Not a problem with changing the direction of the thread. It is a long and winding road afterall .Action-Hank wrote:...Do you think we would benefit by taking another look at the mastering? It does sound better on a cd, through a hi-fi, than streamed from soundcloud to be honest.
Again, sorry for the hijack - I'm in 'learning mode' at the moment, and there have been some really interesting threads cropping up!
I definitely think that you'd get a ton better sound on the CD by having it mastered properly. Yes, it's expensive. You need a good studio / recording engineer in order to get the good takes done and a good mix engineer to both get a realsitic sounding and engaging compilation. These better studio guys can also actually keep costs down by knowing what to do and accomplishing it quickly. It's up to you to shut-up, work hard, and get done the takes they ask of you in a timely manner, which also saves you money as it's an hourly process. So good money up front to a good studio pays off if you go in with a purpose and come out on schedule with a great project.
Then a really good mastering engineer can make it a hit if it has that potential at all. otherwise, it's just wasted potential. It costs a lot of money to get a top mastering engineer to polish your project but it does come out way better. That's why many artists never really get a great mastering done until after they are signed. Some never do as think they know it all or they are simply too cheap. I've heard "It's the music that matters; sound quality is just fluff." comment more than once from artists who think they have it all figured out. They go back to their day jobs.