Question about mastering and demo submissions

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The_G
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Question about mastering and demo submissions

Post by The_G »

I'm sure this has been asked/answered before, but since I'm still relatively new to the forum, bear with me.

When you send out demos to labels, do you usually send them unmastered or mastered tracks? Or are there specific contexts in which you do one or the other?

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[wesellboxes]
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Re: Question about mastering and demo submissions

Post by [wesellboxes] »

Loads of conflicting advice on this. I'm been told labels want a finished article these days and I've also been told they want unmastered versions because they may have a house style or for compilations.

If it's unsolicited and just fishing, personally I send out mastered versions. I want the highest quality rendition as possible out there and even if they can't do anything with the track, it's there for someone to DJ with or play on a podcast. Which has happened to me in the past. Unmastered versions are always going to be there should anyone need them.

The labels that seem to want unmastered versions appear to me more content aggregators than actual labels, have no style or regard for genre. Personally that's just ego publishing and I've no interest in releasing work on such a label. Though as of yet, I've not had anything signed :)

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Question about mastering and demo submissions

Post by Lost to the Void »

Any label that requires you to send mastered tracks for demo submission is a shit show not worth bothering with.

Any label worth bothering with will hear great tracks and take them in knowing that mastering is part of the final process that they will take care of. They will have a trusted engineer they use who understands the labels sound and their particular needs in terms of sonics.

It's that simple.
It's the difference between a "label" and a Label.

You may want to maximise them yourself just to get the levels up a touch purely for listening, but everyone has a volume knob, and of course we have a guide to doing home maximisation (which is not mastering) on this very forum.
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Monreal
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Re: Question about mastering and demo submissions

Post by Monreal »

I agree, all demos I've sent and accepted were unmastered -6dB tracks of mine.

The_G
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Re: Question about mastering and demo submissions

Post by The_G »

Thanks guys. This is all pretty new to me. Last time I submitted a demo to a techno label was like 10 years ago, and in that case the music is pretty meh anyway. Now I've got 2/3 songs done and am working on the 3rd, which I plan to send to small-ish/medium size-ish labels that do vinyl (mainly because I want the vinyl myself). Seems like it's a better idea, if picking one, to just send unmastered versions.

But does it make sense to send unmastered -6db peak versions *and* loudness maximized (i.e. "home mastered") versions?

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Question about mastering and demo submissions

Post by Lost to the Void »

Especially send premasters if they are vinyl labels, because they are going to require the pre`s to get the vinyl mastering done anyway, unless you feel generous and pay to get vinyl pre`s done for them.

As to your question about home mastered etc

again, not really necessary, some people lack confidence in their stuff and feel the need, but really not necessary.
If you produce to a decent consistent RMS level then you are good (-6db peak is an arbitrary number really, I mean, I tell people no higher than -3, but basically as long as there is headroom, you are good).

I pretty much produce (techno) consistently to around -12 rms, peaking to around -3 ish, and never have any issues with labels, for either vinyl or digital.
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