Chris Athens Mastering vs local Mastering engineer

[MathieuF]

Hi !

Been a while...

So I'm finishing production on my new solo album (Fusion Jazz/Funk) and I'm looking at 2 options right now for the mastering. There's a local mastering engineer (that I don't know) that offer to do it for 450$ and then...I also contacted Chris Athens who mastered some of the Robert Glasper albums that I use as references...Chris Athens would do it for more than 1000$...which I think is not THAT expensive considering what he has mastered so far.

Now my question is obvious...is it worth it to pay almost triple for Chris Athens or go for the local engineer ?

I've paid more than 5000$ for the whole production so far...so in a way the 1000+ for mastering is a big chunk of the production but is that a good proportion of budget ? I've never paid more than 500 for mastering and I've done it myself on some of my releases in the past (sometimes with disastrous results hehe).

What do you think ? How much do you guys usually spend for mastering ? (a full album)

Thanks !

[cassmcentee]

If I'm not the one mastering, I pay $1500 and don't regret it.
First question, how marketable is the album, how many songs, how quickly do you need to make your money back?
How good are the mixes?
If you want to provide a link to the mixes I can give you my honest opinion.

If you really care about this album you will never regret spending big money unless it lands you in bankruptcy.
Even then you would probably not regret it!
Analogy... Would you put your Masterpiece in a cheap frame?

From a business standpoint, what is the market and what is your realistic goal?
How many units do you need to sell to break even?
How many units have you moved previously?
What is the true size of your fanbase?

Thoughts,
Cass

[ttully]

Hi Mathieu,

In the past... I have spent about $5K to have 10 songs mastered by a world class mastering engineer
with TONS of hit songs under his belt.

I did not like the end result at all.
I had him re master it ... I still did not like it.
I told him that I thought he may be suffering form ear fatigue...because of the lack of bass.
HE got quite offended and said that it was impossible for him to have any ear fatigue!

So it is hard to say... I ended up liking MY mastered tracks better.

Again...my 5000 cents worth,
Tim

[ttully]

Hey Tom,

Trying to convert that to Euro's.... I almost exploded!

Tim

[cosmicdolphin]

Some years back I attended a mastering session for an album I'd mixed some of the tracks for.

The guy Jon Astley has mastered most of Tori Amos' catalogue and numerous other stuff...there were some reel to reel tapes of some well known classic albums he was remastering in his studio. Gear inc Weiss DS1, Massive Passive EQ and some other nice outboard.

Super nice guy, and the Masters came out great and we bought him a pint around the corner afterwards and he regailed us with tales of a few famous people he's worked with.

It was £500 well spent in the end.

On the other hand a local guy produced and mastered the album of my singing teacher , proper boutique studio , all real live musicians etc. and I listened to it and could have done better myself. Was not impressed..I'm betting she paid at least as much.

Jon Astley advertises in SOS so if you don't need to attend you could use the same guy remotely. Worth checking out.

https://closetotheedge.biz/

Mark

[MathieuF]

If I'm not the one mastering, I pay $1500 and don't regret it.
First question, how marketable is the album, how many songs, how quickly do you need to make your money back?
How good are the mixes?
If you want to provide a link to the mixes I can give you my honest opinion.

If you really care about this album you will never regret spending big money unless it lands you in bankruptcy.
Even then you would probably not regret it!
Analogy... Would you put your Masterpiece in a cheap frame?

From a business standpoint, what is the market and what is your realistic goal?
How many units do you need to sell to break even?
How many units have you moved previously?
What is the true size of your fanbase?

Thoughts,
Cass

Thanks for the reply.

To answer some of your questions, the music is not highly marketable and I have a very niche/small fan base. It's fusion jazz but also mixed with some funk, EDM elements, vocoder (no clean vox), long solos, some long songs, etc. Think Robert Glasper/Hiromi/Chick Corea/Herbie Hancock meet Daft Punk. Some Snarky Puppy elements as well. Modern Jazz Fusion I would say.

6 songs, 33 minutes. I don't care much about the money back from the album sales directly. I make my money elsewhere in music (cover bands, session work, trying to be successful with Taxi...etc.). A lot of my work comes from the fact that I produce really cool/hip solo albums with performance oriented videos, but my money does not come from the sales of these albums directly. My "clients" are other musicians, bands, that know me as a good keyboardist, mostly from reputation...which I think is strongly based on my albums and live shows...I consider my solo albums as demonstrations of what I can do, but not really a product destined to be sold (although I try).

The recording is top notch and I'm currently in the mixing process at the same studio, with the same engineer that we recorded with, I am confident that it's going to be great mixes.

Money is running short though...I really want to hire that guy, Chris Athens, because he mastered Robert Glasper's most interesting albums IMO so I'm confident he will give my music the proper treatment...but that's a lot of money

So now, with more info on what I'm doing and what I'm aiming to do...I'm asking again...is the price worth it ? I think yes...but some of you might convince me otherwise ?