Some Things About Mastering

Mastering is the final stage in the recording process. Mastering is usually performed using one of two kinds of source material: stereo mixes (the most common method) or stems. The following text details the process involved in mastering for CD release using stereo mixes. If you want to know more about mastering from stems, click here.

 Our approach to mastering includes five steps:

1. Evaluate your recordings, goals and reference material
2. Sonically polish each song to achieve its full potential
3. Assemble the album, including setting song spacing
4. Submit the first master for client review and changes
5. Generate the final master, perform quality assurance on that master and prepare paperwork for manufacturing

 Without a good professional master your music will sound different on all different sound systems, it may sound decent at home on your stereo but it may sound sloppy and dead in your car, with mastering you will find a cohesiveness with your newly mastered project on all systems and also on the local clubs sound system.

 Mastering is the process of optimizing your recording, the main goal of mastering is to make the overall loudness, compression, limiting, dynamics and frequency levels (bass, treble and mid range) match the volume and frequency levels of other professional recordings of similar style/arrangement and, more importantly, match each other. Also when looking for an original sound mastering can achieve a sound you never thought possible.

 You've recorded your songs and you have mixes but it's just not happenin' - you know your songs could sound better!

The problem could be one of a number of things or a combination of any of them. . .
Maybe you have recorded and mixed everything on the same gear, in the same room and the sound is too one dimensional.
Maybe the room you're working in is not well balanced and when you get your mixes home, they are too bass light or too boomy.
Maybe you need a set of impartial, experienced ears to analyze if the sonic landscape is too processed or not processed enough.