Here's a bit of reality
Just blaze is on a level that he WILL have it mastered after he "mastered" it himself. His work has ended up a lot at Sterling Sound and he has his own team at Redstream.
http://musicproducertv.wordpress.co...y-z-baseline-studios-mastering-and-equipment/
Anyway, he's leaving it to the people who know what they're doing because in reality those beatcreaters have lil bits of understanding everything, that doesnt make them a ME. Most of what beatcreaters call mastering is using simple chain to add beef to their production for motivational purpose, it reflects at best for them how it will sound when mastered.
OW look! a gml 8200 in the mastering suite
Loving the flux capacitor
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I throw the term bedroom techie around a lot here because 99% on this site lack the most important aspect for either mixing or mastering which is the room of course. You can treat your bedroom the best way you can but its still the same room so treatment of a room comes secondary to creating a reference room and shaping a room is primary.
Then we have nearfields, ive seen some crazy stuff, people with HS80's in a 9m2 room and not giving a fuck about every frequency ringing around the room. I cant say it enough but monitors are in ratio with room size. Its safe to say that most often there is no point to look at drivers larger than 6.5" if the room you work in is smaller than 35m2.
Then there are the types of producers, some people wont bother about mixing/mastering at all, they will just add anything that gives their track beef. They also will not really care about the ethics because theyre mainly about composing tracks. You can place these producers in any room, it will not stop them from being creative, shitty room, shitty mics you name they use it. I also know people that have a shitload of gear but cant get passed making a loop, they still enjoy making noodles out on modulars on which theyve spend thousands.
Then there's the semi pro beatcreator. The room shape isnt where its at but its treated, has a few high end stuff (a pair of distressors are populair), no budget nearfields and things dre uses. These people still have their tracks often mixed/mastered by someone else but when semi pro gains succes, outsourcing to a good ME takes out the semi in semi pro.
Then there are freaks that never stop learning, drawing conclusions all the time and discovering bottlenecks and narrowing them down. They go through lots of trial and error to learn the ethics because their drive is to gain the best sound possible. This is an endless path lol, we're never done with the studio and the danger here is hitting the roof when knowledge/experience will imply that grading up the neccesary is inevitable to get a better result. You lose the pleasure of working because you're confronted with bottlenecks, shit is holding you back and investing in the appropiate gear is the only way up.
So where you draw the line imo depends on what type of person you are, if you feel dedicated, even if its a hobby than the treshold is with your experience. A lesson well learned will point out the flaws and will refer to a better substitute.
@unorthodox;
I never assume there is a difference between genres with exception on how to deal with certain acoustic instruments in respect to the musician's skills. Its ethics that belong with genres but on a pro level you dont think much different about rock or hiphop, edm whatever.
If you have the api2500 plugin than you owe api your life lol BUT if you own an api 2500 you never look back to what you said before about the plugin. Granted that technology(read convolution technique) is really getting better, its still a concession in your wallet and a substitute for hardware in the form of a snapshot of the real machine's potential. Aside from that, various pieces of hardware in a setup are a palette of sonic characters whereas the sonic character of an itb setup is depended of your soundcard.
Again, spending the money in a justified fashion is personal. Its easy for me to recommend something worth over $1500 bucks, you need to be convinced yourself that it will be an asset to your quality or workflow because your understand how it will benefit you. Not because premier or random succesful producer uses it, no because your learningcurve pointed out that its the next step.
Can it create potential revenue ? again, it depends on the first 2 primaries and your own justified persuasion that it would really benefit you after investing.
Going ITB was hot for a second for example but a lot people still realise that for the true high end setups you still depend on hardware. It doesnt need to be a million bucks anymore due to technology indeed but let me throw in my experience with our studio timeline, investments and exploit.
initial setup with 50K budget
-facility/rent + construction/treatment = entrance/lounge + controlroom 35m2 and recording room 30m2
-soundtraks topaz project 32-32-8 inline with a set of 1031a's, logic running on a pc running logic through a rme(through adat connected to fostex d90 and d160. Outboards from digitech, LA 4x4 comps, dbx166xl, small backline of gear and a few mics with a Solidtube mic as main.
exploits were demos and budget recordings, 3 years later and 300% liquidity.
Next upgrade, new location 5k invested on construction, place is roughly 10x bigger, especialy in height. Rme hdsp/fostex got replaced by motu 3x 1224's, spent 3k on mogami cable and gold plated neutriks plugs, replaced all plugs on the topaz with goldplated neutrik. switched to mac g4.
exploits increase and rec/mixing better names, liquidity slightly improved.
next update, mac octocore + ssl alphalink, mosses & mitchell patchbays, KH o300s, no console, automated vca, several modified telefunken and siemens units, modified octavias and a few vintages.
exploits the same, yet level is getting better and more side exploits.
Added api2500, hammer eq, chandler amp and a fatso into a hybrid mastering chain.
added mastering to exploits after getting artist from universal to do their mastering.
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Here, you can save some pennies by not needing to go through this hehe, none of us are rich. And even though this concerns a project studio, it still applies the same ethics for the bedroom studio. If you have a good room and are somewhat serious, albeit pro or as a musician/hobbyist then the price to get up specs are cheaper then when i started, this is a fact. But i can say that our chain is good enough and bares the absolute minimum to get you into mastering.
Its not about what is used but whatever needs 24chnls for a project studio can easily be substituted for the same model but 8 chnls for the bedroom techie. Currently the ssl/madi is unbeatable quality when looking what you pay for dollars per channel. Thats the only exception to consider, even if your low on using outboard, this might change in the future so it offers expansion. Also, not all improvements are expensive as there's lots you can do yourself. Things like making sure your power fed to the machines is a stable one, plasterwalls, rockwool and metalframes are not expensive either, you can make very good roomtreatment yourself aswell, if you need cable then it wont be as much work or money as soldering a 196 neutriks on mogami, and once again, you can use smaller speakers which are in cheaper. The hardware api, hammer eq and fatso are not the most expensive pieces of gear ever...now as far as im concerned, a lot of new synths can be replaced by vst's on that i agree. Still, lots of cats still buy big workstation synths of which 2 of those beast could easily pay for api,hammer and fatso together.
