What is mastering?

I'm pretty sure you know this already know the term "Mastering" from different places. What this mean?

The aim of mastering process is a quality control process first of all. The main aim is to process raw mixes into professional sounding track that translate on various media whether it's a club, home-system, home listening environment.
It's the last opportunity to accurately hear a recording and solve any problems it may have before distribution, duplication. Critical listening in mastering is essential so a new pair of fresh ears unattached by material is always a good practice. Mastering is the last stage of production witch you can consider if you like the " packaging" or the polish of the material before release. Other words that describe the process can be quality control as final process. Music works on emotional level and is a subject of interpretation. Music must sound exciting before mastering. The same with mastering.


On the other end one of our engineers nominated for the job will carefully listen the material, process it and then prepare for deliver in various formats ready to download. Below is one of the screen after the process is ended.

Q: What file format and why?
A: The two most popular file types for mastering are: .WAV and .AIFF. Both of these file types are lossless (non-compresses/converted), and either file type is excellent for a mastering engineer to work with. AIFF files are normally used on Mac systems while WAV files are traditionally PC. Make sure your mastering studio is able to work with the format you have. Additional to using .WAV or .AIFF file types. When submitting a mix for mastering. The file should be kept in the same resolution as it was mixed in (no down conversions). For Example: A song mixed at 24bit 96kHz should be submitted as a 24bit 96kHz file (.WAV or .AIFF)

Q: What are reference track? Reference Song Submission.

A: Submitting any previously done mixes or masters of the song/s to be worked on, along with a few different reference songs that have a similar sound desired is excellent for giving the mastering engineer an idea of your musical vision. This could be a reference to bands who inspire you, or who have a similar sound you like.

Q: What is Dither and why to not use before sending the track to mastering process?
A: Dither is a random noise that helps the quiet zones to run out of bits. The very low segments of a recording in digital domain will suffer from lack of bits to be represented. The lower volume, the lower bit depth. What Is Dither in the end?
Dither is low volume noise, introduced into digital audio when converting from a higher bit-resolution to a lower bit-resolution.

Now that you have a better understanding of what dithering is, you might be asking yourself, “why dither?” Especially if you can just keep your 24bit-resolution file and avoid dithering altogether. The answer is simple; all finished, mastered audio files are 16bit. Although 24bit is a higher quality sound with more audio detail, and eliminates truncation distortion altogether, the reality is that 90% of all playback devices are 44100/16bit. Which means if you try and play a 24bit audio file through one of these 16bit playback devices, it will sound like shit. In this regard, you should keep the consistency of bit-depth throughout your production process from beginning to end. If you are producing in 24bit and your playback is set to 16bit, then you should be using a dithering tool in your production chain. If you are recording and producing in 16bit, and your playback is in 16bit, then there is no need to dither. If you are producing in 16bit, and your playback settings are 24bit, there is no need for dithering.

Q: What are the current settings of your project? What are the current bit-depth of your samples?

A: If you intend to have your song mastered, it is best to export at the same bit-depth or higher as your project settings are set to. For example, if you are producing in 16bit, be sure to export in 16bit or higher. If your project settings are in 24bit, and you export in 16bit without dithering, your audio file is damaged before it even goes to the mastering engineer. The process of reducing bit-resolution causes quantization errors, also known as truncation distortion, which if not prevented, can sound very unpleasant. Note that dithering is a procedure that should only be applied once to any given audio sample. If you plan to do further processing on your rendered audio sample, it’s best to render to 32-bit to avoid the need for dithering at this stage.

Lastly, you only want to dither your rendered audio if it’s final. If you’re sending it to someone else for mastering, or it’s just not yet the master, then don’t dither. Quantization distortion makes things sounds brittle, gritty, and collapses stereo imaging. In comparison the correctly dithered versions sound fuller, warmer, smoother and more “analogue”.

Q: Should i send stems tracks?
Dither Mixing Mastering A: In mastering world stem mastering is considered extra work. We call it lack of commitment from the mixing engineer or in usual case the artist who created the mix. This is very common in electronic music nowadays. These days bedroom producers record, mix, and sometimes master their own tracks.

Q: Mastering From Stems?
A: Mastering from stems is becoming a more common practice. This is where the mix is consolidated into a number of stereo stems (subgroups) to be submitted individually. For example you might have different tracks for Drums, Bass, Keys, Guitars, Vocal, and Background Vocal's. This gives the mastering engineer excellent control over the mix and master, allowing for the absolute best sound possible. However, it's a substantially more involved process. If a mix from stems is desired, following the same steps listed above is best for each stem. Note: When submitting stems, each file must start at the same time in the song even if each of the stems' audio regions start at different times.

