Chapter 22
Mastering Your Music
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding mastering
Knowing when to master your music yourself
Knowing when to send your music to a mastering house
Taking a turn at mastering your music
You’ve spent a lot of time getting all your tracks recorded using the miking techniques I describe in Chapter 8. You adjusted your levels just right, EQed, panned, and added effects to each instrument with great care so that they fit perfectly in the mix. Now you have awesome-sounding music. So, all that’s left is to create cool album artwork and find places to distribute — and you’re ready to go platinum, right?
Well, you could do that, but you would be missing one of the most important steps in getting your music to sound its very best. This is the mastering process. Mastering can turn your already-good music into a truly great album. The only problem is that most people have no idea what mastering is. It’s been presented as mysterious voodoo that only people who belong to some secret society and have access to a magical pile of gear can do.
This isn’t the case. Mastering is, ...
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