{"id":376651,"date":"2019-07-26T17:17:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T15:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomann.de\/blog\/?p=376651"},"modified":"2020-04-22T16:21:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T14:21:17","slug":"do-you-need-mastering-for-your-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomann.de\/blog\/en\/learn\/do-you-need-mastering-for-your-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you need mastering for your music?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The answer is… YES!<\/strong><\/p>\n

You just finished recording your song (or EP, or even a 11-track album) and you’re ready to conquer the world. You did the mixing right and nailed that sound you had in mind. Everything sounds great and smooth. It’s time to distribute and upload your music, right?<\/strong>
\nWell, no. You still need to MASTER your track(s). But what is mastering, actually? Let’s find out!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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What is mastering?<\/h2>\n

In the good ol’ days, mastering was meant, first of all, as the transfer of the recorded<\/strong> audio<\/strong>\/source<\/strong> to a physical data storage which was called, as you can guess, the master<\/strong>. The master (tape<\/strong> or cd<\/strong>) was used as the big source, the seed that allowed the copies to be made: the father<\/strong> of all the copies. Alongside the transferring<\/strong> process<\/strong>, an audio<\/strong> processing was involved: equalisation<\/strong>, compression<\/strong> and limiting <\/strong>were applied to the track(s) in order to allow the end product to sound<\/strong> good<\/strong> on various sources<\/strong> and to maximise<\/strong> and sweeten<\/strong> the sound itself\u00a0for an easier listening.<\/p>\n

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Pink Floyd’s “Money” master tape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The tape<\/strong> mastering<\/strong> required extra steps such as electronic treatments, which you can read about on the Wikipedia page about mastering<\/strong><\/a>, that contains a lot of cool information about the older mastering methods.<\/p>\n

In this article we will focus on\u00a0digital<\/strong> mastering<\/strong>, as it is the most-frequently used method in modern times and the easiest to achieve.<\/p>\n

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Advertisements<\/div>
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Digital Mastering<\/h2>\n

Mastering can be achieved by using a DAW<\/strong><\/a> and included<\/strong> and\/or\u00a0third-party plug-ins<\/strong><\/a> that resemble the functions<\/strong>, sounds<\/strong> and results of the analog devices<\/strong>: equaliser<\/strong><\/a>, compressors<\/strong><\/a>, limiters<\/strong><\/a>, tools<\/strong> to control the stereo<\/strong> image, multi<\/strong> band<\/strong> compressors<\/strong> and so on.<\/p>\n

Preparing tracks for mastering is as important as the mastering process itself:<\/p>\n