Mastering Audio: A Primer
How To Get Started Mastering Audio
The goal of this article is to serve as a primer. Not everything that mastering engineers do can be found in this text however I can confidently say that this will work as a good foundation for anyone wanting to get started with mastering their own tracks with confidence.
Master With Purpose
The purpose of mastering is to create the highest quality final version of a piece of audio that presents your music in the best possible light and translates well to the widest possible range of playback equipment and environments. Every mix has it’s own unique properties and thus finding the optimal EQ, imaging, and dynamics is not a matter of applying blanket rules to everything, it’s about finding the qualities of the audio and working to optimise everything around it.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in mastering is to do something without purpose. Just because compression is sometimes used in mastering, it doesn’t mean your mix needs it. When you reach for that next plugin, ask yourself if you are doing this for a reason, to solve a problem, or if you’re just doing it because it’s a done thing.
Remember, the purpose of mastering is to create masters that sound great. If the mix already sounds great, then don’t hesitate to do very little or even nothing in terms of sonic processing. As Ian Shepherd once said, “Do no harm”.
Now we’ve got the more philosophical stuff out of the way, let’s get practical!
Further reading: http://unlockyoursound.com/mastering-audio/
Congratulations @unlockyoursound! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPI agree. BUT for me the most important skill in mastering is deep listening and detail rating of the music. Therefor it can not perfect been done by the writer or mixer as you focus is always polluted during the proccess in writing or mixing before. How can you say its 0,5dB too much bass when you mixed it like this for weeks? I mean, you need a mastering engineer that understands your needs and words and music, with fresh ears and you two needs to merge to a whole new level of competence! ...all the tools are just homework ...ok expensive homework but without the things I wrote before ...your mastering will not succeed!
Regards, mate
Bodo
100%