The large majority are recording either at home or at project studios. Some artists can afford to use mid-level facilities while fewer and fewer these days are willing to pay for major recording studio fees.

It's also apparent that project studios are everywhere these days as a direct result of the technological advances in computers and lower prices for music software - recording equipment. But, the quality of their results varies enormously and you usually get what you paid for. Therefore, a project studio's work doesn't necessarily mean good quality results.

Mid-level facilities, on the other hand have usually better results because they are usually operated by more experienced engineers and they can charge $40 an hour or more. These facilities are capable of delivering the kind of sound quality only major studios were able to put out more than 10 years ago.

Having said this, what we usually listen these days on iPods and other type of mp3 players is the result of all that; a mixture of well made old records that were converted from vinyl and/or cd, decent amateur recordings, professional quality indie music and, the current major label releases recorded at reputable studios. But unfortunately, also the absolute trash from someone’s bedroom. In other words, the sound quality of records is pretty inconsistent these days.

Since the subject at hand is mastering, we will not discuss recording or mixing techniques and will only concentrate all our attention to the subject of mastering . However, in my opinion, “mastering” is often misunderstood and a highly ‘overrated’ process, one that needs to be put in a realistic perspective.

What Is mastering?

From a historical point of view, the name is ' pre-mastering', and "mastering" was referred to the creation of the replication medium needed at manufacturing plants. These days pre-mastering is synonymous of mastering which from a technical point of view, it's also the process of optimizing all individual frequency levels to meet the industry standards. For the most part this process is source dependent, so the better your mix, the better the results to be obtained. Because of this, results vary from recording to recording, making it a crucial step for best system translation .

The mastering engineer {'ME'} should be able to make a great mix louder, punchier and clearer better than anyone else and without significant sonic sacrifices. Next to experience he has all the tools needed, e.g., the gear and the acoustic environment. But, he is certainly not the deciding factor to achieve great recordings. Since many mixes don't come out, in terms of tonal balance, 'perfect' all of the time, mastering has taken a crucial role to improve upon systems' translation by means of harmonic balancing. Also, many engineers regard their mastering process as adding impact, color and vibe, which is also fine as long as they don't introduce too much circuitry oscillation noise in their signal chain. The job may also include disc assembly and quality control for manufacturing purposes.

Also, a highly skilled mastering engineer using quality tools to process can easily raise the quality by one whole grade, e.g., from 'B' (good) quality to 'A' (excellent).

This is why it’s important to choose a reputable mastering engineer. If you don’t, this mix that you have spent lots of money and time to get just right, it's actually degraded in sound quality by the incompetency of a mastering engineer at this last step.

So, bad mixes can potentially sound a bit better, but will never sound like those well mixed records, and there is certainly no chance at all that it will sound like a mix produced at a state-of-the-art facility.

If you are not sure you have a good mix, seek professional advice. A reputable engineer can tell you what you really have if you ask politely and are patient with his busy schedule. Some give you this advice as part of their mastering fees.

A mastering engineer who wants you as a client might tell you exactly what is wrong and what needs adjustment, but don't expect him to volunteer his opinions. You need to ask for it first. He may also not even charge you for this expert opinion because after you make new revisions, you'll probably be more inclined to hire him for his patience, great suggestions and professional advice. Again, don't expect this to be part of the service; mastering engineers have very good reasons not to form opinions on anybody's mixing work and they just process what is given to them. Some fear that they may offend the sensibilities of the mixing engineer. So, due to the nature of the business, this could represent to some ME's a big conflict of interest. I certainly will not discuss a mix that came from a record company, but I might  --if I am asked by a newbie engineer.  Now, if you want to attempt doing this mastering work all by yourself, please read on.

 

1. A Digital Audio Workstation {DAW} with a mastering software installed.
2. A pair of fairly ‘accurate’ speaker monitors.
3. An acoustically ‘conditioned’ room.

If you don’t have 2 and 3, do it at your own risk.

A Digital Audio Workstation

I don’t want to get focused on this requirement. Many of you know about workstations and thus, I’ll keep it simple. The DAW is basically a computer system with an audio card to capture and to output sound. Better results can be achieved by adding AD/DA signal converters, though this benefit comes with a higher price tag; there are some converters that are a lot more expensive than both the computer and mastering software put together. But still, there are units that accomplish the job under $1,000.00.

If you can’t afford converters, you can attempt mastering in the box (ITB) with decent results. As long as you stay in the digital domain, you’ll be fine.

Fairly ‘accurate’ speaker monitors

If mastering depends on what you hear, then you can’t skimp on these items. If you thought about mixing and mastering your music, then you need a pair of monitors that reveal the sound’s true frequency response. You are not going to find speakers that will respond relatively ‘flat’ at less than $500 each. Thus, those $300 pair of speakers that you use for mixing will only make the mastering task a lot more difficult to accomplish. However, nothing is impossible when you have good instinct for sound and the knowledge of an accurate Real Time Spectrum Analyzer or RTA.

Warning: If you do both mixing and mastering {even with mastering speakers} you may still miss or not be able to clearly hear rogue frequencies peaks or flaws created at the mixing stage. 

Acoustically conditioned room

The room you are in is essentially the place where you do your critical listening and all your compression and equalization decisions. Most people know that the room you record in should not be used to mix and master as well, so having one room to record and one to monitor is the ideal situation. But, having an extra room is a luxury that many don’t have. If the room is flawed with comb filtering issues or acoustical interferences, the speakers you use for monitoring sound could be rendered either 'not-so-accurate' or almost 'useless'. Because sound bounces on reflective boundaries, the shape of a room and even the contents in it can be a big factor in how sound will be perceived. You can improve room acoustics with sound traps and acoustic treatment, or hiring an acoustics engineer to re-design an existing room or build a new one. Either way, you’ll be required to invest some serious $$.

Realistic Mastering Results:

Bad mixes yield always bad masters, no exceptions.

Mediocre mixes yield inconsistent mastering results. But, some significant improvements are usually achieved when done right and some results may even meet industry standards. Here is where the experience of the ME might save the project.

Good mixes are always elevated to industry standards and sometimes, the results are even dramatic.

Great mixes meet by default ‘industry standards’ and there is usually a little room for improving upon the translation and RMS level. Other than increasing loudness, the results may only be perceived as 'subtle'.

To recap, there can’t be ‘great’ mastering without ‘great’ mixes to begin with. A good or a decent mix can be mastered and the sound quality can be raised to ‘industry standards’ but this can never be accomplished with a poorly engineered record. It just won’t happen, if your mix is bad, then expect disappointing results.