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The case to go with a professional is clear. The edge they give your tracks is far worth the investment.

Here are the 7 main benefits good mastering engineers offer you:

1. A “Fresh” pair of ears to give you objective advice and catch errors others working on it for months have gotten used to.

2. Familiarity with the latest mastering techniques to get the most out of your music. You don’t have to worry about missing-out on the latest innovations to give your tracks the edge!

3. Professional equipment and studio. You can spend thousands of dollars on equipment that gives a far range of flexibility to dramatically improve the music!

4. Experience with what to do with all of the mastering tools. It takes years to master all the equipment and use it to get the best result out of your music.

5. Trained ears to quickly and easily catch major errors. You don’t want to have any major flaws when the A & R manager picks up your demo… or when listeners hear your music for the first time.

6. A gift to see ahead of time what your tracks can be. This means they spend valuable studio time working on what needs to be fixed and they don’t waste your money working on what does not.

This is also often a problem with the “budget mastering studios” where they only charge $10 – $25 a track. At first they might seem cheap, but in the end you pay more because they need a lot more time to do it than a professional who charges more, but gets it done in half of the time. Also, you’re likely to end up with a less good sounding master anyway. It´s everywhere the same; quality does cost something, just like you can´t buy a Ferrari for the price of a VW Golf.

7. Knowledge of how to make your music “commercial-ready”. This means your music is going to be ready for playback on a variety of systems… and it’s going to make the right impression when others important to your success hear it!

Here there are dozens of before and after demos you can quickly listen to and hear the difference mastering can make.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Mastering software and programs to adjust your audio are widely available. And many musicians take advantage of them.

But, there’s a mistake many artists make when they use the software. Although it’s great to experiment with, some people use it as their final mastering solution.

This is especially a problem when all the artist does is download the software and a few plug-ins, then work away without realizing the potential damage they’re causing.

The result is almost always a far from “radio-ready” version. Even more, it can cause irreversible damage that nobody can fix (without the original mix).

You see, mastering is complicated. There is far more that goes into it that meets the eye. Almost every small adjustment you make, affects another aspect of the song.

You can think of it as a big pot of soup. Every new ingredient, adds a new flavor and reacts with other tastes. So, if you increase the loudness of tracks, then you can be certain other aspects changed as well.

Simply put, this means you should only attempt to do it yourself for fun or as a last resort because of a tight budget.

Otherwise, you should go with a professional.  The biggest advantage of a professional are the “fresh ears” he or she adds to your project. 

This is vital because when you spend long hours recording and mixing the music, then you get used to hearing some of the errors.  They become normal because you get close to the music.

The engineer knows what to listen for and can quickly identify overlooked problems.  You can think of mastering as the final quality control check by independent, trained ears.

Additionally, they prepare your music so it sounds good in all playback systems.

Mastering engineers prefer to have the original mix without any mastering effects added. This allows them to have full control to bring-out the best in your tracks. They also won’t have deal with effects they can’t undo.

If you do decide to use mastering software or programs some commonly used ones are:

1. Wavelab

2. GEAR PRO – Mastering Edition

3. Sound Forge

4. Izotope Ozone

These programs may give you a little taste of what a mastering engineer can do.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Loudness is a controversial topic when it comes to mastering. Artists (or their labels) often demand to be the loudest in the commercial market place. Yet, this often conflicts with the mastering engineers’ job is to get the best quality.

And here lies the problem.

Although adjusting the loudness of a single may make a better impression on listeners in the short-run, the pleasure doesn’t last long.

Because as you begin to raise the overall loudness through compression and limiting, distortion artefacts, similiar to “clipping” start to occur (e.g. the waveform “tops” are being cut off).

For low-quality mediums it may be okay, such as MP3, AM radio, or telephones.

But, for CD’s (or high-quality mediums) it’s a different story. Too much limiting transforms a good CD into a disaster.

The constant state of audio ramped up to the maximum fatigues the listener’s ears.

