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We never "mastered" demos (which normally ended up on MySpace or something) or "punk" recordings when we was doing our little label. Mix - > hard limit to the point you just hear it take effect and back it off a bit - > play in front room, if OK give to DJ to play at club night - >take notes - > remix -> Hard limit as before - > play on several devices and through a PA one more time - > burn 100CDRs.
It's only when we started pressing 500/1000 cds, had distro etc that we started paying for mastering, we just didn't have the ears/speakers/room to do it justice.
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All the stuff that makes a track sound good is in production and mixing techniques. Learning to make good decisions. Mastering is a technical process, literally the final half a percent that makes a great sounding track sound like a record (mostly meaning, aligning it with similar released music).
The tips here from Tarekith on mixdowns and mastering are worth a read:
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if i'm just sticking stuff up on soundcloud i should just concentrate on a balanced sounding mix on the setup i have?
Balanced, and making sure that the volume hits the same as your peers. Nothing stops people listening than a track that's too hot or too quiet. Start out ensuring you're peaking at
-0.10.3 db at the loudest points, and you're above -10db most of the rest of the time, and see how it lands for you.There is zero point mastering for soundcloud.
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Yukirin
Regal
ReekBlefs
@bigshape
so mastering really isn't worth it for the bedroom producer?
if i'm just sticking stuff up on soundcloud i should just concentrate on a balanced sounding mix on the setup i have?
i'm mostly writing stuff on headphones, then listening back to it through my small studio monitors and a couple of different speaker setups in the house.