Master Your Tracks
Mastering is widely misunderstood, often mangled, and sometimes mistaken for mixing. So, what is mastering?
It's the audio step that comes just before manufacturing a CD. Some people would even say it's a crucial step. Once you have finished recording and mixing your songs, the tracks are shaped, sculpted, scooped, equalized, compressed, and finessed into sonic splendor through the audio process known as mastering. Mastering is what gives depth, punch, clarity and volume to your tracks. It is part science, part craft, and part alchemy. . . just like songwriting, singing, performing and recording.
A Reviewer and A&R Pro Speaks Out
Bernard Baur is a Review Editor and Feature Writer for Music Connection magazine, and in addition, serves as an independent A&R consultant. In all these capacities, he hears a lot of CDs every month. Does mastering matter to reviewers and A&R executives? "It can matter very much," Baur states. "When you get something that obviously isn't mastered, you wonder how aware the artist is of everything they should be doing. Those artists who are 'in the game' know that they almost always need to take their recordings to the next level, and that includes mastering."
While acknowledging that the song is still of primary importance, Baur notes that, all things being equal, it's the mastered track that will tend to get the most attention. "People at magazines as well as people at record labels have gotten used to hearing a polished and fully finished recording," Baur says. "Comparisons with tracks that aren't mastered can be alarming." And mastering is being used in more situations than ever before. "Even so-called demos are being mastered these days," Baur points out.
Demo Mastering
Mastering demo CDs is becoming a standard practice in the hyper-competitive music market. It's easy to see why: record label A&R departments are deluged by demos from aspiring artists. Mastering of demos can be an important step in giving an artist an extra edge over the competition.
What You Get
The following actions are performed on mastering projects @ SCM:
* Optimizing average and peak volume levels for proper relative loudness
* Signal processing - compression & EQ
* Arranging tracks in final sequence
* Timing of the space between tracks
* Establish a sonic "field" for all tracks
* Place track markers at head of all tracks
* Remove unwanted noise like clicks, pops, hiss
* Clean-up start and ending of each track (including fades)
* Insert Master Track Log - the PQ codes required for replication
Mastering your tracks @ SCM
Do you want your demo to stand out from the rest then master your tracks @ Sheffield College Of Music.
Have your tracks mastered by a professional mastering engineer.
Discounts available for albums & media projects.
contact info@sheffieldcollegeofmusic.co.uk for further details or bookings.
