Master Rights After Master Engineer?

[GavinKMusic]

Hi Guys,

Got a quick questions. I have a family friend who is great at mastering and I saw a youtube vid on mastering and how its best to let someone else master.

So if you record, mix and mixdown to wav and then send that off to get mastered who ends up owning the master?

The mastering engineer? or does ownership still stay with pre master owner?

Thanks for any insight.

[andygabrys]

Gavin,

The whole business revolves around people who own the intellectual property, and those who are employed to help realize that vision.

When nobody has any money, then people split everything.

but in most cases, people pay for other peoples contributions.

i.e. - you have the bones for a song, but you need to record it and get a master recording that you can have somebody try to place on TV. You employ the following using a Work-for-hire agreement (WFH): a singer, a piano player, an engineer who owns a studio and records the session, an engineer who mixes the session, and a mastering engineer. You have them sign the appropriate WFH paperwork stating that you pay them $x.xx for their contributions and that they don't own the resulting work.

Naturally every person in that for-hire list adds value to the recording, and in most cases they come up with some creative ideas which enrich the production as a whole. But as they are doing it for-hire they give up ownership of those ideas for the money.

Its generally assumed that when you hire somebody to do the technical end of all this (studios, recording, mixing, mastering) that you pay and you own the end product.

its less clear when you are collaborating on something. In that case, its wise to have an agreement together, which might be splitting ownership of the song. That would mean splitting copyright, and the writers and publishers share. If you sign it away to a library the publishers share will go to the library, so in reality splitting the writers share is the only thing left for music destined for TV.

my 2 cents.

nothing to worry about hiring a mastering engineer to make your material sound great. its implied if you are paying for something that its WFH. Signing paperwork is great to just make sure for the future. If you have a hit on your hands suddenly it seems like everybody else wrote the tune

on the other hand, if you can mix, you can likely "master" something well enough to get played on TV but your mileage may vary.

the notion that you must "use a different engineer to master" is great especially if you have poured a lot of time and money into a CD or something similar. Then you have likely hired a mix engineer in a good studio that has an accurate listening environment (way bigger than a bedroom, designed with proper acoustics in mind, listening on high end monitors). Their job is typically to create a great mix, at which point you will take that to a dedicated mastering engineer in another facility who has gear and monitors and room treatment optimised for the final polish on a recording - and most importantly they have the experience to make the record sound better. A second set of ears in another room means the mastering engineer might catch a problem that the mix engineer missed and they might be able to rectify it, or send it back for remix and try the master again.

HTH

[cassmcentee]

Gavin,
Andy is absolutely correct with his answer!

[coachdebra]

I would just add - decide in advance, be clear in your communications and get the agreement in writing.

[GavinKMusic]

Great thanks Andy! Very informative as usual!

So basically always best to get something WFH in writing.

Much appreciate the tip!