AUDIO MASTERING

Welcome to the Studio 302 website. We’re happy you stopped by to see what we’re all about.

PROFESSIONAL AUDIO MASTERING FOR INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS

Judging from our many conversations over the years, “mastering” seems to be a mysterious art which is often misunderstood by most musicians. Therefore, we thought we would take some time to explain what it is.

Although most musicians skip it, mastering is the final stage of the overall process; undertaken just before the music is either sent for CD replication or duplication (e.g., Disc makers, etc), or distributed directly to the consumer digitally (through iTunes, etc). During that final stage, the music is given its final ‘polish’, much in the same way as would happen if you took your car to be detailed. In the example of auto detailing, the vehicle would be made to look cleaner and shinier (i.e., more polished) than when you took it in, yet the underlying car itself would not be changed.

AUTO DETAILING EXAMPLE (similar to what happens with your song during mastering):

As you can note in the images above, even though the vehicle has been detailed and looks cleaner and shinier (more polished), the underlying car is still the same. This is the single biggest misconception that musicians have about mastering. Most independent musicians assume that the mastering process will fundamentally and drastically change the entire song, and are often disappointed by the results. Yet upon closer inspection, the new master actually sounds slightly fuller, warmer, crisper, punchier, and clearer - with more depth, width and dimension than the original. The results, when listened to carefully, are often subtle yet profound; but not always blatantly obvious to someone expecting a drastic overhaul. Mastering is about polishing and enhancing, not overhauling, the song.

If your mix needs a total overhaul, then there is a problem with the mix that is best addressed by re-doing the mix, or even re-recording some (or all) of the parts of the song. In order to be pleased with the results of the mastering process, you must first be pleased with your mix. If you don’t like your mix, then you probably won’t like your master either. Even at the major label level, artists and their producer’s absolutely love their mixes BEFORE they send them off to be mastered. The mastering engineer’s job is then to polish the mixes without destroying what was done in the recording and mixing stages.

The moral of the story is: If you don’t like your mix, then don’t send it off to be “fixed” by a mastering engineer.

Our approach to mastering is to leave the integrity of your mix intact, and enhance and polish the song in order to present it in its best possible light. Therefore, it is critical that you are pleased with your mix BEFORE you send it in to be mastered.

Feel free to request a free, no-obligation 30-second mastering sample of one of your songs in order to see if your song is ready to be mastered, or if there is enough of a before-and-after difference to justify the expense of paying for a full mastering job. You can send your song to us for a sample using WeTransfer at studio302mastering AT gmail.com. Please note that samples are offered time permitting.