Tommi Orchards by PVII

Mastering

What is mastering?

Mastering an album is an art, like everything else associated with music & recording - it's the final step in album creation, and every album gains from having undergone it to one degree or another. Mastering is about album consistency and sound quality that doesn't vary from track to track. Tonal balance, fade in's and fade out's, sequencing, noise problems.... all of these things are dealt with during mastering. Frequency analysis and correction, noise reduction, compression, expansion and equalization (EQ) are just a few of the techniques used to provide the quality heard on every major record label's commerical recordings.

In the recording studio, you record one song at a time, and the focus of the recording or mixing engineer is to make each song great. The result, however, is generally a collection of songs that all peak at different levels and may have different EQs. In the mastering stage the aim is to unify the CD by using EQ, compression, and other dynamics processing to give it a consistent sound from track to track.

A fresh pair of ears can be the difference between a good-sounding CD and a great one. A real advantage of mastering is that as unbiased sound professionals we have the opportunity to evaluate your mix and determine how to get the most out of your production. After you've spent weeks or even months in a recording studio listening to your CD over and over again, a fresh pair of ears can put the project into perspective for you and let you know whether or not your CD will benefit from post production. After all, you only have one chance to make your music sound its best - the choice is up to you.

There are many factors for the mastering engineer to consider when preparing to assemble and master an album, such as:

  • The musical style of the material in relation to other albums of its genre, especially in terms of the existing expectations of listeners of that genre
  • The quality of the finished studio tracks
  • Overall tonal uniformity of the individual tracks
  • Individual track dynamics
  • Which instruments/voices are driving the dynamics of the individual tracks
  • The final distribution media (tape, CD etc.)

If you are not mastering your recording, you are leaving out what could be a crucial step in the making of your CD, mastering can make a huge difference in the competitiveness and musical value of your product. Your master will be the template for hundreds or maybe thousands of your CDs to be produced for commercial release. Mastering enables your recording to faithfully reproduce your vision, making it the most musical and commercially competitive it can be, and bridging the technological gap between the artist's recording equipment and the listener's stereo system.

Steps to take to make a great mix a great master

With the march of technology, affordable recording and mixing equipment is in reach of the average musician and it's easier now to produce a quality recording in a home studio. Along with this advance however, it seems that musicians are being forced into becoming engineers & producers overnight. Unfortunately not all will succeed, as the best quality recordings are produced by experienced musical and engineering talent, with proper studio acoustics and a critical listening environment.

You should always strive to make a recording with the following:

* clear vocals
* well-defined bass and bass drum
* dimensionality, depth, space
* punch, impact, danceability

If this seems a tall order, does this mean that you cannot make a hit?, no - but it does mean that you have to be aware of your limitations; as you know, good music is not produced in a vacuum, but with the collaboration of many talented people. Mixing and mastering should ideally be performed by different specialists working in dedicated environments.

If you have already begun a mix but are having problems with some area, then we can start with your mix and improve it, or maybe begin again with another approach that better suits your music. Obviously, if your tracks are not well recorded, or the musical performance doesn't have the groove to begin with, then even the most talented mixer in the world will not be able to make it sing and swing.

If you have decided to have your mixes mastered, please follow these points to make the mastering engineers job easier (it will cost you less too!).

Please remember:

  • Before the Mastering Session, communicate your aims
    Each type of music requires a different approach. Often you may find it difficult to communicate what you are looking for in words, so you are welcome to suggest a CD of similar music that appeals to you. If you cannot be at the mastering session, we will make a special effort to understand what your music is communicating. As all mixes are different, we do not "automatically" equalize and certainly we will not just slap your music through a Finalizer (we have one but hardly use it).
  • Collect all the mixes in one folder
    Name or rename them by the names of the songs. If you know the order the songs will appear on the final CD, then include this number as part of the file name, e.g. 01 First Song, 02 Second Song etc.
  • Maximum Length
    The final CD master, including songs, and spaces between songs, must not exceed 79:38 minutes.
  • Send the Raw Original
    Editing is like carving, you can easily remove stuff, but you can't restore what's been chopped off! Whilst it's a good idea to test fade-ins and fade-outs and song order, please don't send the faded material, it's much better to supply the "raw" unfaded material . Leave all the decay you can on guitar tails/cymbals etc; there is less chance of missing something important. Start the songs *not* at zero but one or two seconds into the file please and end a couple of seconds after the end fade is completely gone.
  • Always mix to 24 bit files
    Even if the source tracks are 16-bit! Do not sample rate convert, send us CDR's or DVD-Rs with 24-bit WAV or AIFF files for us to master.
  • Use the source, Luke
    If at all possible, deliver a copy that is as close to the original as possible. If using CD's, then cut a CDR directly from your hard disk files - not a music CD. Try to use good quality CDR's, and burn the disk at a slow speed, say 4X to 8X speed, but no faster.
  • We are not making Jam you know...
    Please, please - DO NOT USE PAPER LABELS. Stick-on paper labels may look nice, but they increase error by altering the rotational speed of the disk, especially at fast speeds greater than 2X, CDRs that have paper labels are prone to glitches. Write on the disk label side directly with a *soft* felt tip pen - do *not* use a ballpoint pen (you will be able to read your title on both sides if you do!).