What you can expect from Mastering. 1 1. Expect to hear things you haven’t heard during the mixing. 1 4. Little clicks etc. sometime sneak through during mixing and in 1 4. the mastering process stands out like a sore thumb. Don’t worry 1 4. though as there are tools that to fix that. 1 2. Expect mastering to make your songs sound louder and better. 1 4. The sonics of your CD will be compatible with other commercial 1 4. CD’s. It’s a good idea to bring in some of your favorite CD’s for 1 4. sound and level comparisons. The style of music also determines 1 4. how loud your CD will be. Classical music will not be as loud as 1 4. Rock or Pop. Also remember digital data doesn’t give you extra 1 4. db’s as in analogue. When you hit Zero db, that’s it! But there 1 4. are ways and means to make your mixes sound louder or as 1 4. loud as other commercial CD’s. 1 3. Expect the experience of the mastering engineer to influence 1 4. the quality of your CD: The experience the mastering engineer 1 4. has with sound and music will influence the quality of your 1 4. project. Like mixing, mastering is an art and will add another 1 4. objective dimension to your sound. Expect mastering to change 1 4. certain aspects of your mix. The Stereo width can be changed. 1 4. Fades can be made longer or shorter. Certain parts of the song 1 4. can be copied to other parts. Songs can be edited shorter or 1 4. longer. We can blend vocals in more or the bass can be brought 1 4. out more. The mixes can be made brighter or bass heavier or 1 4. lighter. Lots of changes can be made up to a point. What not to expect from Mastering. 1 1. Don’t expect me to tune the vocals during mastering: I cannot 1 4. auto-tune the vocals or any instrument during mastering. 1 4. Remember everything I do to your song will have an influence 1 4. on the whole mix. I cannot undo compression / limiting and I 1 4. also cannot take any instruments out. I can make it softer, but 1 4. the processing will influence the rest of the sound. I can add 1 4. instruments or voices. If, for example, you are unsure about the 1 4. level of the vocals or guitar solo, mix it separately from the rest 1 4. of the instruments and I will mix it in during the mastering. You 1 4. can also give me alternate mixes and we can decide which one 1 4. to use. 1 2. Don’t expect me to remove every flaw: There are a lot of noises 1 4. and flaws I can eliminate or minimize. But there will be some I 1 4. won’t be able to do anything about. You will have to live with it 1 4. or re-mix. 1 3. Mastering always take longer: Mastering is an art form. It takes 1 4. time to get it perfect. Also things like burning the CD at 1x speed 1 4. take as long as the length of the CD plus extra time for admin 1 4. duties (PQ coding, ISRC codes etc). 1 4. I do not make changes for free: After you have listened to the 1 4. listening copy and make changes the clock will be ticking. If I 1 4. determine something to be defective I will change it for free. Also check out : Preparation for mastering