An Audio Oasis in the Desert
Mastering
No matter where you record and mix, once your project is complete, you will want to master your material. Mastering is the process of adjusting the overall sound and volume of the final mixes so that all of your songs fit comfortably together on your CD and flow evenly from one into another. All songs are a little different by nature, and it's not uncommon for final mixes to vary enough from song to song that the listener continually needs to adjust the volume and equalizer to feel like it sounds "right." A good mastering job will smooth out these differences and maximize the potential of your music so that you can play your CD from beginning to end without having to adjust your stereo. This also means that your music will be the same volume and have the same sound as commercially released CD's of similar music, so that when your CD comes on in the CD changer, or is played on the radio, it will not sound quiet and wimpy compared to your favorite artist.
Whether your material is intended for national release and radio airplay or if it is just a simple keepsake demo of songs you want to give to your friends and family, mastering is an essential part of the recording process. Many musicians feel that once they have heard their final mixes, the project is done and ready to be released. It should feel this way, because you've worked hard and hopefully your mixes sound amazing on their own. But if you listen to your CD from beginning to end, you will most likely notice that each song sounds a little different and is at a slightly different volume. Some songs may sound great on your boom box but not so good on your car stereo, etc. Through careful equalization and compression, these differences can be smoothed out and the detail and clarity of your mixes can be increased, sometimes so much that it is really amazing. But the difference is always very noticeable when compared to the unmastered mixes.
Whatever budget you're on for recording and mixing, mastering makes a big difference to the final product and should be planned on from the beginning of the project. Of course, professional musicians and those planning on releasing their CD in any considerable quantity would want to have their music sound comparable to what we've grown accustomed to hearing on our CD players and radios, but mastering is worthwhile even to people whose material isn't of the highest quality to begin with. For someone who has worked on their mixes in a home studio and maybe doesn't have much experience or equipment to work with, mastering can work some miracles that might make the difference between being acceptable for radio play and being tossed in the reject pile. On jobs like these, mastering may be the most expensive part of the recording process but can also be the most satisfying.
Mastering will breathe new life into great mixes, and those which aren't so great, but while considering this, it's important to realize what mastering cannot do. Often people will ask us if we can just turn up the guitars or make the vocals louder on a certain song in the mastering, and in so many words, this is impossible to do during mastering and must be done during the mix. It IS possible to create the illusion of more vocal clarity or to bring the guitar-prevalent frequencies more to the front, but since the song has already been mixed, it is impossible to make drastic changes in these areas without affecting other parts of the mix. A good mastering engineer will also listen carefully to the final product and if there are any glitches, static, vocal pops or other nasty noises in there, it is possible to remove many of these artifacts but also not without affecting the entire mix at those spots, so it's a touchy and time consuming practice. Of course, the best mastering jobs are the natural result of the best mixing jobs, and while mixing, keep in mind that the philosophy of most top mixing engineers is to take care of EVERYTHING during the mix so that essentially there is nothing for the mastering engineer to do except maybe to raise the level a little bit, put the songs in order and burn the master CD. The moral is, if you hear something you don't like in your mix, don't settle on the idea that "it will be taken care of in mastering," because that's not what mastering is all about, and you may not be happy with the final results.
At The Saltmine Studios, we offer three different mastering services at three different price points. The least expensive service is "digital only" which involves the use of digital mastering software and editing. This procedure takes less time than our more expensive services and though it offers exceptional results, it does tend to have a "digital sound" when compared to projects mastered using our more expensive processes.
The second rung on our mastering "ladder" is called "Analog and Digital" mastering, which makes use of our high-end analog mastering processors in addition to all the benefits of the digital only mastering. This process ends up sounding better and smoother than the digital only process, and offers a sound more like what we hear on professional CD's.
The most expensive mastering service we offer includes all the benefits of the analog and digital procedure, but adds the benefit of the ultimate mastering format, 1/2" analog tape. This is the standard format for professional mastering and it provides the dither and sweetness that have become the de facto standard for professional mastering jobs worldwide. Our Otari MTR-12 1/2" Analog Mastering recorder is calibrated to the highest standard, and in combination with Quantegy GP-9 master tape it makes for a vibrant difference in smoothness and clarity over our other two processes.
While mastering, we ask that the clients not be present as this can often be disruptive. Most mastering facilities work this way and although it's understandable that clients want to be a part of every segment of their recording process, it is beneficial to everyone involved to have the mastering engineer be able to focus on the task at hand without third party input or the distractions that can arise from clients who are basically just waiting for their job to be completed. For long-distance "mail order" mastering clients, we rely on Fedex or UPS to bring CD's of the final master to the client rather than offering MP3 references online like some companies do. To date, MP3's do not offer enough bandwidth for a client to be able to appreciate the mastering work that has been done. It's just not a viable format for this purpose.
We guarantee our mastering services to insure your confidence in the final product, and do not release masters which we do not want representing The Saltmine Studios' 12 year reputation. In the rare case where something seems amiss to the client, we will gladly re-analyze the final product with your perceptions in mind and will make right anything that seems wrong to us with no additional charge.
We end up mastering most of the projects which we have tracked and mixed at The Saltmine but the majority of our mastering jobs come to us as final mixes done at other studios. We request, if possible, that the mixes you send us be on a CD-ROM with the audio files having a resolution of 24 bits. However, we do accept 16-bit audio CD's, 1/2" analog tapes and 16-bit DAT tapes as well.
Contact us now for more information and to get your project finished
up the right way!
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