AUDIO MASTERING｜MIXING

Here we are summing up the most interesting about master service.

• What is mastering? What can I expect from online mastering?
• How to make your recording mixing sound great as master?
• What is the difference between online mastering, STEM mastering and budget mastering?
• What is the best mastering VST plug-in?
• What is a mastering engineer?
• Is Manley vari mu the best mastering compressor?
• Mastering in Pro Tools

What can I expect from online mastering?

Audio mastering is a form of post-processing and editing music material after the recording and mixing work, just before replication. We put the order of songs in the right place with the correct space between tracks, cut off silence and disharmonics before and after the song and process the fade in/out. All q-codes and ISRC, EAN/UPS-codes are integrated along with the CD-TEXT. But this is the easy steps - the main focus is at the process to lift your songs sonically.

You will experience

• much clearer sound and an overall louder punch.
• higher brilliance and enhanced width with a tightness and warmth.
• deeper and fuller bass
• more consistent levels between tracks.
• more space in music.

How to make your recording mixing sound great as master?

Record your song at the highest possible sampling rate, at least 44.1 k and 24 bit and of course: use the best recording gear you can. There are many things to remember when mixing for mastering, but here are some of the most important

• Do not make your mixing too loud. Put the master fader at 0 and mix your songs so that the full scale digital meter shows -2 to -4 dB below limit.
• Do not mix vocals too low. Mostly we get mixes were the mastering result will end with the vox mixing too low. After the mastering the tracks gets wider and everything "on the side" rises.
• Be careful with the singers "ess". Use DeEsser with conviction.
• Do not mix cymbals and Hi-hat etc too high. Mastering process will bring more brilliance and too hot treble are not easy to deal with.
• Do not overuse subwoofer plug-in.  Keep an eye at the spectrum analyser at the bottom end to avoid muddy bass.

What is the difference between online mastering, STEM mastering and budget mastering?

Online mastering is what we described above about mastering.

STEM mastering is an even powerfull process there we master the songs with different channels. We use up to 8 stereo analog NEVE channels to glue it all together as we are able to master them seperatly, for example:

Ch 1 & 2 Drums
Ch 3 & 4 Bass
Ch 5 & 6 Guitars, Keyboard, strings etc.
Ch 7 & 8 Vocals, choir

The benefit of this is great. Now you can actually point EQ frequence of a single instrument, or give ONLY the bass drum an extra compression punch without touch the bass instrument. Master the vocals without minimizing the snaredrum. etc etc.

Not to mention the glorious downmix summing of the NEVE box! It's Lovely!

Budget mastering is a very low cost, affordable but "money very well spend" mastering. Using only digital mastering plug-ins and less time spending on details we accomplish a very useable master for you.

What is the best mastering VST plug-in?

Well I'm sure there are different opinions out there but we very much like the tc electronic system 6000 MASTERING plug in.

What is a mastering engineer?

A mastering studio worker, knowing the process of master music for distribution

Is Manley vari mu the best mastering compressor?

We haven't test them all, but I'm sure it is among the best together with Fairchild 670, Tube Tech CL1B, SSL G-SERIES BUS COMPRESSOR, ELYSIA MPRESSOR, API 2500, NEVE 2254,CHANDLER TG1

Mastering in Pro Tools

We use Samplitude PRO as the main program in DAW. But I'm sure you can reach good result with Pro Tools.