MasteringWhether your final mix is almost perfect or needs a bit of help; Creative Sound Labs can provide the final touches via mastering to your project to help it reach it's full potential.
Mastering takes all the individual pieces of a project and presents them as a unified whole in terms of volume, tone, loudness, feel and concept. Mastering often provides the glue which binds all the individual elements together. Mastering also lends a fresh set of experienced ears to your project.
While a good master translates well to all mediums, optimization for different mediums/formats can also be applied. These platforms include: radio, TV, ITunes, cinema, gaming, vinyl, streaming and CD. The Sound of a Project The goal of this step is to take a good mix and put the final polish on it. This can involve adjusting levels and general “sweetening” of the mix. This can make the difference between a good sounding mix and a professional-sounding master. This process can, when necessary, involve using tools such as broad equalization, compression and limiting. Consistency Across a Project Consideration also has to be made for how the individual tracks of an album work together when played one after another. Is there a consistent sound? Are the levels matched? Does the collection have a common “character,” or at least play back evenly so that the listener doesn’t have to adjust the volume? This process is generally included in the previous step, with the additional evaluation of how individual tracks sound in sequence and in relation to each other. This doesn’t mean that you simply make one preset and use it on all your tracks so that they have a consistent sound. Instead, the goal is to reconcile the differences between tracks while maintaining (or even enhancing) the character of each of them, which will most likely mean different settings for different tracks. Preparation for Distribution The final step usually involves preparing the song or sequence of songs for download, manufacturing and/or duplication/replication. This step varies depending on the delivery format. In the case of a CD, it can mean converting to 16 bit/44.1 kHz audio through dithering, setting track indexes, track gaps, PQ codes, and other CD-specific markings. For web-centered distribution, you might need to adjust the levels to prepare for conversion to AAC, MP3 or hi-resolution files and include the required metadata. |