Practical Mastering: A Guide to Mastering in the Modern Studio

Guiding you through the history and emergence of modern mastering techniques, then providing practical hints and tips on how to use them in your set up, Practical Mastering is the book for anyone interested in tackling this elusive art form. Providing you with sold mastering theory underpinned by years of professional experience and hands-on advice for getting the most out of your set up while honing your ears to efficiently and effectively listen to your mixes in order to create perfectly polished master tracks.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Setting the scene on a practical level. Why engage in mastering? What can users expect to achieve from using their own equipment. What is mastering? Why self-master? History of Mastering: The early days Original Media - The need for dynamic containment Cutting pre-mastering creative mastering the CD age Through the 90's to 00's - Louder....louder....louder > > > The future holds... Mastering Tools Professional Mastering v. Project Studio Mastering Professional Studio: (as scene setter) DAW A/D D/A Monitoring Desk| Single Processing| Project Studio Mastering: (this should be about how to improve your studio to some extent, as well as the equipment you need to master effectively) DAW Digital processing (plug-ins) Analogue processing Monitoring Acoustic treatment Mastering (Step-by-step guide to the key processes in mastering - from which the authors will explore in more detail in the rest of section 2. It's important the reader understands the whole picture first, before we deal with the specifics.) Source material & File Formats Source Material quality of dynamic range spread of frequencies and energy mastered already? Source material musically Making an assessment per track per album File Formats types bit depth sample frequencies Pre-mastering processing Editing and Compilation Codes and specifications DAW and Plug-in Comparison (A DAW comparison - looking at the methods involved in using range of standard DAWs for mastering. Applies chapter 2 in context of main apps. This sets the scene for the application in the following chapters). Logic/Waveburner Cubase Pro Tools Reason Ableton Redefining Timbre Equalisation Multiband Compression Exciters Distortion & Other Effects Controlling Dynamics Single band Multiband other techniques Creating & Managing Loudness techniques to improve loudness Techniques such as parallel compression, productions strategies, limiting, Inflation and Enhancement, role of frequency in loudness, auditory perception of loudness, and so on. Editing Track editing Fades, crossfades and cuts. Programme editing timings, gap lengths etc. Making a Product Creating a master Using Codes ISRC, UPC/EAN, PQ sheets and how to register these with PPL and so on Track names discussion about CD TEXT and pros and cons. Formats CD-A DDPi Delivery FTP versus DVD Others Knowledgebase - Listening is Key All you need is Listening How we listen audio theory placed in context with listening. the ear the brain the auditory system Decibels and Hertz! Monitoring systems and Setups How to listen Introduction Macro (holistic) versus micro listening Listening - Music versus Sound discussion about switching between the musical engagement and simply the higher altitude listening of just the sound, frequencies, timbres and their relationship to each other. Listening Analysis Listening Exercises/Examples