Mastering is the final stage of music production. The technique is basically utilised to balance the sonic or auditory elements of a prepared stereo mix and optimise the tracks so that they can retain their quality over diverse media formats, starting from loudspeakers to earphones.
The procedure stands to be extremely challenging and it is only through utmost proficiency, sheer dedication and adequate knowledge as well as experience that optimal results could be generated. Instead of indulging in audio mastering on one’s own, most of the musicians consider specialised assistance to be a viable option. However, before sending your album for professional music mastering, make sure to prepare all the songs, in order to get the best possible outcomes.
In the following discussion, let us explore some of the essential tips that would help you to get your mix ready for mastering.
- It is essential to listen to the tracks as many as times as possible. This would allow you to catch hold of even the slightest errors that might cause damage to the song. Get rid of all these glitches so that the sound engineer could work seamlessly and make the album market ready.
- It is natural to have certain pops or background noise while one is recording a track. Make sure to get rid of them before sending the mix to a mastering expert. The responsibility of a sound engineer is to add certain finishing touches and polish the tracks so that they can touch the hearts of millions of listeners. He would certainly not sit to amend the mistakes.
- Set the volumes of each track so that they achieve a unified sound. This would help the mastering engineer to compress and equalise the mix without any sort of difficulty. In addition, the songs would have a perfectly balanced volume (not too loud and not too soft), which would let them be quite a hit in the commercial market.
- Using processors and sound effects a little too much during the mixing stage would most certainly ruin the song. A mastering engineer would be able to add the necessary tweaks in a track without any sort of difficulty only if the songs are clean as well as dynamic.
- One needs to pay much attention while they are submitting the files for online audio mastering service. Lossy formats should be avoided and file types like .WAV and .AIFF should be used. Artists must communicate with the sound engineer and provide him proper references so that he can comprehend your needs and offer facilities accordingly.
- Mastering from the stems is another common practice that one must indulge in. This technique involves division of mix into several stems or groups such as, vocals, backgrounds, drums, keys, guitars, etc. and submitting these subgroups to the engineer. The mastering expert would thus, have maximum control over the songs and best sound could be produced.
The aforementioned tips must be kept in mind while you are preparing the mixes so that they can be sent for audio mastering.
