CHAPTER 15
Starting a Mastering Studio as a Business
For those of you who love audio mastering, at some point you must decide whether you want to make it into a career. There’s your love for the art, and then there’s the risk of starting a business. You face competition, considerable startup costs, and many other challenges. This chapter focuses on the things you must consider while making this important decision. I’ll start with the tough challenges that new studios must face and end on a high note with the benefits of opening a new mastering studio. I won’t be covering luck, although a bit of it is needed as well.
Challenges Faced by New Mastering Studios
For anyone considering opening a mastering studio, a careful decision lies ahead. It’s something that takes serious time and investment. As with anything, it requires sacrifices that can change the course of your life. Also, there are several challenges faced by new mastering studios.
Entrenched Competitors
Competition is something every entrepreneur must consider, and with mastering, there are a few special considerations. The established studios have entrenched relationships with the major labels. The most well-known mastering studios, including Sterling Sound, Masterdisk, Gateway Mastering, and Bernie Grundman Mastering, among others, have spent decades consistently proving their abilities and honing the skills of mastering. Such studios are focusing even more on independent artists, making it possible for anyone to obtain their services. Also, many engineers who work for the biggest studios leave and start their own separate, highly respected studios. In mastering, the competition is heavy and well entrenched.
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Mastering
New mastering studios market their services to independents and home/project studios. With mastering software such as iZotope’s Ozone, which contains decent tools at a low price, customers that otherwise would visit a new studio with a low price often choose to spend their money on software to perform their own low-budget mastering. Low-budget tools are accessible by a group that is very do-it-yourself-minded to begin with.
Customer-Service Challenges
Perhaps the most unforeseeable challenge for new mastering studios is the customers. During the first 10 years in business, the challenge of customer service is intense. Despite the information out there, clients usually do not know the basics of mastering. Many clients expect more than what’s possible in mastering, and when they are presented with their masters, they will have additional, often impossible requests. Charging more for additional requests reduces competitiveness. Customer satisfaction is often low as new mastering studios work toward honing their abilities and dealing with bad mixes. As one Chicago mastering engineer once put it, “I had to ruin a lot of albums before getting to this point,” and surely many albums were ruined before they ever got to him.
False Advertising and Scams
Widespread false advertising and outright scams are a big issue in mastering right now. It is commonplace for new mastering studios to falsify their gear lists, claim fake awards, and make false claims about working with major labels. They launch a stellar website, list major labels, sometimes add some stock photos (or no photos), and they are in business. In large part this may be due to the difficulty of starting a legitimate studio. This climate has led to a distaste for mastering because of the misleading experiences many customers have had. After a disappointment, dissatisfied customers usually seek out one of the big studios or just perform DIY mastering themselves.
Album Sales at All-Time Low
Another significant challenge is that albums are selling less and less. Today’s climate for the recording industry is tough—only 1,215 albums sold over 10,000 units in the United States in 2010.
Nonscalable
Mastering as a business model is not scalable. This makes it uninteresting to the vast majority of entrepreneurs. Mastering studios are usually started by a single individual who enjoys mastering or companies somehow related to the field. New mastering studio owners usually have some existing connection to the music industry that will afford them opportunities while getting started. If business is your passion, something scalable is more likely to provide success than starting a mastering studio.
Low Growth Rate
The projected growth rate is a consideration when entrepreneurs evaluate a business model. Few would disagree that the growth rate in this industry is low and that the business cycle for mastering is in a plateau stage that is likely to remain unless a technological shift occurs. This plateau has been reached after some years of declining from the peak.
High Startup Cost
The startup cost of a truly competitive mastering studio is relatively high because the acoustic environment is of prime importance and requires costly structural modification or specialized architecture. Also, the cost of analog processing equipment is significant. Although a few less-expensive digital plug-ins are truly mastering-grade, analog equipment still offers many highly demanded, unequaled strengths.
No Points
Unlike some positions in music production, mastering engineers almost never receive percentage points on album sales.
Limited Scope
Mastering as a service is usually respected only if it is the sole concentration of a business. Therefore, having a successful mastering business usually means being limited in scope.
Legal Disclaimers/Limited Liability
In almost every area of business, liability should be limited for possible damages. The biggest risk in mastering is that a large quantity of discs may be pressed that contain an error. Quality control is key in preventing this problem. Also, a second level of protection is provided if a mastering studio requires its clients to check the final medium before sending it for replication/duplication. The MD5 checksum that is possible with DDP exporting is a great way to limit the liability if an error is introduced at the manufacturing stage. Keep in mind that there is no substitute for consulting a lawyer to discuss limiting liability with any kind of business.
Benefits of Starting a Mastering Studio
While the challenges are tough, there are several benefits to starting a mastering studio.
