FAQ
If it's digital files, it's easy to upload them. You can do so with this link: https://conductionmastering.wetransfer.com.
This gets asked a lot, and it's easiest to understand when you use some analogies.
An analogy that seems to work, and seems widely undersood is that 'mastering is to music recordings like color correction is to films'. Color correction is one of the finals steps, before many prints of a film get made and distributed to theatres. In many ways most of the creative work has already been done, the scripts been written, the scene's been chosen, the actors have acted, now it's the correctionist's job to enhance the colors and contrast to match the overall feel. There's both a very technical aspect to it, but the real art is in the artistic approach which involves enhancing the overall feel of the film and creating a continuity from scene to scene.
If you were doing a the color correction on a war scene you wouldn't want to have overly saturated colors because it would take away from the rough feel the director was going for. In another scene if it was shot in poor lighting the correctionist might have to do a lot to enhance the contrast, and change the color spectrum a bit to give it a softer feel. Another similar situation to mastering is that when it's not done you really notice - and instead of being absorbed in the story, you're distracted by nagging minor technical details.
An analogy that seems to work, and seems widely undersood is that 'mastering is to music recordings like color correction is to films'. Color correction is one of the finals steps, before many prints of a film get made and distributed to theatres. In many ways most of the creative work has already been done, the scripts been written, the scene's been chosen, the actors have acted, now it's the correctionist's job to enhance the colors and contrast to match the overall feel. There's both a very technical aspect to it, but the real art is in the artistic approach which involves enhancing the overall feel of the film and creating a continuity from scene to scene.
If you were doing a the color correction on a war scene you wouldn't want to have overly saturated colors because it would take away from the rough feel the director was going for. In another scene if it was shot in poor lighting the correctionist might have to do a lot to enhance the contrast, and change the color spectrum a bit to give it a softer feel. Another similar situation to mastering is that when it's not done you really notice - and instead of being absorbed in the story, you're distracted by nagging minor technical details.
First, we're loading in all the songs in the project and listening to pieces of the whole album to get an idea of what it's all about - a bit of a meet and greet. This usually gives us a pretty good
idea of which direction things will go.
Next we'll start processing the tracks, this is where most of the time is spent. We spend a lot of time finding the magical settings using equilization and dynamics processors
to really make things sing. We'll typically go track by track. We use a combination of analog and digital tools, some tube processors, some discrete class-A, whatever
might be needed.
Lastly, we'll do the track spacings and final assembly. The final assembly involves the track naming, inserting ISRC codes, and generating either the master cd
or DDP files for manufacturing.
Typically you'll provide the mastering studio with the following:
1- Mixes - you'll either give them to us on analog tape, or full quality computer audio files (.wav or .aif)
2- Track order - this is just the order you want the tracks on the final disk. It's also good to note any special stuff you might want (like long pauses between tracks or a secret track). If you want cd-text on the disk make sure all the spelling is correct.
3- A list of concerns or general comments or objectives - You shouldn't be giving the mastering engineer any mixes you aren't happy with but there may be little things you'd like to see if he can do. Or just things that aren't obvious or a bit different that you would like. Typical things might be:
- I think this song might have a little too much bass.
- I like the mixes but overall I'd like it to sound a little warmer.
- We mixed the songs a bit less bright than other releases in this genre on purpose so please don't make it much brighter than it is - we like it less bright.
With this the mastering engineer usually loads the mixes into his computer system. They'll generally listen to snippets of different songs to get used to the genre and so he can get an initial idea of what needs to be done. Then he'll usually select a track and start processing it with his equipment. He'll make changes until he thinks he's got the song at its maximum potential then he'll move along to the next. When that's done he'll move on to the next until he's got all the songs sweetened. Usually he'll be going back to check how the already processed tracks sound compared to the one he's working on. After that he'll generally go back and make sure what he's done to each track fits into the context of the album. They might find that one song is louder or has more bass than the rest - although it might sound great on its own - it might not fit in with the rest of the tracks on the album.
Next is the album sequencing - this involves putting the songs in the right order, putting in the cd track markers, and putting the appropriate time spacings between songs.
