Mastering
Send me your tracks
Copyright © 2010 by Necromanteion Studio · All Rights Reserved · E-Mail: studio @ necromanteion.net
Mastering is the process of optimizing your mix and prepare it for CD pressing (or LP/Tape/Radio broadcast, etc...), striving for an album that sounds perfect anywhere.
And there's much more to it than just making it as "LOUD" as possible. It's the last chance to enhance the sound or repair problems with dedicated audio equipment and an experienced ear, making a record sound finished and have the right impact on the listener on a wide variety of systems.
Necromanteion makes use of specialized mastering equipment like analogue and digital hard- and sofware eq's, compressors and limiters and ofcourse great monitoring.
In some cases the recordings that are send in to me for mastering (or remastering) suffer from a "digitized sound", which is mainly because of the use of consumer analog to digital convertors during recording, the use of an inferior master clock and lesser plug-ins during the mixing stage. With the use of dedicated hardware equipment, like tube compression or eq,
I can "warm up" your recordings, give a more analog feel to it. Giving more character to the music is one thing we can do but ofcourse it's also possible to keep it close to the sound of the original mix and get it as loud as possible.
Things you'll have to keep in mind when tracking and mixing your songs in the studio are the following:
Avoid Clipping!
Keep your mixes under 0dB and avoid clipping at all cost, max -6dB to -3dB is the best to gain the best results. Just pull back your masterfader!
When comparing your mix to mastered CDs, ignore the overall level as mastered CDs will generally be much louder, so don't worry about the level, I can make it loud if you want.
Don't let your songs get mastered during mixdown!
This means that you'll have to avoid the use of too much compression on the masterbus, never normalize and always exclude digital limiting! Compression on the masterbus can be used to color the sound and to glue the music instruments together to make a perfect mix, but never use it as a loudness tool!
Make it sound great, yet with no concern for the volume.
And there's much more to it than just making it as "LOUD" as possible. It's the last chance to enhance the sound or repair problems with dedicated audio equipment and an experienced ear, making a record sound finished and have the right impact on the listener on a wide variety of systems.
Necromanteion makes use of specialized mastering equipment like analogue and digital hard- and sofware eq's, compressors and limiters and ofcourse great monitoring.
In some cases the recordings that are send in to me for mastering (or remastering) suffer from a "digitized sound", which is mainly because of the use of consumer analog to digital convertors during recording, the use of an inferior master clock and lesser plug-ins during the mixing stage. With the use of dedicated hardware equipment, like tube compression or eq,
I can "warm up" your recordings, give a more analog feel to it. Giving more character to the music is one thing we can do but ofcourse it's also possible to keep it close to the sound of the original mix and get it as loud as possible.
Things you'll have to keep in mind when tracking and mixing your songs in the studio are the following:
Avoid Clipping!
Keep your mixes under 0dB and avoid clipping at all cost, max -6dB to -3dB is the best to gain the best results. Just pull back your masterfader!
When comparing your mix to mastered CDs, ignore the overall level as mastered CDs will generally be much louder, so don't worry about the level, I can make it loud if you want.
Don't let your songs get mastered during mixdown!
This means that you'll have to avoid the use of too much compression on the masterbus, never normalize and always exclude digital limiting! Compression on the masterbus can be used to color the sound and to glue the music instruments together to make a perfect mix, but never use it as a loudness tool!
Make it sound great, yet with no concern for the volume.
Drop your tracks in the soundcloud dropbox
Or upload your tracks to Rapishare and send me the link
If you have any questions drop me an email at
studio @ necromanteion.net
studio @ necromanteion.net
How it works:
You can send your tracks through normal mail, upload your files to Soundcloud or Rapidshare (and send me the link) or send compressed files via email. You can give me guidelines about how you would like to have the end result. I ll listen to the material and keep your wishes in mind, then I ll send a mastered version of a track back to you for you to judge. When satisfied with the result I ll start working on the rest of the material. Write down everything you can think of concerning the CD/LP/Tape..., like the pauses between the songs, fade in/outs, etc... and send it to me along with the songs.
