 Mastering Your Music
Why You Need it, Where to Get it, and How to Make the Most of it.
by The G-Man - NARIP.com and Immedia Wire Service, Posted Jan. 2004
Mastering is widely misunderstood, often mangled, and sometimes mistaken for mixing. So, what is mastering? It's the audio step that comes just before manufacturing a CD. Some people would even say it's a crucial step.
Once you have finished recording and mixing your songs, the tracks are shaped, sculpted, scooped, equalized, compressed, and finessed into sonic splendor (well, you hope) through the audio process known as mastering. Mastering is what gives depth, punch, clarity and volume to your tracks. It is part science, part craft, and part alchemy. . . just like songwriting, singing, performing and recording.
"Loud vs. Proud."
Contrary to popular belief, mastering is only a little about making a hotter sound. While it's true that the gain, or volume level, is boosted during mastering, it may be that raw decibels are the least critical aspect of the process. What's important is the way mastering makes songs sound. Because in the end, mastering is less about "loud" and more about "proud."
Mastering Engineers Speak Out.
"Mastering is the crucial, critical, and final creative step in the process of making an audio recording," states Art Sayecki of Burbank, California's Art Mastering. "When your work is in the hands of a mastering engineer, that is when all the ultimate sonic judgments are made, all necessary aural enhancements are applied, and the definitive content of your project becomes a coherent and sophisticated artistic creation. When a mastering engineer does the job properly, it can literally separate the hits from the rest of the market."
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Art Sayecki of Art Mastering, with some of his custom-designed gear. |
Nancy Matter of Moonlight Mastering, agrees. Mastering helps "to balance everything out to have a listening experience of continuity from beginning to end for the consumer. This is true of all audio, no matter what the playback system."
Matter, whose recent projects include the Peter Gabriel Live Concert Series "Up" Tour, the Duran Duran Live Concert Reunion Tour, and the "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" soundtrack, points out that "Loud is good as long as dynamic range is not destroyed. Mastering too loud (usually through over compressing) can sonically hurt a project rather than help it and knowing the difference establishes the difference between someone who 'does mastering' and someone who is an accomplished mastering engineer."
View From The Lodge.
Emily Lazar, of The Lodge in NYC, is both a musician and a mastering engineer. Her credits include David Bowie, Jeff Buckley, Sonic Youth, and the "Goldmember" soundtrack, to name just a few. "I approach mastering with the idea that music, like any other art form, attempts to touch people," Lazar says. "It tells a story far beyond that of its lyrics, if there are indeed lyrics. There are similarities between people and music -- both are often seeking a meaningful connection. That means my job as the mastering engineer is very much about making certain that the music tells a story that will resonate deep in the heart of the listener," Lazar adds.
The Artist's View.
Carl Verheyen is a session guitarist whose work you hear every week on hit recordings, movie/TV soundtracks, and commercials. As lead guitarist for Supertramp, and as leader of the Carl Verheyen Trio, he plays in front of tens of thousands of people each year, but at least half of his professional life takes place in studios, and he has strong opinions about the mastering process.
"Mastering is the fine-tuning and final equalization of the music for broadcast quality status," Verheyen says. "It puts all the frequencies in the correct ranges so that the bass isn't too loud, the highs don't hurt and the levels are constant with other CDs on the market." With his most recent release, SIX, Verheyen turned to Eddy Schreyer at Oasis Mastering, calling him "a very caring and talented artist."
There can be tremendous loyalty toward mastering engineers on the part of artists and producers. Michel Sembello, composer/performer of songs from hit albums and the huge film "Flashdance," told Art Sayecki "After hearing what you did with 'Maniac,' you are the only person I will let master my stuff."
From The Booth.
Larry Crane owns Jackpot! Recording and is the publisher of Tape Op magazine. He gets right to the bottom line about mastering: "It's the final stage of preparing mixes for production/replication. . . the last step in the process of making a release." Crane's advice about the decision to go to mastering: "Don't skimp!"
A Reviewer and A&R Pro Speaks Out.
Bernard Baur is a Review Editor and Feature Writer for Music Connection magazine, and in addition, serves as an independent A&R consultant. In all these capacities, he hears a lot of CDs every month. Does mastering matter to reviewers and A&R executives? "It can matter very much," Baur states. "When you get something that obviously isn't mastered, you wonder how aware the artist is of everything they should be doing. Those artists who are 'in the game' know that they almost always need to take their recordings to the next level, and that includes mastering."