Finally the mastering engineer will generally burn a reference copy for the artist and producer and mix engineer. Usually the artist will take the reference copy and listen to it on a stereo system they're used to hearing a lot of records on. If they like the mastering they'll give their approval and the mastering engineer will output a master.
From there the artist will take the album to the duplicator/replicator.
1- Mixes - you'll either give them to us on analog tape, or full quality computer audio files (.wav or .aif)
2- Track order - this is just the order you want the tracks on the final disk. It's also good to note any special stuff you might want (like long pauses between tracks or a secret track). If you want cd-text on the disk make sure all the spelling is correct.
3- A list of concerns or general comments or objectives - You shouldn't be giving the mastering engineer any mixes you aren't happy with but there may be little things you'd like to see if he can do. Or just things that aren't obvious or a bit different that you would like. Typical things might be:
- I think this song might have a little too much bass.
- I like the mixes but overall I'd like it to sound a little warmer.
- We mixed the songs a bit less bright than other releases in this genre on purpose so please don't make it much brighter than it is - we like it less bright.
With this the mastering engineer usually loads the mixes into his computer system. They'll generally listen to snippets of different songs to get used to the genre and so he can get an initial idea of what needs to be done. Then he'll usually select a track and start processing it with his equipment. He'll make changes until he thinks he's got the song at its maximum potential then he'll move along to the next. When that's done he'll move on to the next until he's got all the songs sweetened. Usually he'll be going back to check how the already processed tracks sound compared to the one he's working on. After that he'll generally go back and make sure what he's done to each track fits into the context of the album. They might find that one song is louder or has more bass than the rest - although it might sound great on its own - it might not fit in with the rest of the tracks on the album.
Next is the album sequencing - this involves putting the songs in the right order, putting in the cd track markers, and putting the appropriate time spacings between songs.
Finally the mastering engineer will generally burn a reference copy for the artist and producer and mix engineer. Usually the artist will take the reference copy and listen to it on a stereo system they're used to hearing a lot of records on. If they like the mastering they'll give their approval and the mastering engineer will output a master.
From there the artist will take the album to the duplicator/replicator.
You give them either a Master CD-R which they will make exact copies from, or a DDP. A DDP is a full-quality file that is an 'image' of a music cd. Either works, the DDP is usually a little safer because it includes some redundancy for data corruption. It also has the advantage that it can be uploaded to the plant, so it saves a courier day, and won't get lost in the mail.
The biggest thing you're getting is perspective and objectivity. Mastering your own mixes is very analogous to someone trying to edit their own writing. Having a set of fresh un-biased
ears listen to a project is invalutable. Also, owning some plugins that 'do mastering' doesn't really make someone an awesome mastering engineer - Is everyone that owns a hockey stick and a pair
of skates a pro hockey player?
Here's how to get them there:
1. Open iTunes.
2. Put in your cd. It will show the list of tracks and ask if you'd like to import the audio.
3. Hit the 'options' button on the upper right side, and select 'submit CD Track Names...'
4. Follow the prompts and insert the information for the album and each track.
Your info will then be submitted to their database and approved after a few days. Then, whenever anyone in the world puts your cd into a computer the track names will appear.
We put CD-Text on your master. This is text which is embedded in the disk. Some cd players read this, especially new ones in cars. Some computer software also reads this.
iTunes looks at your disk when you put it in your computer and looks at the number of tracks, the track lengths, and then looks for something similar in a database which is called the Gracennote database. So going through the steps above will get the info into the database.
1. Open iTunes.
2. Put in your cd. It will show the list of tracks and ask if you'd like to import the audio.
3. Hit the 'options' button on the upper right side, and select 'submit CD Track Names...'
4. Follow the prompts and insert the information for the album and each track.
Your info will then be submitted to their database and approved after a few days. Then, whenever anyone in the world puts your cd into a computer the track names will appear.
We put CD-Text on your master. This is text which is embedded in the disk. Some cd players read this, especially new ones in cars. Some computer software also reads this.
iTunes looks at your disk when you put it in your computer and looks at the number of tracks, the track lengths, and then looks for something similar in a database which is called the Gracennote database. So going through the steps above will get the info into the database.