Talent in Practice
Possibly the greatest benefit to starting a mastering studio is for those who are naturally talented in mastering. As the practice of law or medicine might allow someone to express his or her natural talent for those professions, mastering studios afford individuals the opportunity to practice their talent for mastering.
Marketing Without Limitation
One of the greatest benefits of starting a mastering studio is the ability to market worldwide. Audio recording and mixing services usually require more subjectivity and the physical presence of everyone involved. Because of this, recording and mixing services are more suited for local markets. Far too often, new tracking and mixing engineers overestimate their ability to compete with established studios in their local markets. With the low cost of recording and mixing gear, the challenge is tremendous. Instead, mastering is less subjective than tracking and mixing and may be best without the client present.
Surge of Independent Artists
With the rise of independent music, there are more people seeking mastering services for the first time.
Shorter Projects
Compared with audio tracking and mixing projects, which can stretch from weeks to years, mastering projects are very short term, lasting for hours and, at most, weeks.
Less Band Politics
Tracking and mixing sessions can include a deluge of requests and issues. With mastering, there is usually less to discuss.
Local Attended Sessions
If a studio is opened in an area where there are no local mastering studios, the local market may provide an opportunity. Some local clients may prefer attended sessions and would like to avoid travel.
Being a Sole Proprietor
Because mastering engineers are frequently sole proprietors, there is a freedom in working for yourself, especially for individuals who function better independently than in groups.
Rising to the Challenge
Who is best suited for rising to the challenge of a career in audio mastering? The best mastering engineers are patient, great at communicating with clients, naturally dedicated to audio engineering, and willing to narrow their scope to mastering. While rising to the challenge of starting a mastering studio isn’t for everyone, there are some things that can help along the way.
Seek an Internship
One of the best ways to get into mastering is through an internship with a respected engineer. Such an internship is a perfect opportunity for understanding the process and can help to jump-start a career. Internships should be taken very seriously.
Take a Course
Berklee College of Music in Boston offers an online audio mastering course called Audio Mastering Techniques.
Collect Resources
Read books, forums, and blogs. Watch videos and listen to podcasts. In Appendix B you will find a comprehensive list of mastering resources.
Learn Aggressively
Dedicate yourself to learning. Maintain a collection of all the mastering resources, explore everything, take the course, meet people, practice the techniques, continuously study this book, and do everything within your power to learn.
Learn About the Legends
There are many people who have devoted their lives to this work. Learning about them provides valuable lessons.
Add Mastering Services to an Existing Studio
Existing recording studios may be open to starting a mastering studio that is attached to their brand. This can be a great way to get started with a steady customer base. The prestige of the existing studio will be passed to you, and some customers will still seek your services in the event that you separate from the studio.
Leverage Existing Opportunities
It is important to think creatively about opportunities. If you live in a cultural center such as New York or Los Angeles, then you may be in close proximity to great studios and could more easily obtain an internship with a legendary engineer. If you live in a city that has a flourishing music culture but does not have a local mastering studio, you may be in luck. If you have family members or friends who are in the music industry, they may be able to help obtain notable work, improving the impact of your client list.
Reach New Markets
You must find a way to reach new markets. In mastering, word of mouth is very important, so doing great work for someone in a new market may be the very best way to connect.
Visit the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), Join the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and Grammy Recording Academy
Joining the AES and Grammy Recording Academy is a great way to get started. Attending NAMM, the AES Convention, and your local Grammy chapter meetings can help to network nationally and internationally.
Working for Notable Acts
People often equate the skill of an engineer with the popularity of his or her previous clients. This means that it is important to have a strategy for getting notable work. These kinds of opportunities are usually unique to the individual.
Insure Your Studio
Anything can happen. Some insurance companies such as Capital-Bauer and MusicPro Insurance specialize in studio insurance.
Hiring Interns
Some mastering studios receive the help of interns from local universities. Some mastering studios find the challenge of working with interns to outweigh the benefit. Internship programs may work best when training is optimized by a system where interns train interns; however, a string of unmotivated individuals can halt the system.
Other Opportunities
There are opportunities related to mastering that one also might take into account while considering a new mastering studio.
Opportunities for Audio Forensics
Some engineers, when starting out in mastering, plan on providing audio forensic or other audio services to legal professionals. Generally, if there is audio evidence in a legal case, it cannot be presented to a jury in an altered way without the testimony of an expert. Legal requirements for someone being an expert are usually quite high, and the person’s qualifications will be thoroughly scrutinized and subjected to cross-examination. Today, the New York Institute of Forensic Audio is the only certifying agency for such experts.
Consider Related Fields
When examining this area for career opportunities, you also might consider working with a business-to-business model by serving a market of audio mastering engineers. Digital signal processing (DSP) programming/algorithm design and analog circuit design or repair are two areas that may provide more stability and career options than providing audio mastering services. It’s all about personality and interests.