What is mastering and why do I need it?
Mastering is the final stage of music production before delivery. A good mastering engineer ensures that your music sounds as amazing as possible on every format and through every playback system, from earbuds to audiophile-quality loudspeakers. Additionally, the mastering engineer makes sure that all metadata is properly encoded into your music so that you can more easily collect revenue from streaming and online sales
How do I get my music ready for mastering?
Mastering is done on a stereo bounce or render of your song. Regardless of what Digital Audio Workstation you’re using, you need to make sure to remove any dynamics plugins (compressors, limiters, etc) from your master fader, then trim the master output down until there is absolutely no clipping for the entire duration of the song. Once you have accomplished this, bounce or render the track as a stereo wav file, making sure that you do so at the same bit depth and sample rate as your project file. This will almost always be at least 24bit, 44.1 kHz. Be sure that the artist name, song name and track number (if applicable) are part of the file name.
How do I submit my tracks?
Contact me using the contact page and I will reply with an email address that you can submit the tracks to. A download link to a zip file containing your wav files, hosted on Google Drive, Dropbox or another cloud service, is the easiest way to do this.
How do I pay?
Payment can be made via PayPal, Venmo or Cash App.
Why is CD and Vinyl mastering more expensive?
CD masters must be delivered for duplication in a format called DDP, which adds a layer of complexity and time to the mastering process. Vinyl masters also have additional needs brought about by the physical constraints of the medium, and as a result also take extra time and care.