- What is mastering?

 Mastering is a complex process and too broad for this website to explain in detail, so we’ll discuss mastering as it pertains to Guest House Studios.  Additional information can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_mastering#Process 

http://www.massivemastering.com/

Mastering is the process of preparing and transferring your songs from a final mix to a source (usually a CD) for duplication and distribution.  The primary objectives of mastering are to:

(1)   Improve the sound quality (“add shine and sheen) of the songs.

(2)   Choose the order of the songs as they will appear on the CD

(3)   Determine the “silent spaces” between songs, fade-in/fade-outs, etc

(4)   Ensure all songs on the CD have the same relative volume level

(5)   Ensure all songs sound good in various environments (i.e., night club, car, home, outdoors, etc) on various media (i.e., quality stereo, boombox, mp3 player, computer speakers, etc)

(6)   Incorporate industry standard codes on the CD, including Red Book standard

 Also, mastering is a mix of technical and artistic processes.  From a technical perspective, a mastering engineer edits minor flaws, reduces or eliminates noise, adds ambience, equalizes the level and feel of the songs as one compilation, to name a few.

 From an artistic perspective, the mastering engineer improves the overall quality of the songs themselves and to ensure the CD compilation sounds good in various environments on various media (as outlined above). The mastering engineer also determines the song order to ensure the songs flow and complement each other. 

 After leaving the recording and mixing phases, your songs are mixed down to stereo WAV format and burned to a CD. The “mix down” or “final mix” are pretty good quality recordings at this point, but the songs have not yet been compiled onto a CD into any kind of order or any leveling done between the songs on the CD.  If you played the final mix CD from the recording studio you may notice that the songs:

(1)   are not in the order that you would like them,

(2)   are not as loud as the radio versions of songs

(3)   volume level varies between songs

This is where mastering comes in. Once again, the CD that comes straight out from the recording process may be good enough for short-run CDs for demo purposes, with some minor improvements, but not for anything more than that.  “Express mastering” applies some last-minute touches and improvements (i.e., some EQ here, some EQ there, sequence the songs, apply a limiter to level the volume throughout the entire CD, etc) to your CD that provides an excellent product for promotional, gigging, and local sales purposes.

Full-service mastering requires special studio equipment ($100,000 in equipment is not unheard of) and experienced mastering engineers to ensure your hard work sounds good no matter what it’s played on.  The mastering studio bridges the recording studio to the duplication and distribution company/companies.  The duplication and distribution companies have the capability to mass produce (thousands; millions if you need it) copies of your CD with the goal to sell them in stores or online.

So, why is mastering so important you may ask?  First, mastering applies an independent set of ears to your hard work.  The mastering engineer can take an objective listen with a fresh set of ears to improve on the sound quality of your work. Second, the mastering studio has very expensive, specifically designed equipment to provide the highest quality mastering possible.  The equipment can catch the most intricate problems or flaws that many recording studios cannot always discover