A Guitarist's Guide To Audio Mastering

Recording guitarists need to be familiar with the recording process to make sure their tone is the best it can be for every person that buys your album.  Most musicians are familiar with initial recording and mixing since they are involved most in those parts.  But what about mastering?  It's the last step before packaging and distribution of the album, and the part that determines how the final record sounds.  Unfortunately, it's also a part that most musicians take for granted and spend the least amount of time on.  This post is meant to educate guitarists in the mastering process and stress the importance of it.  The post will feature definitions of the mastering process, alternatives to expensive studio mastering, and an interview with a metal guitarist that mastered his own work.

Audio mastering

Most musicians are unclear of the definition of audio mastering.  Find a good explanation of the process here at http://ezinearticles.com/?Audio-Mastering-Explained&id=5695476.

Mastering is the final, post-production step that is performed after mixing and before CD duplication and distribution. Many think of it as the way to increase the "loudness" of your music to compete with other songs and albums out in the world, but there is much more to it than that.

Mastering is a process of adding compression, EQ, stereo widening, leveling, track sequencing, song gaps, and much more. And, the mastering of your music will create a consistent level of volume across all songs on your album. It will also reduce problems in your mixes and create more punchy and interesting songs through the use of processors such as compression and EQ. Also, mastering is the stage where ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) codes are encoded, as well as CD text.

There is much mystery behind the mastering process, mostly due to misunderstandings and false information. With the increase in recording technology, it is a common misconception that one may simply throw a few plugins into their personal DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and master the songs themselves. You really need another set of ears, quality gear, and experience at mastering.

A large part of what you are paying for in mastering is the experience of the engineer. You are paying for someone who can hear things you may not hear, knows his way around many different musical genres, and knows what to tweak and where, in order to create an album or song for you that can actually compete in this tough business.

Chase Fleming is an engineer at the Mastering Studio.

Recording technology has grown rapidly in the music industry and more options are available to musicians for their albums.  Take a look at the online audio mastering process here at http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-Online-Audio-Mastering?&id=6104089.

Over the last 10 years the music industry has changed significantly. One of the biggest changes has been the lower budgets that are available to musicians and record labels for the costs involved in releasing a body of work. As such, most areas of recording and mixing have been hit financially with the closure of some of the worlds greatest recording and mixing facilities. These budget cuts have affected almost all areas of music production and some of the models under which these business operate have also adapted. The internet has allowed such production facilities to change their methods of providing services to musicians and record labels.

Mastering is a procedure at the end of the music production process. These days it is used by independent musicians and record labels. After music has been mixed the final stage will be mastering. Mastering used to be a very expensive procedure and would be attended by the producer, musicians and a record label contact. Since the advent of the internet many studios now offer online mastering. The pricing for these services is generally much lower even though the same high quality audio processing equipment is used.

The process involves critical listening and final tweaking of the audio, this can include compression, equalization, stereo width manipulation and if required final limiting to bring up the perceived volume of the music. The goal of mastering is to make sure that the frequency response of the music is tailored on an accurate system making sure it translates as best as it can across all the playback systems it might meet. These systems could be radio stations, MP3 players, hi-fi systems, laptops and club playback systems. It is also an important stage of quality control where any pops, clicks and glitches can be removed before the final music makes it to the listeners.Finally the music is committed to a high quality disk (CD-R pre-master) ready for duplication or replication. Sadly it is easy for an inexperienced engineer to set up a website and purport to be a mastering engineer so do choose the studio with some diligence. Online mastering should be chosen with care as there are many operators who may not be as well equipped as they suggest. Investigate the following: engineer history and experience, check the photo's of the studio and check to see the studios recent clients list. In addition some online mastering studios will provide a free preview, this is often time permitting. This should ensure that you will make the right choice when the time comes to finalize your music CD or files before they are released.

You may have a better understanding of the mastering process, but we exactly will it do your songs?  Check out this article on some of the specific benefits of mastering at http://ezinearticles.com/?Mastered-Music&id=5849183.

What do for your audio track? Audio tracks are rendered a great deal of quality when they undergo mastering. Internet mastering is a great way of adding clarity, loudness and professional touch to the audio tracks. By putting the tracks through mastering, the musician ensures that the musical tracks are ready for the commercial market. The sound is edited and fine-tuned wherever due, without compressing out the dynamics from the song. The advantages of getting the audio tracks mastered are many. Some of the tasks performed by the mastering engineer are:

Volume Level Maximization: Synchronizing the volume of tracks is of high importance. When the volume of one track is different from the other track, it calls for mastering. Mastering renders volume level maximization and adds consistency to the album. So there is no need to adjust volume when the track changes.

