The Lost Art of Mastering

Musically, I went a bit old school today and decided to play some mid-90s hip hop as I rolled down to a muscle car and hot rod cruise night in Golden, Colorado. Specifically, the tune in question was Tupac Shakur's 'Ambitions As a Ridah'  Other than the fact that the braggadocio lyrics ring a sad tale given the outcome of that man's life, I couldn't believe how crisp and bangin' the song sounded on my sound system. The system in question is completely OEM and the automobile is from 1996, to set the stage correctly; we're not talking high-end components here. Given that, the bass was clear and heavy, mid's were present, and the high's crisp. This was definitely a pleasant surprise and I took note of it, as most of the music I listen to these days on this particular audio system sounds 'okay', but compared to the Tupac record? Damn.No bueno. So what's the point? That hip hop track was mastered by a professional audio engineer who know what the funk he was doing. The difference in audio quality between this old cut from 1996 and the modern electronic music that I listen to today was like night and day. Now granted, I'm generalizing a bit a lot here, but I will tell you that I firmly believe the advent of mastering software, and the fact that people just don't have $500 to $1000 to spend on proper mastering with dismal music sales affecting revenue; well.... these issues have really affected the audio quality of final releases. The drum n bass guys in particular are always gushing about how their production game is up on such a high level, and to a certain extent it's true, but honestly, they don't have anything on this Tupac record. If that engineer can make my stock sound system pop and sound brilliant, then clearly there seems to be a missing crucial step in releases of today. Running your final master through Izotope or T-Racks doesn't cut it. I'm not pointing fingers, and I certainly can't say I've spent the money to master the few releases I've dropped on VR, but I think I'd love listening to music more if it all sounded that good. The same goes for clubs and music on big PA systems. A few months back I spent an excruciating hour listening to an opening DJ at a club here in Denver play terrible trance records while waiting for the headliner to come on. Despite the fact I didn't enjoy his particular choice of music, I could tell he was playing MP3s; And it wasn't because of that big glowing laptop. How? The minute the headliner dropped the needle on his first record, the music came alive on the sound system. I'm going to take a wild stab and guess that if you're risking enough to spend the money on a vinyl release, you're probably paying an audio engineer to get that cut mastered. We're not all listening to iPod buds... if you can afford it, get your s--t mastered properly. Peace, and most of all, crystal clear B A S S Related: Making great first impressions as a musician matters