For this reason, mastering engineers are often frustrated by the practice of bringing loudness to an extreme.

Their job is to help you create work that you can be proud of long into the future – and create a complete product that’s commercially viable.

Because, keep in mind, if your listeners get tired of listening to your album quickly, then it’s less likely to be a hit… or do nearly as many sales than if fans want to hear your album around the clock.

With this said, a reason when you might want to have the loudest track is when you submit your demo to the A & R manager. If others don’t have mastered tracks, then you’re going likely make a better impression.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Turning trash into gold isn’t easy. You’ve got to spend a lot of time cleaning and fixing it up if you’re going to get anybody to buy it. This is compared to how much easier it is to transform gold into more desirable sparkling coins.

This is what mastering can do for you. If your mix is poor quality, then mastering becomes much more difficult. And a polished result may be hard to achieve (though it´s sometimes possible).

But, if you have a good quality mix, then the mastering engineer can improve it to produce a far superior product.

So, how do you get a mix primed for mastering?

Here are a few guidelines:

1. Send the mixdown of each song with dithering and other effects turned off (with the exception of effects on single tracks within the mix, like on vocals, drums and all other elements).

You should avoid the use of “mastering processors” (i.e. compressors, equalizers, limiters, exciters and the “finalizers”). It’s next to impossible to “undo” these during mastering and takes away a lot of “shaping possibilities” from the mastering engineer.

Hence, don´t try to do your own “mastering”.  Because if you send the edited mix to a mastering house, then you are shrinking their possiblities to help improve your music.

2. Set the resolution and sampling rate at 24 bits / 44.1 kHz (or higher). The prefered formats are .WAV or .AIFF. You should avoid “lossy” compressed formats, such as MP3 (these can used for online distribution, but only after the mastering has taken place).

3. Don’t focus on getting “huge” sound in the mixing studio. Mastering engineers usually take care of volume and compression… and a “small” sound is often easier to work with during mastering. Also, if possible, do your mixing with an experienced engineer to let him or her steer you in the right direction.

4. Keep all microphones as quiet as possible… and don’t forget to turn off unused microphones during recording. Keep all extra noise to a minimum.

5. Avoid unwanted distortion during recording because mastering can’t “un-distort” your music.

6. Listen to your music before you send it to the mastering engineer. You want to make sure there are no errors that send you back to the recording studio to fix.

7. Make sure you remember to tune your instruments and have them sound their best with good microphone placement during the recording process. Preferably, you should involve a recording engineer here.

8. Communicate with the mastering engineer before doing your mix. Make sure you’re clear on what you should accomplish with the mixing stage and what should be done during mastering.

Afterwards, if you’re mix quality is not the best, don’t worry. Often a good mastering engineer can rescue it or give you tips on what to change in your mix before supplying it for mastering again to get the best results.

You can listen to one such “Miracle” track here.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Not everybody can be a talented mastering engineer.

It takes lots of hard work, effort, and some even say a special gift. Good engineers must be able to picture what the song can be before they even get to work.

They need to know what can be done to your audio, the very first few times they hear it.

Otherwise, they’re going to spend valuable stuido time working on parts that shouldn’t be touched… instead of focusing on how to make your music the best it can be!

Additonally, they begin skipping errors as their ears get used to the mistakes.  And they aren’t able to identify mixes that won’t be benefited by mastering (which wastes your money).

Although it’s very rare (one in a thousand) to have a mix that can’t be improved by mastering, it does happen.

Not many people have this ability to quickly identify what needs to be done to a track. This is why picking the right mastering engineer is so important.

So, what happens after the mastering engineer develops a picture of what needs to be done?

