An Introduction

I decided to create a blog, obviously. I've been thinking about different things I've learned and more importantly things I've seen done wrong over my 10 years in the world of mastering. So, this is where I plan to write about the mistakes that my clients have made that cost them time and more importantly, money.

I master music. If you know what that means then you, my friend, are in the minority.

To understand mastering it might be helpful to understand the process of making a recording of a song.

Step 1: Record all the separate parts of a song, this might include a drum kit, a bass part, some guitar tracks and vocals.

Step 2: Mix the tracks. In simple terms mixing is the process of taking all of those parts you just recorded and adjusting the volumes until you are happy with how the song sounds.

Step 3: Mastering, this is the final creative step in the process of recording a song. Again in simple terms mastering is taking the stereo mix and doing some adjustments to make the song sound the best it can. I'll sometimes compare it to what you have control of on your car stereo. Volume, bass and treble. It's a little more complex than that, but not much.

I'd love to cover everything right here, but what fun would that be? I've got plenty of stories and plenty of tips to help make your recording successful, well sonically that is, marketing is beyond my scope.

My hope is to use simple terms that can be easily understood by the novice engineer to help them make my life, and that of other mastering engineers easier.