Q: Do i need to professionally master my tracks?
A: A lot of times music are created in unprofessional environments by artists as an expression. In a professional studio, sound can analyzed like under a scope with a level of details consumer listener can't. This depends of course of the room and speakers that can go up to many thousands of $$$$$ In other words is possible to sculpt the sound like under a magnifier glass with specialized tools that are sometimes very expensive and limited. Mastering gear usual is more transparent and gentle than tracking (recording) gear. The consumer will never hear that level of details on usual reproduction systems from clubs, home, car etc where the level of details are less.

Q: Is mastering about loudness?
A: Loudness is subjective and depends of material. The secret of loudness consists in how busy is the mix. More simple mixes usually will sound more clean and loud. Ultimately the only real way to judge this is to use ears, but for what it's worth, here are a few facts and figures. Level meters show the peak level of sound or RMS. RMS stands for "root mean square" and as applied to music roughly describes the loudness of a musical signal. A-weighting improves on this by taking into account the fact that the ear is less sensitive to bass and treble when judging loudness, and provides a better guide to how loud we think things. A track of equal "raw" RMS level but with more bass won't sound quite as loud, for example, and so will have a lower A-weighted RMS.

Q: What about "war loudness"? How loud is loud?
A: "Loudness Wars", where everyone tries to get their music louder than anyone else's by pushing the recorded level higher and higher. Level is very addicting. Wen you play a track followed by a louder one we tend to perceive that the louder one sounds better. The same playing a quieter one after a loud one we tend to feel that the energy goes down...like a flat tire. This is ultimately a self-defeating process - the CD spec defines a maximum recordable level, and the harder you push your music up against that level, the more squashed, flattened, crushed and ultimately distorted it gets. Is a contrast thing. A good dj will know to push the gain to match the level of the previous one when they play different tracks. So, how loud is Too Loud ? Where do we cross the boundary from sweet-spot into overcooking ? The answer of course is - something is too loud when it starts to sound worse. Ultimately the decision about when the music starts to suffer at the expense of level is one of taste, and requires a judgement call by all concerned. Remember... Arrangement is the loudest secret.

Q: How much compression?
A: If the idea of using compression on a mix surprises you, it's worth knowing that as a rule of thumb people tend to like quite loud, compressed music, especially for pop and rock. Whereas if it's too loud and compressed it can sound squashed and dull (meaning bland and lifeless, not lacking treble) and ultimately fatiguing. If it's not compressed enough, then quiet passages won't have enough presence, the mix may not "gel" or have enough impact, detail may be lost, and loud passages will make you wince.

Q: Should i use EQ or Compression on master track before Mastering?
A: I suggest is your option. If you like balance of the track keep it. Just make sure you don't use high boost or cuts. 1.5 db boost /cut max. Use a phase eq to cut and a character (emulation of real hardware) for boosts. With the compression as well...Just take in consideration that a plugin will never sound as good as a 5000 pounds compressor that a mastering engineer is working with. If you want to use master compression a good practice will be to use a soft knee settings present in optical or tape compression.

Q: What RMS level should your songs be at before you send them to mastering?
A: Each mastering studio has different requirements that are based on personal preferences and on the equipment they?re using. Keep in mind this isn?t a hard rule, if it sounds better at -12dbs than leave it at that. However, don?t send a song in at -3db and expect your mastering engineer to take you seriously. Peak RMS vs Average RMS Another thing to keep in mind is the dynamic range of your material. Remember our ear only knows what is loud when we hear something soft. It is just like color. If you think the walls in your house are white, hold a white piece of paper up to it, doesn't look so white anymore? House songs have used dynamic range to ad infinitum by having these long drawn out parts with no bass or kick and that eventually lead to the cliché build up and then the boom. The reason it is so popular and works so well is because that dynamic range between the quiet part and loud parts is what builds emotion. Remember music is all about stirring emotion in the listener. Having a large dynamic range is one tool that can build anticipation and emotion.



Q :What if i don't like the master?
A :Sometimes, mastering can highlight some elements in your mix down that where previously missed. Therefore, once you have received your mastered track we allow two more revisions with no extra cost. Any more than that will incur a fee.

Q: Is my track ready for mastering?


What are mix issues that you must must consider?

1. An unbalanced mix. Balance is about levels of the sounds from working mix. A relationship between elements. The most important part of it is to make music sounds exciting.
2. Lack of bass is a common issue. To much bass is easy to fix. Less bass not because phase issues occur boosting frequencies.
3. Over compressed mix, master limiter, or over -3 db makes most EQ / Compressors not responding properly. If you using it slow attack compression is usually good. Can make also the mix to sound more glued together.
4. Watch out of phase elements. If a sound disappear by checking the mix in mono, probably is out of phase.
5. Watch clicks, digital peaking.
6. Do not normalize (normalization is just changing gain). Do not equalize. Do not fade in or fade out.
7. No dither. Dither is used when we down sample a 24 bit into 16 bit to keep sound consistent in very quiet parts. Like a reverb tail. It consists in a very low noise but it builds up if applied multiple times.
8. How much Bass i leave before mastering? Just remember... If the mix has more bass is easy to fix than lack of bass.