Mastering
Mastering is a critical, final step in the recording and mixing process. Mastering can bring out the best in your mixes by balancing out frequencies, helping your mixes translate well on all listening environments, enhancing the overall energy of a track, bringing continuity to all the tracks on an album or EP, and also bringing up the loudness to commercially acceptable levels.
What Mastering CAN’T Do For Your Mixes
Just so we’re clear. Mastering can’t make a bad mix sound great. It just can’t. If the mix is bad, so will the master be. Sorry to break it to you.
All that being said, proper mastering can help make just about any mix sound the best that it possibly can. Your mastered tracks should sound just like your mixes, only better!
What’s Included?
When I master your mixes I go through a series of steps to ensure they sound their absolute best. My mastering workflow looks a lot like this:
- Custom EQ on each track for better balance
- Multiband compression to even out bass response and sibilance in the top end
- Stereo widening for better separation and clarity
- Limiting and loudness maximization for commercially acceptable, but still musical tracks
- Meta data tagging of album art, CD-TEXT, and other track information
- Proper spacing and fading of tracks on an album or EP
Mastering Rates
I offer a simple per song flat rate approach to mastering rates. Every project is different with a different number of songs. With this per song rate you don’t over pay for having a “shorter” EP or album. You only pay for the songs you have.
Mastering Package – $20/song
It couldn’t be easier. When you’re all done mixing your lastest song or project, send it my way and let me put that final coat of polish on it. I’ll do as much or as little as I have to in order to take that mix to the next level.
Mastering Work
To give you an idea of what I can typically do in the mastering phase, I’ve pulled a “before” and “after” example. Listen to the two versions below (of the same song of course). The first versions is the original mix with just a limiter on it. It sounds fine. The second version is after I’ve taken it through a typical mastering session involving anything from EQ, multiband compression, saturation, to stereo widening.
Specifically listen to the bottom end (kick and bass) sounding a bit fuller, the snare drum a little fatter, the width of the instruments, and a little more clarity to the high end. FYI, listen on headphones to really hear the nuances of the mastered version.
“Love For the Ages” Final mix with only a little Limiting:
“Love For the Ages” Mastered Version:
