ilovefuzz.com

I tried searching but I could only see the results of the first page, sometimes the search here is wonky.
Anyways...it looks like my band is going to do a promotional/distribution deal with a small label. We decided to release an EP probably 5 songs long, so that all the songs are super slammin'. We have 8 songs recorded and were thinking about cutting 2-3 more before this deal was put on the table.
We recorded all of the songs at a nice studio locally, Gainesville, FL, Against Me! has recorded one or two albums in the same studio with the same engineer. ProTools HD was used on the recording. We recorded in the same room, the amps were isolated, and scratch vocals were done for the basic tracks. Then vocals were cut, and a just a few overdubs. The recordings really captured our bands live vibe well, and even though it is on ProTools it has a raw vibe to it.
We just want to polish the recordings a little bit, most of the work has been done already.
Does anybody have any recommendations for a place to send the recordings too for a bit of mastering?
I don't think we need to spend a ton of money but a couple hundred bucks should be fine.
Thanks!

I would have thought the engineer or someone at the studio would have a suggestion for that?

Well, we had plans to record more but we kind of need to get what we have done out. I should contact Rob, the engineer, I guess. I just figured some ILFers may have some good "bang for buck" recomendations.

Carl Saff @ Saff Mastering.

Affordable, does great work.

Thanks MaggotBrain, Carl Saff looks like a winner to me!

D'oh! I was going to recommend Jeff Lipton at Peerless - http://peerlessmastering.com/

I don't know what his rates are now, but a few years back he did some AMAZING work on my band's self-recorded EP for a very reasonable rate... and his work is SUPERFINE!

Wow, Peerless looks amazing. Jeff Lipton has been nominated for a Grammy...I will check thos rates and report back for any other interested parties.

Saff Mastering costs $8 per minute of song time for mastering, that comes out really reasonanble (under budget in fact). Saff has worked with some cool people/labels.

I guess you could just ask the engineer who he knows. I think the trick is to ask about, find out who lives near you and who'll do it the cheapest / best job. Ask other bands too.

$8 a minute sounds mad cheap to me? is that a normal'ish rate?

if he's good then that should end up about $150-$200 for 5 songs? that seems like a good deal?

WHY DO I LIKE QUESTION MARKS SO MUCH????

It's pretty damn cheap, especially since he has done work for decently big acts.
A lot of places are $50 a song.
Some are WAY more.

Deltaphoenix wrote:Wow, Peerless looks amazing. Jeff Lipton has been nominated for a Grammy...I will check thos rates and report back for any other interested parties.

Please do! As I said, he did ours a long time ago, and I think he may have done it as a challenge because it was so poorly recorded. He basically did one night of what could be forensic mastering, took a plate of audio mud, and made it listenable. As I recall, he said that the only thing he'd worked on with worse mixing had been old Sebadoh albums, which we decided to take as a sort of compliment.

I have nothing useful to say but everytime I see the word master, I automaticly think bate. heh

Or you could get Bob Weston to do it?

http://www.chicagomasteringservice.com/engineers.html

Shellac?...WOW

if you want to go out of your budget (though i can't remember exactly how much it was), this is who CEG used for lenses alien. you can't go wrong with him though...

http://sterling-sound.com/engineers/greg-calbi/