Mastering
What is Mastering?
Mastering is the last step in the recording process. It is where your finished mixed tracks are conformed together to make an album. The tracks a sonically brought together to aurally move the album from track to track.
What do I benefit from Mastering?
Mastering may bring out sonic characteristics that you may not have heard before. It will bring your tracks to CD standards and allow you mix to match what other artists are doing.
What file formats give the best quality for Mastering?
The best quality product comes from stereo WAV files that are at a sample rate of 44.1lHz and a bit depth of 24 bits.
Tips to consider before Mastering:
- Don't bring your mastering engineer unfinished mixes. The engineer doesn't do mixing during the mastering process. This may seem like a no brainer, but there have been times where people ask to have single tracks brought up during mastering. The engineer can't make your stereo mixes go back to multitrack.
- Be aware if you use a compressor/limiter on your master output of your mixes, as this will limit your dynamic information. Not using a compressor/limiter will let your engineer bring your mix up to standards while trying to preserve it's dynamic range.
- Leave enough head room for you mastering engineer to work with. If you are working in the digital mixing realm, it may be a good idea to bring your mix down 5 or 6 dB. If you leave no headroom, then your engineer will have no space to enhance your mix without the risk of artifacts or distortion.
Mastering rates start at $75/hour.
For blocked time prices contact our Mastering Engineer.