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Mastering is a final preparation stage of the music material before the actual CD production. In today's world many artists/musicians are equiped with home-based recording tools that allow them to prepare pretty good quality mixes. The technology is moving very fast in this particular area and more then ever before independent artists are willing to share their creations with the rest of the world using their own home-based tools. They are very excited about their new album and want to listen to it everywhere they go. So, they burn a CD-R with all of their mixed songs and rush quickly to play it in their home stereo equipment, cars, mp3 players, and boomboxes. It is then when they realize that their so well and carfully crafted music does not sound like a professional CD they have bought from the store. Why? The answer lies in the Mastering process. All the commercially released CDs before the actual release date went through the Mastering process. The songs' order and their placement within the album was designed properly, any kind of noise and pops from the original mix were removed, the equalization has been added (if necessary), eiditing within the music applied (if necessary), and the overall loudness levels have been raised to follow the current "radio play" convention (if necessary). It is a Mastering Engineer's duty to comply with the artist's vision of the final product. It is here where the artist's vision can flurish even more with the help of Mastering Engineer. It is an artisticly creative process where the initial music idea from the home-based studio can be brought to light and reach the rest of the world in a form of a very professional and polished music album. The art of Mastering is a very specilized field where the knowledge of music genres, sensitivity, exceptional aural skills, and experience come to play together. It takes many years to develop those skills and be ready to share them with an artist. Mastering is the art that helps an artist to expand his/her artistic vision even further. |
