TAXI.com

Not sure if this is the right place for this question, but can anyone recommend a good Mastering Studio/Person?
Been using my own tools as best I can, but I want to make sure my songs sound as professional as they can get...(and then compare them to what I came up with for future reference)

I suspect most on here master their own music as it wouldn't be financially viable to pay someone else. Post up your track if you want a 2nd opinion.

Honestly for speed / cost / quality I'd say give Ozone 10 a try, the Mastering Assistant can get you like 90% there and will work out way cheaper in the long run than paying someone else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIVob84 ... tope%2CInc.

I think you can get a 10 day Demo

Thanks for the reply Cosmic. I do have Ozone 9, and have tried using, but usually with similar results. Sounds great in the studio monitors, but sounds like crap in the car.
In regards to one of the songs I was looking to Master, I gave it another shot using Ozone 9 and it's manual function. Of course, it mostly sounded good in the studio (and I actually got the pre-master to sound good in the car stereo) but that caused a lot of sibilance from the vocals. A de-esser complicated matters, so I went ahead and treated each "ess" at a time. Got that to sound good, and here's what I came up with...(and I somehow feel like we may be in the wrong discussion group, but what the heck)

Oh, it's a reggae version of that old chestnut Grandma Got Run Over....I'm not sure if this link is the way to go, but if it doesn't work, please let me know. It's late, I'm nodding off, and have to be up for work in the morning....

https://www.taxi.com/my/artist/songs/E4 ... e-version-

BTW, I tried dragging and dropping the mp3 file of that song, but got an error message saying "invalid file extension".
I'm sure in my exhaustion that I'm missing something simple....
And just so there are no concerns, I do have permission to use the song from the owners, so I'm legit there....

guest4254 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 12, 2022 8:46 pm

BTW, I tried dragging and dropping the mp3 file of that song, but got an error message saying "invalid file extension".
I'm sure in my exhaustion that I'm missing something simple....
And just so there are no concerns, I do have permission to use the song from the owners, so I'm legit there....

The link doesn't work for others, there are instructions if you search the forum how to share them from your Taxi profile or you can use something like SoundCloud or Dropbox.

Let's try this again...it appears to be working this time...

https://www.taxi.com/members/ex2VQWBFTc ... e-version-

I can confirm it works. Very clever novelty version of a novelty song... not sure if that's ever been done before

guest4254 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 12, 2022 8:30 pm

I do have Ozone 9, and have tried using, but usually with similar results. Sounds great in the studio monitors, but sounds like crap in the car.
In regards to one of the songs I was looking to Master, I gave it another shot using Ozone 9 and it's manual function. Of course, it mostly sounded good in the studio (and I actually got the pre-master to sound good in the car stereo) but that caused a lot of sibilance from the vocals. A de-esser complicated matters, so I went ahead and treated each "ess" at a time. Got that to sound good, and here's what I came up with...(and I somehow feel like we may be in the wrong discussion group, but what the heck)

I get the feeling you might've been expecting too much out of the mastering phase...to repair what should be refined in the mixing stage. So going back to fix the "ss's" in the mix is the better call. If you want to have a song mastered by a pro just to see how much it actually improves the sound then I understand (Sterling Sound in New York does a lot of pro releases), but for the fast moving sync world I'd stick with Ozone and improve your mixing skills until you're there.

guest4254 wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 12, 2022 8:30 pm

Sounds great in the studio monitors, but sounds like crap in the car.

Usually a symptom of an issue in your mixing room..i.e. it's not telling you the truth

Have you done any acoustic measurements and appropriate treatment to get the room as flat as you can ?

AlanHall wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:06 am

I can confirm it works. Very clever novelty version of a novelty song... not sure if that's ever been done before

Funny story. While going through proper channels to get permission to use the song with my updated lyrics, I got an email from Elmo Shropshire (of Elmo and Patsy, the artists who recorded the song).
First, he loved the song and said he was shocked to find out that I was white, and secondly, he suggested I change the lyrics from "She'd been drinking Jamaican eggnog" to "She was smoking too much Ganja". While the version I uploaded uses his updated lyric, the lyric that's on our CD was my original lyric, as we wanted to get the CD done pronto, and the updated vocal didn't match the original vocal. Years later Elmo's lyrics have replaced my original ones, and hopefully, if I can get it to sound the way it needs to sound, maybe it can make it's way to a movie or TV show...we have plenty of novelty Xmas songs...just need to make them all sound right!

Yes, my song was already on a CD, but having that mastered by a friend instead of a professional, the audio of the CD was lacking. So I decided to try and remix, and then remaster....

Any suggestions on the mix/audio?

Harry