What is Mastering?
At the mastering stage, I "doublecheck" what was done at the mixing stage, polish the audio and prepare the first CD that all the others are made from. Sometimes you can get too close to a project, and can't see (hear) what the problems are.
If you have ever written something for school and thought it was
great, and then got it back all marked up showing the mistakes,
you know why sending your project out for mastering is important. I can fix many problems, make the songs sound like they belong together, and produce a master that will stand up with your favorite CDs.
Audio Mastering is the art/science of assembling individual songs into a cohesive album. ALL commercial releases are Mastered. The steps taken and/or tools used in mastering vary from project to project, but in general can include:
1. Noise Reduction, including click and pop removal.
2. EQ
3. M/S manipulation
4. Multiband Compression
5. Sidechain/Bandpass Compression
6. Overall Compression
7. Limiting
8. Dithering (always)
9. Relative Level adjustments between songs
10. Fade ins/outs
11. Track Spacing
12. Input of PQ codes (see below)
Some of the things Mastering can NOT do are:
1. Remove Distortion in individual tracks or the mixdown
2. Remove excess reverb or effects
3. Change the left/right location of one instrument in the mix
4. Turn a bad recording into a good one
"Loudness"
CD Mastering at The Digital Sunspot will bring your project to
commercially available CD standards, like any CD you purchase at a
store. If you are looking for "A Loud CD", we will do that for
you. Just send an example track from a CD you like the volume of,
and I'll match it as closely as possible. You can think of a
song like a grass lawn. The blades of grass are like the
dynamics in a song. Making a song "loud" is like "cutting the
grass". You remove the peaks/tops of the grass/waveform.
The louder the song is, the shorter you cut the grass. Bumpy,
uneven ground is an off balance mix, and sticks and stones are
distortion. If the ground is bumpy and/or has sticks or stones on
it, you can't "cut the grass" very short without hitting the ground
or revealing the sticks and stones. If a mix is uneven,
over-processed or has distortion, you can't make it "loud" without
revealing the problems. The problems only appear when you make it
loud (cut the grass). Here is a good
audio/visual interpretation about what "making a song loud"
sacrifices.
Matt Mayfield's Loudness War video
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