WHAT IS MASTERING?
Mastering is the final creative step in the recording process. Mastering is where the overall loudness, EQ balance, compression/limiting, fadeouts and or crossfades, and song sequencing are handled. Once assembled, a master disk is created as well as an optional DDP Disk image to get your project ready for mass replication or duplication. Great attention to the overall loudness and the tone or EQ of the project is given here.
The result is a record that is balanced, consistent, and plays back well in any listening environment whether it be an audiophile system, a night club, a car stereo, a jambox, a clock radio, headphones, an elevator, etc. It's often easy to make mixes sound great in the studio, but for that same mix to translate to the real world takes careful and precise work, years of experience, and very high quality equipment. Once a master is created, there is no further alteration to the sound of the recording. After that it's merely technical, mechanical processes that create the many copies of the master disk or DDP image. For more information, please refer to our guidelines page.