Pat, what you ask is like asking for someone to tell you how to master playing an instrument like the guitar but please put it into a few paragraphs.

What I mean by the above is that what I do when Mastering represents the culmination of having learned and dealt with Physics, Electronics, Music, The Physics of Music, Technology as in equipments or plugins that are designed to emulate hard equipments, plus a deep knowledge of the science known as Mastering. Add about 30 years of hands on experience to the fray, too.

For example, I want to rather simply inform you that you need to use an EQ that features a 6dB per octave rolloff when Mastering, that OdBFS is the absolute limit in pcm digital sound and that it is a good idea to leave about a half dB of headroom below that level just in case, that use of the Mastering Compressor should be governed by both what you see in the graphic wave views as well as on the meters but never ever let that get in the way of what you hear. Speaking of what you hear, that is something that takes time also, good reference system that is the same exact system that you will be using to Master as well as lots, and I mean LOTS of "reference listening" to recordings well Mastered by pros until you get to the point where you can simply listen to a playback and know what frequency areas have problems, what causes those problems and most importantly, which of the available tools would be best to use to attempt to solve the specific problem.

I do not know how to hand out shortcuts on this subject, other than to recommend that you obtain one of the software Mastering Suite programs that do indeed cut those corners quite a bit and offer some defaults and even one-button solutions. T-Racks, Ozone, etc. Even then it is unrealistic to expect that the results obtained would be commiserate with what a seasoned Mastering Engineer might yield, but the results you get should be a far cry better than leaving your mixed down files in the raw.

It grinds down to spending time or spending money. Sometimes both.

There is also the old adage that you shouldn't attempt to Master your own projects. There are some very good reasons for that one, but in today's home studio environment there are also some very good reasons to break that mold.


--Mac

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