WHAT HAPPENS IN MASTERING?

IS PROFESSIONAL MASTERING WORTH IT?

HOW TO MASTER YOUR OWN ALBUM

• Build an acoustically correct listening room. It should be neither too live nor too dead. It should sound balanced across the frequency spectrum with no nodes or dead spots.
• Buy an accurate full range set of monitoring speakers. You're looking for speakers that can reproduce sub-bass without a subwoofer, are balanced and smooth throughout the frequency spectrum and are articulate and punchy with excellent stereo imaging.
• Match the speakers with a precision high quality power amplifier or amplifiers. Don't forget to use audiophile grade speaker cable.
• Hire an acoustics specialist to come in and tune your room.
• You'll need a good monitoring controller (preamplifier or mixer). It's important to be able to compare different sources at different volume levels without coloring the sound in any way.
• You'll want a reference quality D/A converter as well as serious de-jittering tools so that you can compare different digital sources as accurately as possible.
• Now you need to think about getting some of the tools of the trade. A good computer mastering workstation is essential. SADiE and Sonic Solutions are the industry standards (and with good reason). You'll also need mastering quality EQ's, limiters, compressors, enhancers and so forth.
• Spend some time becoming familiar with the speakers, the room and the gear. You want to be able to know what each piece's strengths and limitations are so that you can instinctively reach for the right processor when you want to achieve a certain sonic effect. Take your time, spend months or even years to fine tune your skill in this area. Practice with different kinds of material and different styles of music. Try to get recordings from talented engineers, artists and producers. Work on their material and get their feedback. This will be invaluable in honing your skills. Try to get a few commercial successes under your belt during this phase.
• Now you are qualified to master your own album.
• However, mastering your own album may not be a very good idea anyway since one of the main purposes of mastering is to get a final objective opinion on your recording project.
• A mastering engineer, hearing your project for the first time, hears it with the same fresh ears that your audience will have when they first hear your recording. It is with this insight that the mastering engineer makes enhancements and addresses deficiencies in the sound.
• It is likely that you have spent too long writing, recording, mixing and producing your album to be truly objective about it. Under the circumstances it might be wise to pass your album along to another qualified mastering engineer for mastering . . . 

How Much For Professional Mastering?