Ensuring Consistent Balance of Frequencies: Mastering ensures that all the frequencies are accounted for in the process, be it bass, treble and mids.

Noise reduction: With the help of mastering, the noise from an audio signal is removed. When the sound is in analog signal, sound recordings exhibit a type of noise which is known as tape hiss. The tape hiss is the result of the particle size and texture of the magnetic emulsion sprayed on the surface of the recording media.

The mastering process allows encodes useful texts on the recordings. These include UPC (Universal Product Code), ISRC (International Standard Recording Code), CD Text (additional information about the CD, e.g. album name, song name, and artist name) or other PQ information.

It also helps in error checking. Checking the integrity of the data stream during CD duplication or replication at CD manufacturing plant is a key aspect of mastering good and perfect mastering service.

Whether or not you are a fan of the music, this next guitarist transcribed, recorded, and mastered the featured piece.  He offers insight on the recording process including mastering.  Find the feature here at http://www.guitarworld.com/how-i-transcribed-and-recorded-sonic-meets-metal.

In today's day and age, technology has given musicians a way to produce something that used to take an entire band and engineer to do.

The digital world has made it possible for a single musician to sound like a three-piece classic rock band like Rush or even reaching the full titanic range of a film orchestra.
How? The answer is the power of the DAW (digital audio workstation). This week I'm going to go through the process of how I transcribed and recorded "Sonic Meets Metal."

A lot of games that were on Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo had great soundtracks. Nothing makes me feel more nostalgic than hearing the old-school eight-bit theme from my favorite games. When actually listening to a classic soundtrack from an old system, I realized the intricacy of what I was hearing. These game composers were geniuses!
I wasn't hearing just a melody line with a beat but line upon line upon line upon harmony upon counter melody, etc.

Problem 1: Is there any sheet music for these old game tracks so the musician can see all the parts? Not too likely; however, like I said earlier, the cyber world we have created is our savior. Online there are hundreds of old-school game sites that carry the free MIDI files we're looking for. Real quick, MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) is a electronic signal of what we are hearing, but what I use it for is the score.

Step 1: Import the MIDI file into the DAW. When the MIDI file is loaded, the next level to zone in would be the tempo. Because it's a MIDI file and not an audio file, yet the tempo can be manipulated. Once the song is at the speed it should be, the next step is to look at the piano roll. The piano roll is a note, velocity and intensity representation of the MIDI. The reason I use the piano roll is for the notes. You can see every part (the MIDI has to offer) as a single note line to determine the voicings.

Step 2: Once the speed is correct and the voicings are understood, it's time to record. The first (and longest) part to recording is the drums. I work with Superior Drummer, which has the loops and patterns I like best, drum program-wise. Very simple once the pattern is found, drop and drag, drop and drag.

Then the guitars. I read an Andy Sneap forum that said that every backing track should be recorded four times over. The reason is widening. The wider the better. In essence, I record four rhythm guitar tracks panning two completely left and right, and two of them panning 3/4 of the way left and right. The second group of four tracks are basically there to accent the first four rhythm guitars, panning them the same way but slightly different.

The third group of four are the counter-melody guitars or the “high” rhythms, panned left and right about 50 to 40 percent. Almost there, bass guitar -– one track stereo center. And finally the two leads, panned 20 to 30 percent left and right.

Step 3: Mastering. After all that it's time to make it sound better. My lineup is very simple when it comes to mastering at the moment really because I am still learning more and more every day reading about it. I put an EQ on the entire track to balance the bass to treble frequencies, a multimeter to check the balance of bass to treble frequencies, a multipressor to compress the four frequencies for more balance, and finally an adaptive limiter to hold back clicks/pops and make the entire track LOUDER.

Afterwards, to make sure I've balanced everything correctly, I bring it to my car and listen to it a couple times. My car is the my mixing station ha ha. For some reason the stereo in my car gives me a perfect balance of what I'm looking for. If the mix satisfies me, as my dad says, bada-bing, bada boom.

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Have fun and stay tuned!

Mike