Mastering

Mastering is one of the major differences between a good album and a great album. It's ensuring that all of the tracks sound coherent with each other, flow smoothly, and is the final stage of tweaking the audio for clarity, volume, punch, and general quality. A properly mastered album will sound good in the car, on an audiophile system, on a boombox, and oozing out of your friend's Macbook's built-in speakers.

Mastering takes a great set of ears, a high quality, professionally designed listening environment with lots of reliable reference speakers, and gear that won't spoil all the hard work you put into tracking and mixing your project. When I master, I reference your mixes on multiple speakers and use world-class gear such as Neve, Avalon, SSL, and Waves. Your masters will have more punch, air, balance, warmth, and clarity than before.

Request a quote for your project today!

Gear available for mastering

NEVE 33609 Stereo Bus Compressor
SSL 4056 G+ Stereo Bus Compressor
Avalon AD2055 Stereo EQ
API 560B Graphic EQ
Apogee AD-8000 24bit A/D Converter
RME A/D converters

Software for mastering

ProTools HD
Steinberg Wavelab
Waves L3 Mastering Limiter
Waves S1 Stereo Imager
Waves Linear Phase EQ
iZotope Ozone Mastering Suite (with 64-bit MBIT+ dithering)

The gear used would vary from project to project, depending on what the material needs. From warm, analog processing to digital clarity and accuracy - it's all available.

What to expect

One of the really great things about mastering this day and age is that much of the legwork can happen over the internet. While you can send your material on DAT, hard drive, DVD, CD, or 1/2" analog tape, the easiest and most cost-effective way is to upload it to my secure FTP space compressed in a lossless audio format such as FLAC or Monkey's Audio. I'll book the session, master the material, arrange it in Wavelab, and create either a master CD-R, a burnable .iso file, or a master audio file with burnable cuesheet. Again, masters can usually be delivered via FTP and referenced by you, on your own equipment, the same day.

Preparing for mastering

In order to properly master a session, the files must be first prepared by you. All submissions should include a track listing with titles, track sequence, and, if possible, song tempos. Any special transitions such as crossfades or gapless transitions should be clearly described. In analog, let me know the IPS rate and any other important information. In digital, 24-bit source files are strongly encouraged. You should describe what digital format you are expecting, including sampling rate and bitrate.

Available digital PCM formats:

Sample rates: 44.1k, 48k, 88.2k, 96k
Bitrates: 16-bit, 24-bit
Media: CD-R, DAT, PCM files on hard drive or DVD (analog masters are not available)