A Vision of Mastering - What exactly is mastering?

There is many a band disagreement regarding mastering... do we, don't we...?  Perhaps you yourself are wondering.
Well in our humble opinion, you do.

Some over value mastering, some under value it. It is not ideal to leave the biggest part of your budget to mastering, neither is it ideal to skip it all together.

RECORDING - MIXING - MASTERING

Your attention is best put into good mixing or quality tracking rather than expensive mastering. Mastering can do nice things, but the earlier in the chain you spend your time and money, the more efficient the results, and the better your mastering.


To encourage this is why we supply mastering at rates appropriate for most artists.

But to give a visual example, by skipping mastering altogether your record may sound like this:

Instead of this:

Or be on random play and radio sounding like this:

rather than this:

Or to cut a corner you might get a mate or a mixer to do this:

Instead of getting your friendly mastering engineer to do this:

We reckon there's often a great gulf of difference between the mix and the final master, and sometimes there's just a nice subtle edge and a certain truth given to the sound of the record. Both of which I would not decline if I were the artist, particularly if it is financially reasonable and within reach.

Even bands that have the roughest sounding recordings say this:

“... we can't fault it, you completely nailed what we were after!" Rick Moranis Overdrive


And bands that may have the nicest recordings say this:

"The EP sounds bloody amazing! We're completely ecstatic with it." The Nymphs


and this:

"...I really do believe your touch on the album translates to the listener deeply."Sal Kimber


And bands that may have had band disagreements about whether or not to do mastering at all say this:

"The other guys in the band were totally digging [the master], now they realised how important a mastering job on the mix is." High Fangs


So we are doing our best for local music to sound it's best in the international music environment. Because eyes are on Melbourne music. Melbourne has alot of real talent. We see it all the time. Melbourne bands get picked up by overseas labels often. The only thing stopping you mastering your record we feel is price and uncertainty about your end product and the engineer your dealing with. So after arduously making mastering financially attainable and openly approachable for the artists of well over one-thousand different records so far, we feel you should not refuse to give your record the proper tweak it needs.


 

So "do some mastering, now that you can afford to", and make your music sound like this:

 And be as proud as this!

All art courtesy of and copyrighted to Michael Berry www.michaelberryartist.com
All works are reproduced with the kind blessings of the artist and the artist's management.