Mastering your music is the last stage in the music production process. Essentially you are putting the final finishing touches to a mix in the aim of it sounding its best on the variety of listening systems and for radio play. And for an album of songs this can be the time to take an overview and make sure the tracks flow nicely from one to the other in terms of volume, frequencies and gaps between tracks. Nowadays many independent musicians can make their music at home, on a laptop and therefore may consider doing the mastering themselves, especially if budget is tight.
I personally believe it is worth spending money to go to a professional and experienced mastering engineer if you can. But many of my independent creative music making buddies disagree and believe that you don't really need to pay good money when it won't make a lot of difference to the tracks. And nowadays there are so many plug-in processors especially designed for mastering on the home studio system that they can do it themselves quite safely and competently.
There are many tutorials available online for DIY mastering so I will leave you to research these that are written by competent professional producers and recording engineers. And many software plug-ins have trustworthy pre-set settings that can act as benchmark starting points. Do be aware of just following pre-sets without adjusting them to fit your music more sensitively. Have a reference track or two of a finished mastered track that you would like your track or tracks to aspire to. And check back to these often. The mind needs comparison once you get lost in listening to the same thing over and over.
Do try to take your music to a more experienced, fresh pair of ears to give it the once over before sending it out to radio stations and the like. Ask music making buddies that already do a good job of mastering their own tracks to have a listen to a mix or two you have tried out before you carry on with a whole album. Consistency of volume levels and frequencies is particularly important for albums so check the first few tracks before completing the whole album. So compression, limiting and EQ are the main concerns with DIY mastering.
Before considering a mix to be mastered test it out on as many different listening systems as possible. Some producers tailor their mastering to online platforms and MP3 formats as they know that most listeners will be using relatively low quality speakers such as car stereos, laptops, MP3 players and mobile phones in particular. I find it most challenging to get the bass frequencies to transmit well on these more compressed and limited frequency devices.
Professional mastering is generally a bit more complex than just inserting compression and EQ settings. There can be phase issues and spectrum analysis that are inaudible to most of us. But if you are making music independently and want to share it online and with friends you may indeed be able to master DIY mastering. I shall be attempting to master a forthcoming free electronic music download album of remixes with assistance from a more experienced friend.
Caro is an independent creative music producer and performer. She is also a freelance studio recording engineer based in Manchester, UK.
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