What Is Mastering?
Mastering is the final polishing of your songs before releasing them to the world. It is usually a very subtle process that strives to improve the final clarity and impact of your song without substantially changing its sound (transparency). Simply, a mastered song should sound better than it did before.
Mastering, when completed on a mix of high quality, can make a good tune sound very good. Similarly, mastering done on an excellent mix will make it sound extraordinary. However, mastering cannot work miracles and a mix that is substandard will continue to be substandard after mastering. It will just be a polished substandard master which emphasizes again the importance of getting a great sounding mix.
Typically mastering provides a unifying of your tunes to correlate or gel as an album via the following:
Mastering, when completed on a mix of high quality, can make a good tune sound very good. Similarly, mastering done on an excellent mix will make it sound extraordinary. However, mastering cannot work miracles and a mix that is substandard will continue to be substandard after mastering. It will just be a polished substandard master which emphasizes again the importance of getting a great sounding mix.
Typically mastering provides a unifying of your tunes to correlate or gel as an album via the following:
- RMS / volume levels that compare to a professional release
- tonal balance and punch
- balancing of volume for proper flow between tunes on album
- good translation to a wide variety of speakers
Bryan at Burro Music Mixing brought life to my mixes through the mastering process. He and I discussed my vision and sonic influences for the album. He then sent me mastered versions of my album until we agreed that the songs sounded sculpted, full, and complete.
-Erik Beruvides of Coral Gables
