Mastering

#Mastering

For the Mastering section of the AUS230 unit, I’ve learnt quite a bit. First of all, it isn’t just making everything louder and more uniform. Well it is, but there’s a lot more to it than that. One hting that stood out to me right away was the listening volume. I tend to increase the volume over time but what this really dose it fatigue my sense of hearing even more. I had to remind myself to keep it at a low volume to hear it at comfortable level for long periods and also if it sounds good at a lower volume, it would translate well at a higher volume. Mastering is an art of subtlety. Limiters are used to help bring the overall levels up, while equalizers and compressors are used to help clean up or characterize the mix. Side-chaining as well is something that was new to me. The ability to adjust the mix in terms of width, taught me how to creat an appropriate stereo image for the mix. At the same time, because we’re working with a completed mix, adjusting one thing will also adjust something else. For example, one of the tracks we were practicing on, we were adjusting how a snare sounded with multiband compressor, and then when it hit a limiter again, it was back to where it was. It was a circle of taming the snare only to find it be problmatic again.

This is where the mix becomes of a lesser quality. In theory a good mix should not only have lots of room to bump up in mastering, but not have things be just a little loud, because that small subtle difference translate to a big difference when mastered.

Mastering is an art of subtlety, and it is somthing I would love to learn and practice more of.