Audio mastering takes an audio source/signal, processes it to sound professional and ready for public consumption. Great audio mastering will clean up the audio & make it sound commercially loud without ruining the dynamics or transients. Traditionaly one part of audio mastrering is to make sure the audio source sounds about the same on many systems and speaker setups.

Why is audio mastering important?

Almost every single song you have ever herd has most likely been mastered in one way or another, but not all mastering is created equally. Audio mastering is a technical skill & mainly treat it as an art form. it can take decades to perfect the skill/art of audio mastering & part of why finding a great mastering engineer is so highly valued.

What does bad audio mastering sound like?

Bad quality audio mastering can ruin your music or audio. Avoid mastering that leaves your audio sounding squished and dirty sounding. Another sign of bad audio mastering is results that leave your audio sounding to thin or weak, like some one scooped the life, warmth & tone out of it. Avoid mastering that adds to much high end while scooping out the sub, again leaving your audio/music sounding thin and unbalanced. Also the reverse can be true, were the mastering engineer adds way to much sub/bass frequencies but leaves your high and mid end to thin leaving you wit muddy or boomy sounding results.

What is the best audio mastering software & why?

Really this all depends on what your taste is, but amazing audio mastering software should be intuitive to use and give you the results your looking for quickly. Cost can be a factor, so if you can get those high end results from more affordable software then that would be a plus. Of course we think Chosen Masters online mastering software is the best solution for any musician and we spend long hours makings sure we meet the highest level of quality, period.

Pre-1940s

In the earliest days of the recording industry, all phases of the recording and mastering process were entirely achieved by mechanical processes. Performers sang and/or played into a large acoustic horn and the master recording was created by the direct transfer of acoustic energy from the diaphragm of the recording horn to the mastering lathe, typically located in an adjoining room. The cutting head, driven by the energy transferred from the horn, inscribed a modulated groove into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc.[2] These masters were usually made from either a soft metal alloy or from wax; this gave rise to the colloquial term waxing, referring to the cutting of a record.[3]

After the introduction of the microphone and electronic amplifier in the mid-1920s, the mastering process became electro-mechanical, and electrically driven mastering lathes came into use for cutting master discs (the cylinder format by then having been superseded). Until the introduction of tape recording, master recordings were almost always cut direct-to-disc.[2] Only a small minority of recordings were mastered using previously recorded material sourced from other discs.

Digital technology

Optimum Digital Levels with respect to the Full Digital Scale (dBFSD) In the 1990s, electro-mechanical processes were largely superseded by digital technology, with digital recordings stored on hard disk drives or digital tape and mastered to CD. The digital audio workstation (DAW) became common in many mastering facilities, allowing the off-line manipulation of recorded audio via a graphical user interface (GUI). Although many digital processing tools are common during mastering, it is also very common to use analog media and processing equipment for the mastering stage. Just as in other areas of audio, the benefits and drawbacks of digital technology compared to analog technology are still a matter for debate. However, in the field of audio mastering, the debate is usually over the use of digital versus analog signal processing rather than the use of digital technology for storage of audio.[1]

Digital systems have higher performance and allow mixing to be performed at lower maximum levels. With peaks between -3 and -9 dBFS on a mix, the mastering engineer has enough headroom to process and produce a final master.[5] It is important to allow enough headroom for the mastering engineer's work.[6] Reduction of headroom by the mix or mastering engineer has resulted in a loudness war in commercial recordings.[7]

Process

A common mastering processor for dynamic range compression The source material, ideally at the original resolution, is processed using equalization, compression, limiting and other processes. Additional operations, such as editing, specifying the gaps between tracks, adjusting level, fading in and out, noise reduction and other signal restoration and enhancement processes can also be applied as part of the mastering stage.[7] The source material is put in the proper order, commonly referred to as assembly (or 'track') sequencing. These operations prepare the music for either digital or analog, e.g. vinyl, replication.

If the material is destined for vinyl release, additional processing, such as dynamic range reduction or frequency-dependent stereo–to–mono fold-down and equalization may be applied to compensate for the limitations of that medium. For compact disc release, start of track, end of track, and indexes are defined for playback navigation along with International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) and other information necessary to replicate a CD. Vinyl LP and cassettes have their own pre-duplication requirements for a finished master. Subsequently, it is rendered either to a physical medium, such as a CD-R or DVD-R, or to computer files, such as a Disc Description Protocol (DDP) file set or an ISO image. Regardless of what delivery method is chosen, the replicator factory will transfer the audio to a glass master that will generate metal stampers for replication.