While acknowledging that the song is still of primary importance, Baur notes that, all things being equal, it's the mastered track that will tend to get the most attention. "People at magazines as well as people at record labels have gotten used to hearing a polished and fully finished recording," Baur says. "Comparisons with tracks that aren't mastered can be alarming." And mastering is being used in more situations than ever before. "Even so-called demos are being mastered these days," Baur points out.
Demo Mastering.
"Mastering demo CDs is becoming a standard practice in the hyper-competitive music market," notes Sayecki. It's easy to see why: record label A&R departments are deluged by demos from aspiring artists. Sayecki continues: "Mastering of demos can be an important step in giving an artist an extra edge over the competition."
Different Kinds of Mastering.
Be certain the mastering house you select has expertise in the area of mastering you seek. Klay Shroedel is Chairmen and CEO of West Coast Film Partners Inc., an LA-based Entertainment company developing and producing film, TV, music and musical theater projects. While working with recording artists such as Celine Dion, Frank Sinatra and Sting, he also has impressive film and TV credits, including "Permanent Midnight", "Survivor," "Under Suspicion," "Jurassic park 2 & 3," "Titanic," and "Terminator 3."
"There is a basic distinction between mastering for film vs. CD," Shroedel states. "It's the dynamic range. In CD mastering, you try to achieve maximum volume without losing the dynamics, but the overall compression and db range from quietest to loudest is usually narrower than when mastering a soundtrack or a film score. The same concept of preserving the dynamic range applies when mastering CD classical releases." Shroedel will bring his experience to yet another type of mastering when launching his upcoming theatrical multimedia project.
Sounds Great.
"Mastering is all about finesse," says Matt Forger, whose name is on 200 million albums as recording engineer, mixer, and producer. After working with Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, and countless indie artists, Forger has a unique perspective on all things audio. Having seen him in the studio inserting one drum sound on one of his Pro Tools tracks, I can attest to both his dedication and his joy at working with music.
"You are sometimes dealing with tiny increments of equalization or compression," Forger states. "And it's interesting how a small change in one part of the mix can have a big affect on the total mix. But whatever you do with the mixing, mastering can take something that sounds good and make it sound great." Sayecki agrees, and points out that the taste level of the engineer can be a major factor in the outcome. "Sometimes Baroque embellishments are needed and sometimes modesty is called for."
As production budgets get smaller, more album projects are being completed at least partly on home systems. Eddy Schreyer of Oasis Mastering points out that this "can result in lesser quality sounds. Using a major mastering facility can very often dramatically improve the final product. The mastering process increases the level and size of your recordings."
Chris Gehringer of New York's Sterling Sound has mastered upcoming albums for Jewel and Roy Hargrove, as well as dozens of highly-regarded hip hop and Latin albums. Gehringer is noticing that mastering engineers are being called on to perform audio changes to tracks that "are almost like mixing assignments. Ideally, tracks are already mixed and your sonic decisions are already made when you come in for mastering. But with the advent of so much digital recording, we're getting tracks with numerous alternate mixes, lots of stems, and even various additional takes of voices and instruments. We're frequently acting as a mixer even while sonically paying attention to mastering." Gehringer notes that today's modern gear allows a lot of flexibility, which is both blessing and curse.
What You Get.
In almost every mastering session, the following actions are performed:
- Optimizing average and peak volume levels for proper relative loudness
- Signal processing - compression & EQ
- Arranging tracks in final sequence
- Timing of the space between tracks
- Establish a sonic "field" for all tracks
- Place track markers at head of all tracks
- Remove unwanted noise like clicks, pops, hiss
- Clean-up start and ending of each track (including fades)
- Insert Master Track Log – the PQ codes required for replication
Hear The Gear.
Everybody agrees that achieving sonic perfection is an excellent goal of mastering. "When a mastering engineer and a recording artist work together, sonic perfection is exactly what can occur," states Sayecki, "but it is a complex process. Of course it requires a skilled professional with experience, technical knowledge, artistic ability, and dedication. It also takes great equipment."
In the mastering facilities that artists praise, there is never a total reliance on off-the-shelf equipment. "For the most part, regular store-bought components cannot perform the processing required by a world class mastering studio. All top mastering fac |
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