Although every track varies, here are some of the most common mastering techniques:

• Adjust the stereo-image (ensures you’re taking advantage of the full stereo range),

• Equalization (minimizes bad sounding frequencies and increases good ones so your tracks sound good on a broad range of systems – also can be very basic changes like boosting the bass or high-end to give the song more “power” and “sparkle”),

• Matching the sound and loudness between the tracks on a album (to make it comfortable to listen to all the way through),

• Adding “warmth” with analog/tube processing,

• Compression (shaping of the dynamic range / increases loudness),

• Removing noise (from tape recordings, vinyls, guitar amps, microphones, and noises that might occur in the recording room),

• Limiting (increases loudness),

• And the overall shaping of the sound to bring out its full potential.

Plus, there are dozens of more techniques performed, depending on each track’s needs.

All these steps mean that there is a lot involved with good mastering… and the engineer must develop a very detailed picture of what’s possible, independently for each and every song.

Very few can do this right. It takes years of experience. Some might even say you have to be born with the gift (the so called “golden ears”) to see the full picture.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Whether you want the best mastering engineer, band members, or, really, any talented person to help you with your music … there’s one big secret to finding the people who are going to create the best possible result.

I like to call the secret, “The Passion Factor.”

All it means is that you should not look for only the most talented person. Nope. But, you should look for the most passionate person.

Crazy?

At first glance it may not make sense. After all, who cares about passion when you get a chance to work with one of the most renowned mastering engineer or musician in the world.

However, talent can only go so far. It means very little if the person is not passionate about YOUR music.

Instead, you’re going to have the best result with the most talented person you can get who has a passion about doing a killer job.

The passionate person is going to do 5 things for you:

1. Works hard to improve his skill. It’s like a guitar player. The best ones are always the guy who does nothing, but play guitar in every spare moment he has. These people simply don’t want to do anything else… and they’re skill grows by leaps and bounds as a result.

2. Listens to your ideas more willingly because she’s committed to creating a great piece of work. Sometimes the most talented artist has such a big ego that they’re not willing to listen to anybody else’s input.

3. Keeps his cool all the way through. When someone is serious about doing a great job, then he’s less likely to get frustrated and give-up. Instead, he’s focused on getting it right. You want to work with people who don’t want to quit, until it’s solid.

4. Comes up with better ideas to improve your work. The passionate person is always focused on what can be done to improve the work because she is excited by all the possibilities. A talented person who lacks passion is only going to be focused on getting it done, not improving it.

5. Pays greater attention to detail. Someone who is into the music is going to listen more carefully to everything going on and is less likely to miss costly mistakes.

Simply put, if you want the best possible sound, then you need people who are passionate. Talent only gets you so far, but falls short if the person’s heart and mind is not into the job.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Mixing and mastering are two often confused arts. But, as you are about to learn, there is a huge difference between the two.

Mixing always comes before mastering. It’s where your final song is put together. Mixing engineers work to create the best combination of the different parts of a song (drums, guitars, vocals, etc.) through placement in the stereo-image, equalizing, volume adjustments and so on.

Mastering is then the final step to create a finished product. Mastering makes your audio clearer and improves the quality of that final mix, so it can compete in a competitive market place.

No moving or adding new tracks into the song takes place. Its focus is on improving the overall quality and timbre of the previously created mix.

You can think of mastering as the last quality check to get it right.  Often the mixing engineer misses errors in the tracks because he or she becomes too “involved” with the project (after weeks or months of work)… and doesn’t have “fresh” ears anymore.

As a result, mastering and mixing both require a different set of skills and years of experience to master.

This means a good mixing engineer is usually not the best mastering engineer or vice versa… because each task requires different knowledge, experience, and skill sets.

This is important for you because you ideally want two different professionals doing your mixing and mastering.

You want as many independent ears as possible to work on your audio to give you feedback. If the person that has done your mixing also does your mastering, then they are going to miss important flaws.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Mastering is the last step before your music is released to the world – and the final chance to get it right.

Aftwards, it’s “alive” for decadeds to come on CD, vinyl, or DVD everytime it’s played.  And if you have a hit album, then it could even live on for thousands of years long after your gone.

You see, one of the biggest advantages of getting your tracks mastered is that you get a “fresh” pair of ears to listen to your hard work.

