What is mastering and why do you need it?
Mastering is the final stage in the journey of making music before it is released into the world. It is the end process that deals with the track as a whole after it has been recorded and mixed, and optimises it for the requirements of the real world, and for all listening environments. Typically that can involve specialist application of EQ, compression, limiting, stereo width enhancement, level balancing, and noise reduction.
It’s common practice and widely advised to have a different set of ears for mastering, as it’s so easy for the band / mix engineer to become overly familiar with the rough mixes. Using a specialist mastering engineer plays a large part in helping to reach the tracks full potenial.
The style of mastering applied to a track should always compliment the genre, vibe, and overall message of the music. I always endeavour to get the best from your music using whatever tools it takes to create great sounding, optimised, and balanced files ready for distribution.
In my experience, there are a number of crucial decisions to be made in mastering, the most important being: how much dynamic range to preserve. This will normally depend heavily on the genre, mood and feel of the music as to how much compression is added overall, but in any case the tonal quality should be prioritised in the limiting phase. This is just one reason why using a bespoke mastering engineer will give you the best results, as they are able to tailor the process to the specific needs of the music.
Mastering services are available separately for individual tracks, or for EP and album bundles. Please see below for pricing guide.
How to prepare your tracks for mastering
– Please make sure you send WAV files only (we do not accept MP3 files as they are lower quality)
– Please export your audio at the level you have it in your rough mixdown as this will provide a good starting point. Please also ensure that no audio channels are peaking higher than -1db before exporting. If you record too loud it will affect the audio quality. Similarly, please make sure your master bus is clear of all limiting.
– Please send all audio files at the sample rate/bit rate it’s been recorded at (e.g. 24-bit, 44.1kHz). Feel free to send a rough mix or reference tracks to give an idea of how you want the track to sound.
– If bouncing your audio for stem mastering, please make sure ALL stems start from the very beginning – that way, all parts are sychronized when the audio is imported. Try to make sure all files are labelled appropriately.
– Please compress/zip a single folder (per song) with all stems to be mixed. You can send the files to impossibleaudioservices@gmail.com using WeTransfer here.
– You might need to apply for ISRC codes ahead of the mastering. For more info click here.