I’ve been doing a lot of mastering work over the past few weeks and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it. I get a real thrill out of being able to put the finishing touches on a project and bring it to a happy conclusion. There’s something about hearing where someone wants to take a project and then executing a plan to get it there that excites me. That’s irrespective of whether I’m the producer, recording engineer, mixer, or mastering engineer.
As a mastering engineer, you’re the last person in the chain before the music is released out into the big bad world. Ideally, all a mastering engineer should be doing is making everything louder. That showcases what is already present to maximum effect. Invariably, there will be some EQ and dynamics work to do to bring the music to life but that processing should always live to serve the song.
At this stage, it’s not about slapping as many plugins on the track as possible and stamping your own sound on it. It is about helping the song shine at that very last step.
During the mixing process, we get laser-focused on how we want things to sound based on our references and vision for the project. The job of a mixing engineer is to balance the song but there will always be a few things to tweak in the mastering stage.
More often than not, that means a subtle EQ boost or cut here or there. Sometimes, it’s not quite as subtle as you might think!
By learning about what EQ or compression decisions you make at the mastering stage, you learn much more about what must be done to maximise a piece of music during the mixing stage.
By mastering your own music or the music of others, you begin to hear things that you wouldn’t hear when you’re mixing. That’s because mastering is a fine tuning process. As well as maximising the loudness of the track, you’re also trying to squeeze out that last 15-20% to make sure everything sounds juicy and full.
Not only that, but your ears start to pick up on the mixing decisions that were made earlier in the production process. You pick up little tips and tricks that you can use when it comes time for you to mix again. With practice, you can also hear whether the track is actually ready for mastering or if the mixing process should be revisited.
So, if you’re mixing your own material or the work of someone else, I recommend you start mastering it as well. Whether you deliver or release your masters is irrelevant. By going through the process, it makes sense that you’ll learn more about mastering. But you’ll also become a better mixing engineer and musician in the process.
Now, I’d love to know…
Do you master your own work? What has it taught you about mixing?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
Yes, I am mastering my own work and comparing it to tracks I have had professionally mastered.
I’ve learned more about having a balanced mix. Those issues become more apparent as I go through the mastering process. Especially tracks that are over-compressed.
Great work John!
Thank you, Stephen, for this email note! You are the ONLY instructor/blogger/audio expert that I’ve EVER heard RECOMMEND that we master our own recordings! I’ve learned so much through the years by tracking/mixing/mastering my own recordings, but I have so much more to learn. The most intimidating aspect of the whole process, to me, is the final mastering, not because of some ‘voodoo’ aura that surrounds this final step, but because nobody encourages you to find out what that ‘voodoo’ is and start working it yourself. If I can track the music to get the best sound, and if I can mix the music to paint the perfect picture, I believe I am perfectly capable of adding that finishing gloss during mastering. Thank you for encouraging us to master our own recordings, and thank you for providing tools and advice to do just that. I am grateful for your willingness to share.
Thanks so much Mark! Definitely master your own music to see how it sounds and reverse engineer those changes to your mixes. It’ll be invaluable. There is no voodoo!
Stephen Hi As always an interesting and stimulating message. Yes, I do master – not for “commercial” reasons – rather in terms of putting a collection of my songs together in an “album” – essentially trying to get the set of songs to fit together as a whole. I do also, however, understand the benefits of asking someone else to master one’s material as a fresh set of ears can bring a new level of detached objectivity to the process. I think there are benefits in either case – do it yourself – get someone else. It is definitely worth trying because it helps you develop the ability to take an even bigger picture of the mix or set of mixes involved. It gave me a newfound respect for the Mastering Engineer. Keep up the great work. George
Thanks George! You make some great points here.
Absolutely right on the mastering goal. I’ve been playing with recording my own music and the music of others since I first discovered Sound on Sound with an open reel recorder by Sony. That’s been a long time ago, but I’m still learning as I go. I guess the reason it is good to “Master” other folks music is that we are never quite satisfied with our own, at least I’m not. Your advice about setting a goal or standard for somebody else’s music and achieving it at least allows us to be reasonably happy with what someone else agrees on and then being able to go back thru the process and approach those standards with our own music. Still learning after all these years!
Very well put, Irving. It’s an interesting concept and it’s great to hear you’re still learning. It never ends once we’re open to it. Thanks so much for your comment!