DIY Mastering

Should you master your own music? Is there anything wrong with self mastering?

You absolutely can master your own music. But there's a catch, you need to make sure you have proper perspective. Here's what i mean. Have you ever mixed a song for hours and hours making tweak after tweak only to find out the next day the mix sounded ruined and not as you had originally thought? I have as have many others. This happens because we lose perspective over time and hearing the same thing over and over eventually begins to sound good after every tweak(we have lost perspective) . Perspective is one of the most important things to be able to correctly and objectively master a song. Its the whole reason music is sent to a mastering engineer as he has likely not heard the song at all or has not heard the mixing process. A mastering engineer has a clear perspective and will be completely unbiased in decision making.

Didn't i just say that you can absolutely master your own music? Yes i did and the catch is you must give your mind time to forget the mix process of the song. Only time will help you regain perspective. When i self master its usually a two week stretch of not listening to the song at hand and only listen to other music in that genre. When coming back to the song after two weeks (or whatever length you feel comfortable with) i definitely have a different perspective of the song and feel confident in making a proper master. Self mastering is time consuming for this reason, it takes time to regain perspective.

Sending your music to someone who is unfamiliar with it will usually yield better results but its definitely possible and doable to master your own music. Professional mix engineers always send their music out to a mastering engineer for this very reason. Its not that they don't know how to master but they want someone with a fresh perspective and dedicated monitoring environment to it for best result scenario ...