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So, from the comments here, it seems that people are under the impression that mastering engineers work off of the individual instrument tracks (the stems). Thi

So, from the comments here, it seems that people are under the impression that mastering engineers work off of the individual instrument tracks (the stems). This is not true. The article itself explains that a mixing engineer takes the individual tracks and mixes them. The final mixdown is then sent to the mastering engineer. It's called "mastering" because this stage of processing happens on a single track - the master track. Buying music in a pre-mastered form would still be a single lossless file, which is no different from Bandcamp allowing you to download the final lossless mastered version. The pre-mastered tracks will just sound worse and have wildly different volume levels depending on how they're normalized. If you want the actual stems of the song, that would actually be the music in it's pre-mixed form. It wouldn't even be mixed at that point, let alone mastered.

whatok 10y ago
Yeah, there seem to be very definitive statements in these comments without a basic understanding of the recording process. I wonder if these are the same people who swear they can tell the difference between various playback formats or when they use gold XLR cables.
Sephiroth87 10y ago
Apart from the misunderstanding, I think it would be actually interesting if you could buy the un-mastered version, plus "mastering" files to use depending on your setup (e.g.: crappy headphones, car stereo, home stereo), but that would require multiple mastering sessions and wouldn't probably be very cost effective... Or you could crowd-source them but then it might go against the creators intentions...
- BugsBunnySan 10y ago
  In a different field (digital cinema) the above is being done for color, lookup the ACES colorspace and workflows... (Very) Basically the camera's recording goes through a process to make it into a standardized ACES colorspace. It will then being processed by editing, VFX, grading, etc... and then there's output transforms from ACES for each output device, like a cinema projector, a home TV or a mobile phone. And yes, AFAIR, that does need grading for each targeted output device, because of how we see and perceive color depending on the environment we're in... It would be awesome (EDIT: to have something like that) for music as well

whatok 10y ago

Yeah, there seem to be very definitive statements in these comments without a basic understanding of the recording process. I wonder if these are the same people who swear they can tell the difference between various playback formats or when they use gold XLR cables.

Sephiroth87 10y ago

Apart from the misunderstanding, I think it would be actually interesting if you could buy the un-mastered version, plus "mastering" files to use depending on your setup (e.g.: crappy headphones, car stereo, home stereo), but that would require multiple mastering sessions and wouldn't probably be very cost effective... Or you could crowd-source them but then it might go against the creators intentions...

BugsBunnySan 10y ago
In a different field (digital cinema) the above is being done for color, lookup the ACES colorspace and workflows... (Very) Basically the camera's recording goes through a process to make it into a standardized ACES colorspace. It will then being processed by editing, VFX, grading, etc... and then there's output transforms from ACES for each output device, like a cinema projector, a home TV or a mobile phone. And yes, AFAIR, that does need grading for each targeted output device, because of how we see and perceive color depending on the environment we're in... It would be awesome (EDIT: to have something like that) for music as well