What is Mastering?
Mastering is all about making your music the very best it can be. A talented mastering engineer can make average mixes sound good and good mixes sound outstanding. Mastering should enhance the artist's creative and sonic vision and polish the individual tracks into a cohesive and exciting unity which will sound great on a variety of playback systems. A mastering engineer should never have a style which will be imposed on every project, but should understand and respect different styles of music and what is appropriate for that genre. The music should always dictate the process, with the credo "do no harm" always in mind. Therefore, a sensitive mastering engineer knows which tools to use, how far to go and when to stop. The benefits of utilizing a fresh set of objective, educated ears and high-quality specialized tools cannot be overstated.
Mastering includes:
Note: Although CDs were often the final goal of the mastering process, creating mastered files for download or streaming is often the target today, either along with a CD, or without. If a physical CD is desired, the process can be as simple as burning a CD master for small-scale duplication, or creating fully-professional DDP disc images for larger-scale replication including:
Mastering is all about making your music the very best it can be. A talented mastering engineer can make average mixes sound good and good mixes sound outstanding. Mastering should enhance the artist's creative and sonic vision and polish the individual tracks into a cohesive and exciting unity which will sound great on a variety of playback systems. A mastering engineer should never have a style which will be imposed on every project, but should understand and respect different styles of music and what is appropriate for that genre. The music should always dictate the process, with the credo "do no harm" always in mind. Therefore, a sensitive mastering engineer knows which tools to use, how far to go and when to stop. The benefits of utilizing a fresh set of objective, educated ears and high-quality specialized tools cannot be overstated.
Mastering includes:
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Transferring of material to the Digital Audio Workstation. |
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Recognizing and exploiting any opportunities to improve a mix. |
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Dealing with problems such as excess sibilance, unwanted noises, clicks or distortion. |
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Equalization for sonic balance, clarity and consistency between tracks. |
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Dynamics control (Compression/Limiting) for punch, excitement and competitive levels. (See discussion of the "Loudness Wars" in the Links section). |
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Sequencing (song-order) with adjustment of in/out fades and space between tracks. |
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Dithering to final 16-bit Master and Sample Rate Conversion, if necessary. |
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Burning a Reference Audio CD(s) for final approval before masters are created. |
Note: Although CDs were often the final goal of the mastering process, creating mastered files for download or streaming is often the target today, either along with a CD, or without. If a physical CD is desired, the process can be as simple as burning a CD master for small-scale duplication, or creating fully-professional DDP disc images for larger-scale replication including:
| Creation of PQ Code Log for replication plant. |
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| Creation of ISRC codes, UPC/EAN codes and/or CD-Text, as desired. (See Codes in the FAQ section). |
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| Creation of a DDP Image (Disc Description Protocol) file as a Duplication Master for the replication plant. (See DDP Image in the FAQ section). |
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| Creation of Redbook (Audio) CDs from DDP Image (Master, Safety and Reference copies). |
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| Listening down to a Redbook CD Master for a final Confidence Check. |
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