Mastering Your Master

People love great music, especially audiophiles.   They have a sense of hearing that can pick up and distinguish the nuances and intricacies that your average listener will never perceive. It's a true gift.  

 As an artist, the realm of recording and sound engineering can be rather daunting and involved.  Some artists have acquired the skills needed to do their recordings and some have delved deep into the world of recording, engineering, and the audio mastering of their music.  But like most of us, the time and budgets involved in recording and engineering can seem to be a robber of time, money, and the creative muse. 

 But when it comes to recording and the passion associated with the creative processes involved many have a different take on mixing and how to complete the finished product.  Some folks won’t bother and publish their works “as is” and some will love it anyway either way.   

 However, will the production quality of your recordings stand the test of time? Will that Tascam or desktop multi-track recording translate well into the real world of critical listeners and trolls without a professional touch? How will your music live without the stereo enhancements, the balance in loudness, limiting, or the added value of compression within the signal chain? 

 Going even deeper, will you still listen to your recordings with the same love and enthusiasm as the day it was recorded?  Or will you succumb to the embarrassment of realizing that you sold yourself short?  How about your fans that, over time and generations, and even trends, have grown out of taste or love for the genre or rawness of your creations? 

 The market is saturated with subpar and amateur recordings to varying degrees. Some are pretty good. Some are ‘absolutely’ horrible. Some even make it to the airwaves, which in some respects could be a good thing if it generates an underground following or cultish phenomenon.  But that is rare and far, and few in-between. But when it comes to broadcasting your music on the airwaves or distributing it to the digital world of today you should put your best foot forward. Finding the right engineer to master your recordings can be the difference between sounding phenomenal or sounding like, well… you fill in the blank. 

When it comes to mastering your recordings there are several steps in the process to take to ensure that all things add up for the final stage.... 

The Master. 

The first step in the planning stage is usually referred to as the “Pre-Production” phase.  Most artists will forgo this stage and go right into tracking, which is fine, but pre-planning the layout is always best upfront at the beginning before that red button is mashed.  Remember, when you're burning through the money, hindsight is always 20/20 when poor planning is involved.  We ‘should of, would of, could of’ is the mantra for the cocktail.  So, sharpen your pencils because this is where you and/or the band create the musical arrangements and the way the sound, quality, and dynamic range should be designed for the best possible sonic outcome.  Once this step is all hashed out and completed, then you can move on to the “Tracking” phase. 

The tracking phase is probably the most fun and exciting part of the recording session.  This is where you will isolate and record all your vocals and instruments. Take your time and get it right.  You will be doing many takes to get the right feel and performance.  Long hours have been burned in many a studio record session to get that perfectly ‘captured’ recorded moment. 

If you haven’t lost your shirt, hair, friends, or sanity yet you can move on to the “Editing” stage.  This stage in the process is where you will fix or adjust timing issues, and vocals that are out of tune, do punch-ins if needed, and or choose the best recorded takes from the session.  It’s a tedious process but well worth it. 

Once everyone is happy it's time to ‘Mix”.  This is where you will fine-tune individual tracks for EQ, pan, and effects to create your overall sound.  This will be an exercise in finding the right balance and cohesiveness in your final recording before the handoff. 

At this point, you can take a copy and play it through your car stereo or other system of choice to get a ballpark feel of where your recording is sitting on the ethereal plane of your imagination.  Give it some time to marinate on your senses. 

Now, after some reflection and maybe a few tiny adjustments it’s time to hand it over to an engineer to be ‘Mastered”. 

This is the final stage to polish that gem into the monster you dreamt of.  The tracks will be run through a system of various components with input designed by the mastering engineer.  A recipe for sound design using tools like spectral editors, stereo-image manipulators, EQ (equalization), compression, equalization, clippers, limiters, and much more. 

When all is said and done, you and your crew should be blown away by the final results.  You can be proud that you have achieved a great ‘work’ in sonic art. Now it's time to get it out into the world and let the magic happen. 

I hope that this short article has helped in laying out a path to a successful recording endeavor, and to all of you venturing down this path, especially those who are doing it for the first time, all the best and cheers! 

Mo-Zed Dupree

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