![]() What’s more, all three ways will be ‘right’ for those particular projects.” You can do that on three days in succession on this job and do it completely differently each time. Music has no rules, and how can an algorithm, a collection of rules, be applied to music? There’s not one way to ‘EQ a voice’. Because how does an algorithm decide what that coherent sound is going to be? That’s a creative decision. Or live tracks recorded at lots of different venues, and get a coherent-sounding live album. “You can’t throw a collection of tracks recorded in different places, or with different producers, at them and expect to get an album of tracks with a unified sound. “These services are limited to individual tracks,” agrees Sean Magee. Vlado Meller is one of the world’s most in-demand mastering engineers, with a credit list that runs from Celine Dion to Metallica. Perhaps 10-15 years from now there will be an algorithm that mimics 10 million different ears and sensitivity situations, but for now, professional human touch in music production is vital, human listening is vital, and human decision in sculpting sound is more than vital.” There is no algorithm capable of creating that. The final outcome has to be one cohesive-sounding album. Legendary mastering engineer Vlado Meller puts it succinctly: “It’s not about how loud or quiet the particular song will be, but how the whole album of 10 or 12 songs will sound as one cohesive package, despite the songs being recorded in six different studios by six different engineers. So, what are the things that human mastering engineers can do that these automated services can’t? The mastering engineers I spoke to all argue that cloud-based services currently focus on glossing the sound of individual tracks, without reference to musical context. Sean Magee has been an Abbey Road mastering engineer for almost 20 years, and won a Grammy for his work on the Beatles remasters in 2009. If you’re taking your music to that kind of level, the chances are you’re going to want a better service than these automatic tools can offer you.” Someone who can afford to pay to have a human do their mastering, whether it’s online or by coming to Abbey Road in person, will pay to do that, because there are things we do that they can’t do. “There’s no way these services can ever be true competition. that is something that even the best AI in the world wouldn’t try.”Ībbey Road engineer Sean Magee shares this perspective. “The critical insights a mastering engineer can give in a conversation with a musician. “Of course, there are many things a mastering engineer will do that we will never be able to do,” admits Justin Evans. All of them agree that the usefulness of cloud-based mastering tools - and their potential to displace human beings - depends to a great extent on your expectations of the mastering process. To try to answer these and other questions, I spoke to Isabel and to several mastering engineers at Abbey Road and other studios, and also to Anssi Uimonen of CloudBounce, and Justin Evans, co-founder of LANDR. Does the rise of automated mastering threaten the jobs of established mastering engineers, including the distinguished team at Abbey Road itself? Which aspects of the mastering process, if any, can successfully be handed over to automated processors? Mastering For The Masses Perhaps the best-known of these is LANDR, which has been making waves for a year or two now, while Abbey Road have gone into partnership with rival service CloudBounce. Online, cloud-based services are springing up which purport to take raw mixes and deliver polished masters without any direct human involvement. ![]() The disruptive technology in question here is automated mastering. We want to be a part of this revolution, not have the revolution happen to us!” ![]() The last thing we would want is to be fighting an inevitable change. The short answer is: because it is fascinating, and the possibilities are really very exciting. ‘Why would you do that?’ they ask me all the time. “Some people seem surprised that a facility with lots of traditional mastering engineers, technology and expertise would launch an incubator programme which welcomes technology businesses that potentially disrupt the studio model. Why would the world’s most famous studio promote something that threatens to undermine part of its core business? It’s a question that Isabel Garvey, Managing Director of Abbey Road Studios, is getting used to answering. Isabel Garvey is Managing Director of Abbey Road Studios.Īre cloud-based mastering services a threat to traditional mastering engineers, or just a cheap alternative for producers who can’t afford the real thing? It depends who you ask. ![]()
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