What is mastering?

Audio mastering is the process of improving and processing your music into its final version before it gets replicated on CDs or duplicated on cassette and vinyl. In this critical stage, your songs are put into their final order, edits are accomplished, fades can be created, noise, pops or clicks are removed, correcting phase problems, and P & Q subcoding is added. More important however, is the opportunity to add final EQ, normalization, dynamics processing, or effects.

It's important that the levels remain consistent throughout your master. The mastering engineer attempts to unify the tracks into a cohesive unit. These measures can drastically improve many recordings by adding that 'sonic polish' that virtually oozes from big-label releases.

The Red Book audio CD standard calls for subcoding to be burned into the disc. This standard defines the P & Q coding used by CD players for identifying track IDs, track start/stop times and other data used by the machine. If you plan to have your CD played on the radio, it better have PQ coding. This coding is done during mastering.

Mastering is not intended to correct problems in a recording. Its purpose is to "fine tune" your product and prepare it for CD duplication.

Our songs sounded great in the studio - is this extra step really necessary?

No, but this is your only chance to verify that your music will be 'on par' with broadcast needs. Ever hear the sonic difference between regular airplay and the local 'homegrown' show? The difference is in the mastering. Maybe your songs do sound great & don't need any tweaking... but wouldn't you feel better if that was confirmed by a pair of independent professional ears?

How Should My Submaster Tape Be Prepared?

We work from DAT and CD submasters. Your submaster should be recorded at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. If not, sample rate conversion will be necessary. We do not charge for this conversion but it’s best to avoid the process, if possible.

Your submaster should be recorded with a pre-roll and post-roll time of from one to two minutes. This should be recorded silence (digital black). All music tracks should have start IDs. Pre/Post rolls or test tunes should not have start IDs. The first musical track should be start ID number 1. All tapes should have Absolute Time Code throughout the length of the recording. There is an extra charge for tapes with missing time code.

There can be no clipping on your submaster. Do not maximize the levels to zero. Keep levels around -1 to -2 dB. This allows for inconsistencies in machine level meters and gives us room to work with the overall level matching and dynamics.

Do not over-compress. It’s fine to compress individual tracks to your liking but, go easy when compressing the overall mix. It’s far better to add final compression in the mastering phase, and it’s next to impossible to un-compress an over-compressed submaster.

Note extraneous noises, pops, clicks, etc. on the submaster tape log or in the notes to the engineer.

If any track has a tape hiss, or similar noise you want removed, include a few seconds of this noise prior to the beginning of the audio/music. This will allow for a "noise sample" to be made for the noise removal process.