Abbey Road Upgrades On-line Mastering & Mixing Services

London’s world-famous recording complex Abbey Road is launching new, improved on-line mastering and mixing services with a completely rebuilt, more elegant file-sharing interface that allows users to send and receive tracks more easily. The result is a faster, thoroughly modern service allowing musicians around the globe easier access to the studio’s world-class equipment and internationally renowned team of engineers, with feedback and communication between customers and engineers at the heart of the experience.

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Why mastering your audio is vital

Mastering is the most mysterious and least understood of all audio processes. Sometimes referred to the “black art”, there are many misconceptions around it. Many budding audio producers and composers confuse it with mixing. Mixing and mastering are 2 separate processes and have completely different processing goals. Mastering is a final and the most important step in getting your audio to sound like a million dollar.

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One Book To Rule Them All! The Elusive "It" Factor in the Music Industry

I have always been a creative entrepreneur, and not allowed the world to get the better of me, but instead, let the world fuel me. Throughout 13 years in the music industry I’ve worked with some of the best in the business: Anita Baker, KC Porter, Jim Henson Studios, Never Land, OK GO, George Duke, Lauren Mayhew, Pomplamoose, and as far as I can remember, I’ve heard of “it,” this elusive thing setting apart the extraordinary from the ordinary. These people encapsulate: auras, energy, and empower all that are near; you’re drawn to them.

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In Wall Speaker Placement, Finding the Optimal Sound Field

Now that you’ve spent money on that 5.1 surround sound, you want to find the perfect place to put those speakers, and because you don’t want to take up any precious floor space, you have chosen to also buy In Wall Speakers. Taking the following five tips into consideration when placing a 5.1 channel speaker system can help you get a great-sounding home theater system experience.

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How EDM Is Changing Mixing And Mastering

EDM creators are finding less of an need for a separate mixing and mastering engineer, and much of that comes from the old school industry failing to embrace change.

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Analog vs digital in mastering

So what is best during mastering, analog or digital sonic processing? This is an old debate and the fact is a good mastering studio should be using a combination of both types of equipment. Mastering means getting the absolute best out of a piece of music before it is released this means compromise is not an option. I believe digital only mastering is a compromise. The reason being is that analog equipment excels at certain types of signal processing and without it purely digital mastering is leaving something to be desired.

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Dispelling the myths surrounding audio mastering

Being a mastering engineer allows me to explain some of the common misconceptions that surround this important final music production process. Whilst mastering has become a somewhat expanded service over the last decade there seems to be some online confusion as to what audio mastering is capable of and what constitutes a professional mastering job. We are going to look into some of the misconceptions surrounding audio mastering in order to get a clearer understanding.

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Mastering Engineers-Do I really need one?

What is mastering? and how can a mastering engineer help my track/Album? Some insiders tips and information

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Hal Leonard Publishes Less Noise, More Soul

Thought-provoking essays on the search for balance in the art, technology, and commerce of music

MONTCLAIR, NJ (February 11, 2013) – Less Noise, More Soul features the unique perspectives of highly accomplished performers, engineers, and producers on the question how modern technology has influenced and shaped the way we create and consume music today.

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Considerations for dance music mastering

Dance music is split into a number of genres and sub genres so it covers quite a wide range of music such as house, garage, trance, dubstep, drum and bass, techno, breakbeat and electropop. A good mastering engineer should be capable of mastering music in any genre. His or her experience should be all encompassing, being able to understand enough about all genres and how they should sound. Most mastering engineers will have their own internal references and intimate knowledge about their mastering set up. This gives the engineer a high chance of satisfying clients needs across a wide range of genres.

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The advantages of stem mastering your music

Most musicians and bands are aware of the benefits of professional audio mastering, the final stage where a mastering engineer with a lot of experience will enhance, quality control and optimize a piece of music before it’s  release. Mastering is usually performed using a 24 bit stereo interleaved file of the producers final mix down. The mastering engineer can equalize, compress and adjust other parameters of the mix to aid translation across all the varying types of audio system the music will be played on.

Stem mastering is a type of mastering that differs in that it uses groups of instruments such as bass, guitars, drums, keyboards, vocals. There are a number of advantages to stem mastering. The ‘collections’ of instruments allow the mastering engineer to create a master with more targeted corrections and enhancement to the equalization, tone, depth  and balance of the mix down.

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The evolution of audio mastering

Historically audio mastering was a procedure which took a set of mixes and ensured that they would work on the vinyl format for release to the general public. The vinyl format requires specific technical criteria to be met in order to successfully create a lacquer in order to make vinyl copies. The last thing you want is a skipping record, sibilance on vocals or a wasted test pressing because the songs do not fit on one side. In addition the music would sometimes be tweaked to ensure good compatibility for radio broadcast which was is important for the promotional needs of the record label and artist. Today for mastering  we have a number of digital formats that include CD, digital .wav and .aiff files and also compressed file formats such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis and AAC.  

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MaximalSound Evolves

Since 2010, MaximalSound.com offers an online audio optimization service. Based on a proprietary algorithm, this service allows indie productions, labels and musicians to release their tracks complying with the highest industry standard. This processing uses the same pattern as the human hearing. It supports every music genres from metal to hip-hop, from classical to country music.

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Loudness war and the side effects

By explaining something I occasionally experience as a mastering engineer I think I can help people understand some of the detrimental issues that relate to the loudness war in an easy manner. I will often send a master to a client and they will then say the track sounds excellent but they have had a listen to the track and it is not as loud as “X” as a reference. Firstly if loudness is an important factor it is always a good idea to provide a reference track so that the mastering engineer understand this is an important aspect of the audio mastering. My response to the client is often one which explains the non existence of a “loudness button” that exists independently of overall fidelity.

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