If you want to guarantee that your music has that “Hit” sound every time, then this short article may be the most important you will ever read.

Here’s why:

Too often people think that one type of music is better than another. Some people love country, but hate classical music… or they love classical, but can’t stand rap.

When in reality, great music is up to the listener. There really isn’t a good or bad because it all depends on what the listener relates to in the music.

But, here’s a key point that few of those in the music business think about.

What is it that makes a listener of your music become a fan? Or go from simply liking your music to wanting to play it non-stop in their CD player for years to come?

The answer is that your music touches something that comes “alive” inside the listener. You can’t really place what it is, but it makes it him or her boil with excitement.

Maybe it’s your lyrics the listener can relate to… or he just sees himself as the type of person who would be fan of your music (because of the image that is portrayed).

Simply put, the music is less about the quality (though still important) and more about emotions that are stirred-up when the person listens to the music.

And this is the secret key ingredient to mastering… focus on making your music pack an emotional punch in the listener.

By tapping into what the audience thinks and feels on daily basis, then this is how hits are made.

This means that when you make changes to your music (such as raise the volume or make certain parts of the song more cohesive), then you need to focus on stirring-up the right emotions of the listener.

In other words, a good mastering job can literally be the difference between your song failing or becoming a smash hit.

This is because you may have a created some great music, but it’s irrelevant if nobody can “feel” it. If it fails to reach what the listener cares about, they’re not going to listen to it.

Mastering gives your music that little extra edge needed to hit the “Sweet spot” inside your listeners – and make them raving fans.

And since the mastering engineer is an unbiased listener (not involved with any other parts of the music) he or she can adjust the music to give the listeners more of what they want.

For instance, maybe the drums aren’t prominent enough to get the listener going along with music… or, on the flip side, maybe they’re to loud and drown-out another important part the song the listeners want to hear.

Working one-on-one with the mastering engineer allows you to perfect your music during the mastering to give it the crucial emotional punch that creates hits!

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 Mastering Engineer of XARC Mastering, one of the world’s first online audio mastering studios established in 2003.