The last step of music production is mastering. A process where a (hopefully) skilled mastering engineer tries to improve a finished mix. Its like “photoshopping” for music

The main tools are technically the same as when you are mixing a song - only that in mixing you use these tools for the many sound sources and in mastering you put them on the whole finished mix.

My choice for mastering this album was Steffen Müller. A good old friend living in a little rural city called Viersen. He is also a musician and one of his earlier projects was Microwave Prince - he even did a redemption remix back in 1994… Today he concentrates on mastering and building his own gear - my 1176 clone was build by him as well.

The usual procedure was cutting the resonances with a digital EQ, enhancing some frequencies with his sontec and pultec clone EQs, thickening through an opto compressor, sometimes parallel compression with an 1176 (where i was riding the fader while recording… giving it more dynamic than usual), giving some “glue” with an ssl compressor clone and finally digitally limiting…

The fun thing was that he uses B&W 802 speakers for monitoring and he likes to work with a rather high volume

It was quite dark in there but that didnt harm the ability to listen to the music. The actual size of Steffen´s mastering studio isnt recognizeable in this photo. For instance the screen you see is a 30″ cinema display and the devices in front of Steffen are two rows of 19″ wide rack gear…

Here is a small snippet from song number 9 - BLINDING LIES - BEFORE mastering

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here is the same part as it will sound on the CD - AFTER mastering

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Its louder and more punchy but also has a bigger bass…

I am really happy to announce that THIRTEEN STORIES is the best sounding electronic record i was ever involved in

RMB was a techno/trance project from 1992 to about 2005. Most of the time it consisted of Farid Gharadjedaghi and me, Rolf Maier Bode. There were musical, economical and personal reasons to quit working together and i dont want to write about it in detail. I dont exactly know what Farid is doing now but one of his projects is mysoundconnection.de and i wish him success.

I was doing music before the succesful years of RMB (beside others confusingly enough under the names of RMB Trax and RMB) and i obviously didnt stop after RMB.

So once again - ROLF MAIER BODE is NOT the same as RMB!

Please allow me to concentrate on the future and my own music. I know that many fans of RMB are sad about the fact that this project is not producing music anymore but i hope that some of you like what i do on my own

everyone with a myspace account without his own music is invited to insert the new snippets from THIRTEEN STORIES into their profile

myspace.com/rolfmaierbode

with or without own music you are invited to a leave a comment if you like

THE PHYSICAL THIRTEEN STORIES CD IS SOLD OUT!

PLEASE BUY THE SONGS ONLINE @ iTunes:

WWW.ITUNES.COM/ROLFMAIERBODE

As i wrote in my second post here (May 2008) there was a first concept for this album. Originally i tried to find a topic that includes technology and creativity and wasnt used on any concept album i knew of. It should give me enough flexibility for very different styles but still be cohesive. I chosed architecture. The album should be about buildings. All different kinds of buildings. Then i added places to even have more possibilites. So i wrote some songs about different buildings and places and changed existing songs to fit into this concept. But i got stuck in the middle. Some Songs were cool this way and there is one song about silicon valley that even made it onto the final album but i was missing something with this concept…

The early concept wasnt leading me to emotional ideas but to rather “constructed” tracks… and i was in fear that this way the whole album might not be athmospheric enough for the future listener…

So i had a meeting with some good friends. We thought about what makes a musical piece a great song and which of these factors might already be in my music. From the point of view of the listener a great song should paint a picture and draw him (or her) into it. It should be a little world of its own to be discovered. It should be like a good novel. And we found that some of my songs actually achieved this. We all listetend to the songs again and we concentrated on just one question for each track: Is this song telling a story?

Thus the final concept was born. This album should be a collection of songs that are like little movies and should be produced with the associations of the listener in focus. I tried to find out what each track could evoke and then how this effect can be improved. Emotion and energy seemed to be the most important factors. Then i realized that these two factors always have been an important part of the “ROLF MAIER BODE sound”:  emotion and energy.    melody and beat.    heaven and hell   

Finally there was a concept that really made sense for my first full length “solo” album. Telling stories with music.

And so all songs grew and grew until they were having an emotional impact and were energetic enough to really catch me. I dont think that music is such a precise language that all listeners hear exactly what i had in my mind as i was writing and producing the songs. But it definitly helped me improving them and gave the whole album a cohesive touch. The concept of virtually telling stories with music worked for me. And if you like emotional but energetic music it should also work for you  

Yesterday most of the songs have been mastered each for its own by Steffen Müller… Today the album as a whole will get finely tuned… It will be the final day concerning the music… Artwork needs to be finished the next days though…

12.2.09.: The Final Day #2

The fine tuning was more work than we thought… like always

First there were two songs that sounded a bit harsh in comparison with the rest of the album an we decided to do them with “fresh ears” the next day… but i got the chance to listen to the 90% mastered album in a quiet minute from start to end and i thought that it should be softer in the soft parts - against the “loudness war” madness most of the “industry” is going through (if you dont know what i mean just search for “loudness war” in youtube) and so we increased the dynamics but kept the harder parts relativly loud and i am VERY pleased with the final sound

Today i will listen to the master again just to check it for burning errors or the like and send it to the pressing plant… The only thing missing now for production is the artwork which still is in the works but will be finished on the weekend… Due to the german “karneval” the first day i can start to mail cds is the first monday of march… thats a bit more than two weeks from now… with all the music being finished it seems rather long to me

Next week i will post how to order the cd in detail. You should from now on save all the money you might waste for food, drinks clothes and other unnecessary stuff to buy cds for each of your friends

There will be THIRTEEN songs on the album

here is a post to answer the question “how do i get the cd ?”

UPDATE: simply click the “ORDER ALBUM” button on my homepage and leave your email adress

www.rolfmaierbode.com

(edit: paypal will also be an option)

those who have entered their mail adresses here or personally wrote me a mail will get an email automatically.

i thought you might like to have a look into the studio i have been mixing several songs in… its the studio of two friends writing and producing advertising music under the name of AS MUSIC…

its really a nice place to work

AS MUSIC, Düsseldorf, Germany