Mastering

Audio mastering is a process that is often shrouded in mystery. Let’s take a minute to go over a few of the basics:

– Mastering is the process of preparing a final mix to a “master” (either a file, disk or tape) from which all copies will be produced.

– This process often (though not always) involves applying corrective frequency equalization and dynamic enhancement in order to provide the best possible playback across a variety of listening systems and devices.

– This is almost always the very last phase of the production process.

With that said, it is our firm belief that the primary benefit of mastering has very little to do the technical requirements of duplicating a sound recording. Mastering offers a chance for someone with fresh ears to hear your project and provide feedback on how your mix is likely to translate to the desired output. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make objective decisions about a project that you have performed or mixed yourself. Having someone listen to and adjust the final product before it is published is an essential element of the production process.

Sometimes, very little work is required for a mix. Sometimes, major phasing issues crop up when folding a stereo mix down to mono (as an aside, if you’re publishing your mix to the web, you can almost guarantee that someone will listen back on a computer playback system that folds at least a portion of the stereo mix to mono; almost all subwoofers to this, for example). Hiring a mastering engineer takes much of the worry out of this process and ensures that your mix, regardless of the music genre, will sound its best.

Caddywhompus uses and entirely digital workflow to guarantee precision and accuracy in the mastering process. Much of the benefit of mastering with analog equipment is lost in converting the signal from digital to analog and back as bits can be lost and noise introduced each time this process occurs. At Caddywhompus, the only time your mix leaves the digital realm is for monitoring purposes. We then use our suite of Oxford, Waves and UAE plug-ins to optimize your mix for final output.

Please contact us with any questions or for an estimate for mastering your audio project.








A quick note on the question of loudness.

While we do sometimes apply compression, this is to optimize dynamic range for playback, not to simply make it louder. Over-compression is a major problem in music today and would require a completely separate article to go over in any detail. Suffice it to say that at Caddywhompus, we believe strongly that the optimum dynamic range should be determined by the individual piece and that we use Bob Katz’ K-system as a base line for how much dynamic range a recording should have. A typical pop song, for example, should have an RMS amplitude of roughly -14dB of peaking, while a heavy metal song should have an RMS in the -10dB range. More compression often results in mixes that are lifeless and don’t “pop” and should be avoided at all cost.