters is why I started following the loudness war and your blogs about it Ian (including your email list) because albums I loved either sounded over compressed (nirvana was a great example although it hadn't been done at that point in my life) or audible clipping (Arctic monkeys first album is almost ruined by it). The guitar hero vs cd release comparisons were such an eye opener. 

About the Iron Maiden thing. They didn't have mastering only on one album - "A Matter of Life and Death". The reason was sound of their previous album "Dance Of Death". It was horribly crushed and it generated a huge backlash from the fans (so Metallica wasn't first to experience this!). I just checked songs starting at Dance of Death until their recent album and personally I think the unmastered one sounds the best (and it's not quiet at all!). Sure, maybe that's not the reason for it, but still, it's curious.

Why you might NOT want to master your music - or get it mastered; what I think of LANDR and other online "mastering" services; when  mastering ISN'T mastering; plus the problem with re-mastering; a brief tangent on Dave Grohl; can you master on the mix buss? And why deciding not to master is STILL mastering.

Links

LANDR: Automated online mastering – but is it any good ? My test
http://productionadvice.co.uk/landr/

How the Loudness War is crushing Dave Grohl’s analogue ambitions
http://productionadvice.co.uk/how-the-loudness-war-is-crushing-dave-grohls-analogue-ambitions/

The heart and soul of mastering
http://productionadvice.co.uk/heart-and-soul/

The Mastering Show #12 - NOT Mastering

This is the show where we cover all aspects of mastering. If you're interested in mastering, want to learn how to get better results mastering your own music, or even want to be a mastering engineer, this is the show you want to hear.

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