This is important because too often when we put our sweat and passion into something, we miss flaws that need to be fixed.

We become so close to our music that we don’t notice major problems because we’re so used to hearing them.

You should think of mastering as the final quality control check by skilled, independent ears.

A good mastering engineer closely listens to your tracks and gives suggestions on potential problems based on years of experience.

He or she knows what to listen for and where mistakes often pop-up.

This reason alone is why choosing the right mastering engineer is so important. Because after all is said and done, you don’t want to feel like you could have done much better.

To put it even more into perspective, take the hit album “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.  Just imagine if they hadn’t “done it right” at the time they recorded it.  Michael would most likely have been very sad always having to hear a poor quality recording of his a-million-times sold Thriller-album.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

When it comes to mastering, price varies greatly. Some online studios charge as little as $10 a track, while famous mastering engineers charge upwards of hundreds of dollars.

Why such a variation in price?

Well, mastering work is a lot like law or dental work… in that expertise varies greatly between engineers. It takes years of in-the-trenches work to learn…. and even then it’s still an on-going process to master.

If you’re going to get the best possible job, then you have to pay for it. The most experienced engineers (who often produce the best results) don’t work cheap.

Of course, most of us can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to get our CD’s mastered.

In this case, you must go with a cheaper option.

But, buyer beware. When it comes to mastering, you get what you pay for.

Often with these new online mastering studios that charge between $10 – $25 a song, the engineers give you tracks back no better (or even worse) than they were before!

Of course, they usually don’t do it on purpose. But, they just don’t spend the time on it needed… or have the expertise to give you quality work.

Hence, they also usually deliver you the master a lot faster than the experienced and “expensive” engineers since they work on quantity, not quality.

So, what should you do? 

Here are 4 surefire tips to make sure you don’t get ripped off:

1.  First, listen to demos. If the engineer does not have a wide range of sample work, be careful. Additionally, be sure to listen for substantial differences between the original and mastered tracks.

2.  Make sure the studio has a policy that allows for revisions and your input during the mastering. This way you will end up with a master that YOU like at the very end and don´t have to buy something you do not.

Remember, personal attention to your wishes is often the most important characteristic of a good mastering engineer.

Because your input combined with their experience is what makes for a great final result.

3.  Make sure the engineer also has experience working with your genre of music. Each type has its own unique quirks.

4.  Finally, go with the best you can afford. You don’t want to skimp on your mastering.

Because at the end of the day… the mastering is often the difference between having massive hits or only doing moderately well.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.

Often new artists wonder how important mastering is… and if they really need it.

Surprisingly the answer is “No”. It’s true that you don’t need mastering. You can get started successfully without it.

But, the more the important question is, “Why risk it?”

Because when it comes to success with your music or other audio project, every little bit counts to give you the edge.

When a music producer or fans listen to your music, you want them to take you seriously… and love what you’ve produced.

If you’re music sounds unprofessional, then more often than not you’re going to be quickly forgotten about (or ignored).

Because it doesn’t take much for fans to get turned off… and labels are looking for acts that can be successful quickly (with the least amount of time and work involved).

So, if you’re music already sounds “ready-to-go”, then you have a much better shot at getting signed.

Because just imagine the A&R manager listening to a stack of demos. When he or she picks up yours, did you do everything you can for your tracks to make a positive impression?

Investing in a good mastering engineer allows you to have peace of mind that you have.

After all, you only get so many chances to get your big break. Don’t risk it by waiting to get your tracks professionally mastered.

You owe it to yourself to do everything you possibly can to achieve success.

Plus, you should also keep in mind, not one professional record out there these days has NOT been mastered to achieve the best quality possible and to sound good on every possible system out there.

About the Author:
Lorenz Vauck is an Audio Mastering Engineer, Musician, and Internet Entrepreneur from Dresden, Saxony, Germany. He is the Managing Director and Chief Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first on-line process audio mastering companies established in 2003.