I'd like to talk about objectivity in mastering. It sounds like its a very personal process, and that your role is far beyond fixing technical things. Given this I assume that mastering is not objective at all - you are adding your personal filter to the music - what are your thoughts on this?

I think it hardly can be objective at all. In no regard. There are elements to the mastering which are outside of your own consideration, but still dependent on your own experience. For example, if you master an album, it is important that you set the levels in a manner that the listener will not have to change the level whilst enjoying the album. I always advise my clients to listen to the whole album once, on the borderline to disturbing their neighbours, and see if there is any track where you would immediately want to lower the levels. Then listen to the whole album again at the very low end of attention or perception, and see if there is any track where you spontaneously want to pump it up. So you could say that's some objective measurement, but at the end of the day it still depends on your experience and theyou have whilst listening to the music.

objectivity

Some might focus on the voice, and others might focus on the kick-drum. And so their perception of an even level throughout the album might be different. It depends on the complexity of the music and your selection form that complexity, so even these parameters can't really be objective. You could want that it, and you could think that is objective, but then again what is 'sound good'? You know, even with the same piece, different people might select different elements of prominence. Some are totally happy with the snare carrying the track, while others are really intrigued by how shy this one element in the background is in relation to all the other elements in the track. Objectively you can say that this piece will be more dependent on spatial parameters than that piece, because the frequency-distribution is more even, so it will be not as much affected by any room resonance as the other one which has one very strong and prominent resonance in that tonal element around 120Hz, and whenever a room matches this, we'll get into trouble. You could say that there's an objective to aim for an, but then again, that might not be musically right. Because some song might need that totally exaggerated low mid peak which doessound even at all, and then it would be a miss-achievement of the mastering if it would attempt to get rid of it completely.

You would say objectively speaking this or that will not sound good on all hi-fi systems. I don't think that this should be the only reference for mastering - to make music sound reliably represented on all sound systems. If that blurs the character of the music beyond the intention of the artist, then I say its a miss-achievement.

Though my mastering approach is probably very much dependent on my personal experience, I still feel like my mastering efforts are very much apart from taste. I don't feel like: "I really like that or I really don't like that" - I always see the piece as an entityof me. I feel what is right for the piece or what is wrong for the piece, and customers will have to rely on that. Of course, I will discuss what I feel, but it will be my personal judgement at the end of the day. Does the music address me in a way I can receive it? Yes or no? Does it it address me in a way Ito receive it? Yes or No? That's the questions, and that needs to be subjective.