You’ve probably heard a lot before: it’s MAGIC. It makes your music JUMP OUT of your listeners’ speakers. It’s the FINAL POLISH that adds that extra bit of SHEEN to your music. Ok, so buzzwords aside, what really happens in mastering to give your sound that special “je ne sais quoi?” A lot of things, actually – your mastering engineer is basically half audio janitor and half sonic wizard.
To start with the most boring definition, mastering is the last step of the record-making process. Regardless of the format on which you’ll release, a mastering engineer will need to “proofread” your project to ensure there won’t be any technical issues when you release. At a bare minimum, they’ll trim any extra silence from song beginnings and ends – that way there’s just the right gap between songs. Your mastering engineer should also act as a safety net, finding technical rough edges or errors and repairing them as needed. Most importantly they’ll be there to deliver your master file(s) in the perfect format for distribution. Like I said, this stuff is boring, but it MUST happen.
Now onto the magic. My personal philosophy says that a mastering engineer should “first, do no harm,” kind of like a doctor’s hippocratic oath. With that in mind, I hand-pick a series of processes to elevate your project’s overall sound quality. Here, “sound quality” encompasses a lot of attributes including frequency balance, dynamic density, and overall loudness. Sometimes I’m looking for more clarity. Sometimes I can squeeze out some extra intensity and impact. Sometimes it’s just a vibe thing. On an album or EP, that often means enhancing what’s there as well as establishing a better sense of cohesiveness from song to song – everything should sound like it belongs as part of the greater whole. ADDITIONALLY, your release will sound great compared to other music on streaming services, on all types of devices and speakers.
So while mastering often encompasses a wide variety of processes, it’s a relatively quick, often inexpensive, and essential final step to making sure your recordings are ready to go without any bad surprises on release day. On top of that, you’ll find working with the right experienced mastering engineer makes your hard work sound even better than before – sometimes subtly, other times DRASTICALLY so. I’ve mastered several hundred releases, both vocal and pop with instruments, since 2010, and I’d be more than happy to chat about yours.
