Mastering

Mastering audio or music is the process of getting your tracks ready for the world, a final check and a little polish so they are ready for the mediums on which they will be presented, whether vinyl or streaming service.

• Why do I need my tracks mastered? They sound pretty good already!

That is a very good question and one you should definitely ask. It is possible for anyone, with the help of Youtube and a few plugins (Ozone stand up) to get reasonable results and if that is what you need for your music, then that is fine. However, Mastering is a very nuanced thing and it is dealing with (hopefully) the minutae of your tracks. If you are putting together a collection of songs, its about finding the commonalities between them, such as dynamics, frequencies and volume, so that it sounds like a cohesive body of work and comparable with other music in its genre (or not of thats the case)

• A good mastering engineer will take the time to understand what you have made, and where you want it to go. They will listen critically to the mix and tell you if it is ready for mastering, or whether you need to go back into the mix and fix anything. They will offer constructive feedback and use that feedback to work on your tracks.

 • A great mastering engineer will be using great monitors and a treated room to hear the tiniest details that maybe even you haven't heard. They will have listened to more music than you could dream of and will use that knowledge to analyse your tracks and make any adjustments they deem necessary to create a cohesive collection of songs.

• A brilliant mastering engineer will understand where your tracks are going and make sure their masters are at an optimal level for the medium your are putting it on, ie, vinyl or streaming services (or even cassette!) if necessary creating separate masters for each. They will also embed IRSC codes, clearly label tracks and can even create different file formats depending on the deliverables requested, will give you a clear timeline of when the work will take place and how many revisions they will give you. Avoid any mastering engineer who doesn't offer you all these things.

• Lastly, why should you use a mastering engineer and not an online mastering service? Well, you can do what you want. You might send it to Landr and get a good result on some tunes, but, in my humble opinion, if you are serious about your music competing with the music your hear on the radio or wherever, you need build a relationship with an engineer who understands what you want, understands where your music is going and will take the time to invest in your art. Its those things that machine learning can't learn, but what an amazing Mastering Engineer does.