Mastering Services For Indie Musicians

Indie musicians recording at home can compete with the pros. High end mastering is explained and attainable for those who don't want to compromise.

Mastering Home Studio Recordings: Compete With The Pros

It's no news that home studio recording is more prevalent today than ever. Never before has there been such a wide array of recording platforms, mics, signal processors, music software and a host of "new toys" for the independent musician at affordable prices. The ability to track, edit, mix, and burn to CD is within the reach of nearly everyone. This change in the recording industry has been a real advantage for countless musicians who want more control of their musical destiny.

However, another change, although more subtle, has also been going on. Most people, whether they are a musician or not, expect better sounding music. Society has become very "spoiled" as a result of the technological advances in both studio equipment and consumer playback systems. Everyone from the teenager with a boom box to the A&R rep is looking for a "big killer" sound.

Possibly the most common stage a home recording suffers from is poor mastering. Even if the song, the performances, the arrangements, the effects, and the mix are all super extraordinaire, the CD you burn will fall short if not mastered properly. Although it may sound fantastic on YOUR playback system, you might be surprised how it never quite matches the quality of your favorite CDs when played on OTHER sound systems.

This is where the "art" of true high-end mastering can make all the difference. Yet many people don't know the difference between basic CD assembly and true high-end mastering. You may wonder why some places charge $75 to "master" an entire CD while top mastering facilities charge $400/hr or $1,000 per song. You may wonder how top- mastering engineers can justify those high prices when even "Joe Average" can afford to buy his own hardware or software tools. To help put things into perspective, the sonic edge that mastering gurus provide can be divided into three categories: 1. Experience, 2. Proper listening environment, and 3. Extremely high quality equipment.

Let's start with the experience department. The most immediate advantage a mastering engineer will offer is objectivity because a musician is far too 'attached" to his own music. The engineer knows what to listen for and will hear things you didn't. He'll have a far better idea of how to tonally shape your music so that it will translate better on a wide variety of sound systems.

Chances are high that you don't have a proper listening environment, which means you cannot hear your music accurately. When you hear your music on your system in your room or your car, you are probably being deceived to some extent. You are subject to out of control frequencies, sound reflections, and various acoustic anomalies.

Regarding studio equipment, there is a reason why yours is more affordable than the mastering engineer's tools. While the sound you get at home may be descent or even good, budget equipment always compromises the quality. This is true with both analog and digital. Cheap ADA converters, "hyped" rather than "flat" monitors, poor listening environment, mediocre cables, harsh EQs, and processors which sound "unnatural will each degrade the sound quality to some extent. All those degradations can really add up in a negative way.

You can read more on this subject at http://chansonrecords.com/mhsr.shtml and learn how high quality mastering is available for indie musicians who don't have a big budget.