[Barry Johns]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Mastering isn't a software/hardware thing. It is going to another room (not the one where the stuff has been mixed) and consulting another pair of fresh ears that haven't heard of the material until the mastering session takes place. If the second opinion is "I wouldn't change a thing" that would be perfect.

I completely agree with you and always do it this way. That being said, there are a huge number of DAW users out there that need to do it by themselves, due to financial issues, lack of relationships with other enthusiast, etc. For those folks, what's the harm.

Even when I was at the beginning stages of my recording obsession, I always felt the desire to hand my recordings off to others that I trusted just to experience what they heard in the mix and how they felt the right approach to mastering.

I reckoned doing this for both mixing and mastering. Today, it's easy to do it from across the world. If you're. It worried about rights infringement, like many home enthusiast, why not send a session to a friend and see what mix they come up with or how they master?

Collaboration is a great thing in music. Obvious if someone is doing serious work meant for distribution what I just said is a no no.