Recording Institute of Detroit and Recording Website family of sites announce free hands-on training in mastering techniques by master engineer, Bob Dennis. Online training begins with the next RID semester start date of May 5, 2012, but an "example session" will be posted prior to that.
Despite all sorts of software and hardware mastering tools being available to today’s engineers, the sound quality of music releases diminishes more and more each year. The golden ears of the industry will quickly tell you that the best sound quality for released music was in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s. Question: What have the engineers been doing for the last 30 years? Answer: Ignoring quality in favor of increased loudness.
Motown Heritage Mastering The mastering techniques taught though RW's Mastering Website are called “Motown Heritage” mastering techniques, because both the loudness and the sound quality of the final product are considered. It’s reminiscent of the Motown “Loud & Clear” standard of the 1960’s but considering today’s media, playback equipment and listening environment. Interestingly, some of the techniques used by Motown in the 1960’s are in full play for mastering today’s music.
How Do I learn? There is both theory and practice involved with learning. What’s missing in many training centers is sufficient “hands on” practice of the theory.
The Mastering Website (Recording Website’s mastering forum) is designed to give the user effective “hands-on” training in mastering. There is no cost to the user for this service; we get our operating funds through advertisement and sponsors. The training system works the following way:
1. Users register for training by contacting Recording Institute Of Detroit to “register” for online training. (Registration is now open - call 800.683.1RID.) You must also be a registered member of the Recording Website forums. Due to bandwidth restrictions we can only handle about 8 users for each “session” of mastering. The rest of the users can observe the session as they wait their turn to fully participate.
2. Mastering Website posts a sample music product. We have a stockpile of tunes that we can use in the training but we also intend for users to provide their music for this training. Imagine a user getting instruction on how to master their music for free.
3. The full participants for the “session” each independently master the tune from the files we send them. We provide full 16 or 24 bit files to use. Each participant sends back the “mastered” file and we post the results on the forum.
4. The users of the forum vote on which mastering job they like the best and the winner is announced. We expect to provide a small “prize” for the winner from one of our sponsors.
5. Bob Dennis then posts his mastering result with step by step instructions of what he did and why. It will be interesting to see how many times a student “beats” the Motown Heritage mastering by Oldbobd – I hope we see this often. Teachers are never to old to learn something from their students.
6. Of course, there is full forum discussion of everything along the way.
We expect to initially hold one “session” a month, but as things start to run smoothly, we hope to make a new session for users every couple of weeks.
Is The Mastering Website Training Complete Training?In one word, No! But it’s a very important tool in complete training.
If you took campus training at the Recording Institute of Detroit in mastering you would get the full theory behind Motown Heritage Mastering. You would get effective hands-on assignments to do in the campus computer workshop. You would be watched, coached and corrected by the instructor, giving you the fastest and most complete training possible. It would make your hands on experience at Mastering Website five times more effective.
But not everyone wants to be a “super-professional” in mastering; some just want to improve their released music. Hanging out at Mastering Website can provide this service for users, over time.
bob
