Please help with mastering standards!

[Rad]

I have outsourced the mixing of my project to a small studio in which I'm running into the following problem.

The engineer there claims that he has to fade-in the attack at the start of every song, because this is an industry mastering standard. But to my ears, this is just killing the sound. It basically sounds like someone forgot to put the fader up at the beginning of the song and crushes the attack completely. I listened to a bunch of different CDs mastered by top studios and I cannot hear anything like that in them. Anybody who can help solve the mystery, kick in.

[Smithcok]

Two things may be going on here (these are the first that came to mind)

1. He is full of bologna if he is putting a long fade on the front (baloney, I dont know which way is right in this context)

2. Most mastering engineers will ask that you leave .5-1 sec of silence at the beginning of each song, and the same amount of time after the last reverb tail ends (at the end of the song). This is so a quick (few samples) fade can be put in, and also so that arranging of tracks and the space between them on the final master is made easier.

[Rad]

I am afraid it's the first one. By looking at the waveform, the fade-in he's put ends about 0.02 sec after the first tone is begins, which is actually quite audible. He does put a silence at the front, but as I said, the fade-in goes a whole 0.2 sec into the sound. In my opinion this is too much.
Perhaps I should rethink if I really want these people to master for me... I'm on a budget and I don't know where else I could hire someone to mix and master this without spending 1000's. I'm in the Boston area, if you know of a good studio to go let me know.

[Smithcok]

I PM'ed you RAD. Let me know what you think.

[Tarktones]

I'm gonna assume he's probably confused or full of it. I don't care what standards any engineer thinks your project should follow; if it sounds bad make them re-do it or find someone else.

[Ed Belknap]

Perhaps I should rethink if I really want these people to master for me...

Gee, ya think? :)

Really seems like this dweeb read something in a music rag about doing fade-ins and took it way too literally. Perhaps he's confusing "industry standard" with "my DAW defaults to 0.2 seconds and I don't know how to change that parameter!"



I'm on a budget and I don't know where else I could hire someone to mix and master this without spending 1000's. I'm in the Boston area, if you know of a good studio to go let me know.

call Jeff Lippman at Peerless Mastering. No, he won't be the cheapest guy in town (not by a long shot) but he may very well be the best. At the very least, Jeff can set you straight about what an "industry standard" is. And when you should use it.