Hi all.
I have some pretty good stuff in my home studio, but in order to compare what a professional mastering can do with a mix, I was thinking of hiring one of these online-mastering studios. Usually they charge about 70-100 dollars/song.
Anyone has experience of this? Good companys, tips, all suggestions are welcome !

//Staffay

Some of them are good Staffy. Ask to see a client list and their mastering credits to make sure they have experience and aren't someone who has just started 'home mastering'. Also a look at their mastering gear should give a good indication. A pro end mastering set up will use pro end gear such as Cranesong, Lavery, Weiss and so on. 'Home' will offer hardware that is much more based on standard mixing/recording, some may not have any hardware at all but only use software plug-ins.

If you want to get into mastering then I'd recommend that you find and read Bob Katz book on the subject. It's pretty much THE bible for mastering.

Hmm I don't have any experiences with online mastering , but I'm really interested in who does the job well and how much they charge!

The Bob Katz book is very nice, indeed. It can be a bit hard to understand it first, but then you see that everything depends on everything, and you get the "golden rules" in your head very soon

See these links:

Fabrika 13
Amsterdam Mastering

The first one- Fabrika,i have heard that it is the best in the Balkan region.
Amsterdam M is the recommendation of some other studies in Belgrade. I would say that both have good conditions and good prices !

Wow thanks for info Sinisa! Both studios have cool artists lists and prices are okay... Maybe we'll try them out for the next album!

Sound on Sound did a review of these a couple of years ago - maybe a little out of date but some good stuff in there.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar06/arti...nemastering.htm

Thanks Andrew - nice article form SoS as usual .

Couple of things in relation to it. As I recall SoS never really indicated how involved they were in the process. By this I mean how much they actually sat and discussed with the ME what they wanted, nor provided a comparison track nor were present during the process. Basically if you don't get involved don't expect the ME to be a mind reader .

Second bit, nice to see the comment about the need to level-match for comparisons. There are zillions of stories from MEs about clients who say the mastered track sounds 'worse' because the ME has taken the levels down to appropriate levels. Too many people record too hot and too many people have gotten used to recordings that are presented too loud .

Bit of an odd comment about Metropolis where you can add ISRC codes. Would have thought any ME would ask you to supply them or at least the info so that they can fill it in before starting work. Mastering isn't just about getting the sound right, its also about making sure the master is cd print/glass ready. Red book sort of springs to mind...

This is great info guys, thanks a lot!

I will definitely ask around on the topic, it may be very practical to send flat mixes to abroad pro mastering studio

Thanx all Guys for the valueable input ! Exactly what I was hoping for !!!
I will check out all the links and report back, when I have tested some services.

//Staffay

I've been wanting to look into this as well
Thanks for the links and info

John Vestman is AWESOME! I bet you've already heard a bunch of his work - find a list of clients on his website.

Here are his rates:

http://www.vestmanmastering.com/rates.html

You'll save money by choosing the "Staff Engineer" option. Which means that Mr. Vestman himself won't do the work. But I'm willing to bet that his hiring standards are very high. He also has tons of amazing analog gear. I got to meet him at NAMM and he was very personable. You should consider contacting him.

Thanks!
I'll look into this as well

Thanks for the info Kepler, I'll check that link!

Thanks for Fabrika links Sinisa.
This seams very practical thing to do!