I prefer to work with datafiles on 24bits/44.1Khz (wave, aiff,etc.) but can work on other formats/sample rates as well (16 or 24 bit/ 44.1-96K). Note that MP3s are not suitable for mastering! (converting an MP3 to wav or other type file doesn t change it).
Send in the data CD/DVD-r or audio CD/CD-r, or send your tracks compressed via email or upload it. You can compress your songs without quality loss to gain a shorter upload time, this is 100% safe because of the error check /digital control that checks the files that are transferred and received the way you made/send them.
Use one of the following File Compression Tools and send it to my email account:
Windows Monkeys Audio 16/24 Bits - http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_399F.exe
Windows WINRAR 16/24 Bits - http://www.rarsoft.com/rar/wrar351.exe
Apple/Mac 16/24 Bits - http://www.rarsoft.com/rar/rarosx-3.3.0.tar.gz
Soundcloud and Rapidshare are a fast and easy way to share files and I prefer to work this way for sending you the mastered version for you to judge. (Via regular mail it will take days before I get feedback, and another plus is that s it s free, so no postal expenses)
Prices:
The price for mastering is 30 euro for each track. If I will master a complete album for you (6 tracks or more) you ll get 1 Redbook CD-R/PMCD + 1 Safety Copy CD-R including postage (to 1 address) for free! For projects with less track counts add 15 euro for the CD-Rs and postage. Sending the files via Rapidshare is free and you can burn the tracks to CD-R yourself which will do for some occasions.(Note that such a CD-R is not a Redbook PMCD! ONLY SPECIALIZED REDBOOK AUDIO CD-WRITING PROGRAMS will create an actual RedBook PMCD!)
If you have any more questions drop me an email!
studio @ necromanteion.net
You can send your tracks through normal mail, upload your files to Soundcloud or Rapidshare (and send me the link) or send compressed files via email. You can give me guidelines about how you would like to have the end result. I ll listen to the material and keep your wishes in mind, then I ll send a mastered version of a track back to you for you to judge. When satisfied with the result I ll start working on the rest of the material. Write down everything you can think of concerning the CD/LP/Tape..., like the pauses between the songs, fade in/outs, etc... and send it to me along with the songs.
I prefer to work with datafiles on 24bits/44.1Khz (wave, aiff,etc.) but can work on other formats/sample rates as well (16 or 24 bit/ 44.1-96K). Note that MP3s are not suitable for mastering! (converting an MP3 to wav or other type file doesn t change it).
Send in the data CD/DVD-r or audio CD/CD-r, or send your tracks compressed via email or upload it. You can compress your songs without quality loss to gain a shorter upload time, this is 100% safe because of the error check /digital control that checks the files that are transferred and received the way you made/send them.
Use one of the following File Compression Tools and send it to my email account:
Windows Monkeys Audio 16/24 Bits - http://www.monkeysaudio.com/files/MAC_399F.exe
Windows WINRAR 16/24 Bits - http://www.rarsoft.com/rar/wrar351.exe
Apple/Mac 16/24 Bits - http://www.rarsoft.com/rar/rarosx-3.3.0.tar.gz
Soundcloud and Rapidshare are a fast and easy way to share files and I prefer to work this way for sending you the mastered version for you to judge. (Via regular mail it will take days before I get feedback, and another plus is that s it s free, so no postal expenses)
Prices:
The price for mastering is 30 euro for each track. If I will master a complete album for you (6 tracks or more) you ll get 1 Redbook CD-R/PMCD + 1 Safety Copy CD-R including postage (to 1 address) for free! For projects with less track counts add 15 euro for the CD-Rs and postage. Sending the files via Rapidshare is free and you can burn the tracks to CD-R yourself which will do for some occasions.(Note that such a CD-R is not a Redbook PMCD! ONLY SPECIALIZED REDBOOK AUDIO CD-WRITING PROGRAMS will create an actual RedBook PMCD!)
If you have any more questions drop me an email!
studio @ necromanteion.net