From Ohm to Om — The ZenMastering Blog

There’s a short zen story that I told my dad once…and he never seems to have forgotten it. It’s a parable about someone in a valley, to whom everything looks big. And someone on a mountain top, to whom everything looks small. In reality, there is no difference between what they see…just their perspective.

A few months back I posted saying ZenMastering would donate 10% of its gross income (until the end of 2008) to the American Red Cross. I take care of this at the end of each month, and as I was handling it this morning it reminded me of this zen story.

Everyone has problems they have to deal with, and a lot of times we focus on our own problems and forget to look at the big picture. I recently had a bad day and, as usual, overreacted to a pretty minor situation (in the scheme of things). However, when some people have bad days it’s really a life-changing event. They may face death, destruction…or losing everything due to natural and/ or political events around the world.

So, if you’ve ever considered donating money to a charity, I will reinfoce my earlier post and encourage you to lend a hand through the American Red Cross.

I’m mulling over something in my brain, which I’ve been co-mulling with a good friend: what’s more important, the price of something or its “brand value”? To clarify, is it more important that a product/service is priced very competitively (to compete in the global economy of widgets) or that it has brand value?

I will agree that price is important…but more for non-quality items. If someone is getting an oil change or a car wash, they’re likely to believe that one is as good as another so why pay more. But for products/services of value (real or self-ascribed), I think that the brand factors just as heavily into the equation.

Here’s my non-scientific proof: if people were solely concerned with price, how would/could a company like Starbucks ever come into existence…let alone flourish and dominate? The only answer is that their brand represents something beyond what their actual product is. Yes, they make excellent coffee…but that is NOT hard to do. It’s hard (or, not easy) to standardize over a large number of stores…but all that takes is the assembly line method of production to learn and perfect.

How about Coke or Pepsi? I mean, can’t someone just as easily make a good cola for less? Of course, but people have come to know that there is a standard they can expect from these companies.

I guess the ultimate expression of brand is Xerox. Once someone starts using your corporate name to describe a generic product or service…well, that’s pretty good. But, that still doesn’t mean you have guaranteed revenue.

I’m not sure what is more important. They’re probably both a consideration for lots of people. One thing I do know is that it’s harder than ever to start and run a successful business, as there is more competition than ever. But I don’t think that any business’s success is solely based on the price of their good or service.

I was piddlin’ around the Web today and found out that there’s a new headphone out there, co-collaboration of Monster (cable, not the employment service) and Dr. Dre. They’re being marked under the moniker Beats by Dre.

They look intriguing, and they seem to be targeted at the Bose market: good sound, active noise canceling, and comfortable. But they’re not anything I’d ever be interested in listening to music on as they seem to rely heavily on active equalization…which would drive me crazy.

BUT, for lots of other people they’re probably worth checking out. A bit pricey, but if they live up to the hype they could be a good investment.

People often ask me what I listen to. The short answer is “everything”. But the more detailed answer is that the stuff that really gets me excited is a rare combination of elements.

Great music is important. Without it, there’s nothing really worth listening to. But it has to be performed well. Great performances of excellent music is a special thing. Finally, though, a stellar recording of that combination is what I REALLY love to hear. When all of those elements are in place…well, there’s not much better.

And this takes a special combination of a great piece performed by the right person (a specialist in that genre, or group of specialists) and a great team of recording/mixing/mastering people to make sure it comes through with all the power that happened during the performance.

A lot of this is subjective. I can’t tell you what a great piece of music is. You need to decide for yourself. Then you need to seek out those pieces that were well perfomed and recorded. When you find them, though, that’s music worth hearing.

I was walking past someone cutting grass today and got a whiff of that grass-gasoline fragrance that I inhaled copiously in my youth. It’s that mixture of organic and apocalyptic that creates something unexplainably appealing.

Then it hit me…a truth so obvious I wondered how no one has yet acted upon it…

Grassoline

Surely, in this work-a-day world of cubicles and people paying big bucks to “get back to nature”, there’s a product (and profit) in this. Two-parts grass clippings, one-part gasoline fumes (rich oil mixture, per most lawn mowers), and one-part water (from the grass).

I’d better call Calvin Klein to see if Kate Moss is available for an ad campaign.

One of the things that differentiates ZenMastering from most other mastering studios is that we don’t offer “grades” of mastering. A lot of people/studios these days will offer everything from “premium” service all the way down to “one-pass” mastering. In my opinion this is bascially saying, “we’ll do anything to to get your money…regardless of how much or little you have, we’ll find a way to sell you a service.”

ZenMastering only offers one kind of mastering: world-class. We have some of the best equipment around, and a mastering engineer who is experienced and well-regarded in the professional audio community. Our mastering is based on the premises of the best-known mastering facilities in the world. That is, excellent acoustics, sonics, and processing — coupled with knowledge and experience — produce solid results.

As a business owner, it’s important to make money…and a profit. Otherwise, there’d be no business. But I’d sooner close ZenMastering down than offer one-size-fits-all work. It doesn’t serve the client nor the music.

ZenMastering upgrades infrastructure, lends a hand, and wins key mastering account
Wednesday July 23, 5:00 pm PT

POWAY — ZenMastering said its second-quarter mastering surpassed industry expectations. Sound quality remained the key focus, and customer satisfaction was high.

The San Diego-based mastering facility upgraded its monitoring system to Lipinski L-707s, improving upon its already excellent reputation for quality.

It also announced a 10% donation of gross revenue for the remainder of 2008 to the American Red Cross, assisting those affected by the severe natural disasters around the world.

The quarter was rounded out by mastering James Sonefeld’s (drummer, Hootie & the Blowfish) debut solo album, Snowman Melting. (Aquarian Nation Records)

In a fictitious interview held at ZenMastering’s worldwide headquarters, owner Paul Abbott stated “I’m proud of our accompishments over the past few months. We kicked ass, took names and — above all — did some work anyone would be happy with.”

Things I often hear…
“Can you make it as loud as [xyz]?”
“Smash it.”
“Is that as loud as it can get?”

Things I don’t often hear…
“Make it warmer sounding.”
“Make it clearer.”
“Make it sound fatter.”

Sometimes I can tell – almost immediately – if a client (or, potential client) is going to turn out to crash and burn. But, as a business owner offering a service, all I can do is be of assistance and try to facilitate their product to the best of my ability. Last week I got an e-mail from someone describing their project (and need for mastering) as “urgent” and quickly made their way to “nonexistent” in the matter of just a few days.

Whenever someone contacts me with the questions “how fast?” and “how cheap?”, I can almost set my watch to a 3-5 day span before they end things with “we got a friend to master the album” or “we found someone cheaper”.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a friend master an album, or shopping around for the cheapest price. But neither of those scenarios is a recipe for success or professional results. We’re not talking about a car wash or oil change. We’re talking about mastering an album.

My advice to musicians is always to do your homework and get the best you can afford: whether it’s mics, processors, or mastering. It seems shortsighted to go through the process of making an album (and all the work required) to sabotage it in the end by getting “quick and dirty” mastering.

In the ongoing discussion/debate about why (or if) digital audio sounds different (worse, better…) than analog, one of the explanations that’s really made sense to me exists in an article by the late David Blackmer (of founder dbx and Earthworks) called The World Beyond 20kHz.

In a nutshell, David explains that there’s a lot of useful information that exists beyond the accepted human hearing threshold (20Hz to 20kHz…the brickwall cutoff of standard audio CDs) that’s important to the sonic realism of sound…even if we only perceive a bit of it.

It’s a worthwhile read, so check it out.