Curiosities about mastering

The actual definition of it:

Technically mastering is a form of audio post-production, it is the process of preparing and transferring pre-

recorded audio from a source containing the final mix made in the studio by a mixing engineer to a data

storage device (the master) which is the source from which all copies will be produced (via methods such

as pressing, duplication or replication). Nowadays digital masters, such as .wav or mp3 files, are becoming

more and more common than analog masters, such as audio tapes, which anyway are still being used by

the manufacturing industry, notably by a few engineers who have chosen to specialize in vinyl mastering and

even cassettes are coming back even though they cover only

a small percentage of the music industry’s sales.

How is mastering done?

Back in the days of analog master, engineers used

equalization and dynamic range compression to ensure that

the translation from tape to vinyl was as transparent as

possible and the music could sound as good as it did in the

studio without loosing anything from the original performance

made by the artist. Nowadays those techniques are used to enhance the sound of the music and corrective

equalization and dynamic compression are applied in order to optimize sound translation on all playback

systems (from mono mobile phones speakers to earbuds and headphones, from huge PA systems in clubs

to your home hi-fi stereo).

Mastering requires critical listening meaning that a trained professional (the mastering engineer) has to

listen with his/her musical tuned ears in a special room whose acoustics have been properly treated to have

a flat frequency response, not adding neither removing any portion of the sound and music being reproduced

by the speakers: the mastering studio.

Nowadays however, software metering tools exist to facilitate the process allowing the engineer to see

numeric values which express whether or not the music is sounding good or not; take a good note on the

fact that that these tools only facilitate the engineer’s job, it still takes good hearing and experience to master

a record to perfection furthermore a good numeric readout doesn’t necessarily mean that the best sound has

been reached, meters can fool you and you must never fully trust them although they can be useful when

creating a master.

Curiosities about this process:

• 1) It is standard practice to make a copy of a mastered recording, known as a safety copy, in case the

master is lost, damaged or stolen, you might think this was needed only in the past when mastering

was related to physical objects but it’s still a good idea to save mastered digital files on an external

hard drive or on a safe and private cloud; it is a good idea to keep them even after that the mastered

music has been delivered to the artist or the label because they might damage or loose it too!

• 2) It is said that getting a record mastered is a dark art, people believe that the methods used by

engineer to master a record are mysterious but this isn’t really true: there is no such thing a secret gear

or hidden functions that most people don’t know about but still every engineer has his own personal

techniques and a superior ear which can hear even the smallest details and treat the music as it needs

to be treated because of all the experience accumulated during the years.

In some cases, the process of getting a record mastered is very subtle and changes the sound of a

record by very little; every stage of the process is even more subtle and sometimes barely noticeable.

Years ago a funny little story started being told amongst engineers and professionals working in the

music industry which told about an artist and a producer sitting in a studio in London for a mastering

session and after hours of extremely precise adjustments and very subtle changes, they noticed that

all the gear they were tweaking wasn’t actually connected and all the buttons they pressed and the

knobs they turned had no effect at all on the music itself, we don’t know if that’s actually true but that’s

giving you an idea of how much this process can trick people that are not experienced which is why

you should always hire a professional engineer to master and mixing online your music.

• 3) Before the 1940’s a master was created directly with the act recording: there was very little audio

technology available which meant that even in professional studios the recording, mixing and mastering

processes were fused into one which was simply called recording. The results in sound weren’t really

good but, as years passed, more

technology was invented and the music

market grew exponentially so more stages

were introduced in the process of creating a

record and today we keep adding processes

(such as editing, quantizing and vocal

tuning) and more and more gear is available

even in the form of plug-ins and even DAWs

and audio editors designed primarily for

music mastering purposes have been

created.

• 4) Nowadays mastering is becoming more and more a creative process, meaning that the artists and

producers expect the engineer that they hired to master their music to be a part of the final sound of

the music by enhancing it and, sometimes, pushing them to over-compress it or even distort it to get

as much loudness as possible.

This might sometimes lead to conflict between mixing engineers and mastering engineers because

mixing engineers feel like their work is ruined by mastering engineers, in reality, those engineers want

to get the best possible sound as much as mixing engineers do but, unfortunately, sometimes the

requests of the label and the marketing trends lead to different results.

• 5) Back in the days of vinyl master, the process was much more scientific and sterile than it is now.

That character is still present in mastering when it comes to file format, sample rate bit-depth and

metadata.

In Conclusion:

Mastering is a crucial gateway between production and consumption and, as such, it involves technical

knowledge as well as specific aesthetics. Results still depend upon the accuracy of speaker monitors and

the listening environment so it’s always a good idea to hire a professional engineer to master your songs in

his studio instead of having a non-professional sounding record or even risk to ruin the sound of your music.