The latter is a process of working ‘in the box and using plugins only. Expecting the master to overcome all the pitfalls of the earlier stages of music production will lead to disappointment.ĬD Mastering services must not be confused with digital mastering. You need to record your music as well as you can and make your mix sound as you want it. Similarly, there is very little I can do if a mix itself is weak.

If your recording has major technical flaws it is impossible or at the very best extremely difficult to fix them in the mix. Some of these semi-professionals succumb to a common misconception that mastering music will deal with all the problems of a bad mix. They try to shift the responsibility for the sound of their material to the mastering engineer, forgetting or simply not knowing that the formula for a technically great-sounding song is as follows It used to take a lot of resources to record material and mixing was done by a handful of highly skilled engineers. The popularisation of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) has made the process far less exclusive and much more affordable, and there is an increasing number of people who record and mix their music at home. Music production has undergone some major changes in recent years. The actual processing will vary depending on the source material, the client’s expectations and whether it is intended for an analogue or digital replication. to enhance the sound of the material and optimize its translation on various playback systems. It entails a degree of audio processing like equalisation, level adjustment, compression, limiting etc. Red Mastering uses top-notch analogue and digital equipment. The most important part of the process is critical listening to the audio material in a room with good acoustics and on a very accurate monitoring system. In these conditions, a mastering engineer can pick up even minor flaws in the mix which can then be rectified before the material gets released.Ĭarefully selected mastering gears play also an important role in the process. In the case of an album, all its elements are being brought together to make them sound like a united whole. Engineer appraises the material from a technical point of view, to give it a final polish before duplication. Mastering Music is the last stage of music production.

Mastering music