Mastering is the crucial final step in the recording process. It optimizes your track's loudness for streaming platforms, ensures consistent playback across all devices, balances relative levels between songs (for EPs/albums), adds sonic cohesion and clarity, and removes extraneous noises. It's the essential final polish that elevates your music to industry standards, making it sound professional and competitive.

While automated tools are cheap and fast, they lack the critical listening skills, nuanced adjustments, and artistic sensitivity of an experienced human mastering engineer. Automated tools apply generic algorithms that can over-compress or misinterpret your music, often leading to generic or even detrimental results. Our expert engineers provide a tailored approach, ensuring precise, artistic decisions that enhance your track's unique qualities.

In today's competitive music landscape, professional sound quality is paramount. Playlists curators and industry professionals often prioritize professionally mastered tracks because they demonstrate a commitment to quality and are more likely to sound excellent in diverse listening environments. Tracks that adhere to industry loudness standards and have optimal clarity and impact are far more likely to gain traction and be taken seriously.

Our mastering engineer meticulously analyzes your final stereo mix, applying expert techniques in EQ, compression, limiting, and stereo enhancement. They optimize the overall loudness and dynamic range for various playback systems and streaming platforms, ensuring your track sounds its absolute best everywhere, adding that professional sheen that distinguishes release-ready music.

You will need to send us your final stereo mix (preferably a WAV in the native resolution you recorded the song in). Please ensure there's no limiting for loudness added to the master bus. Creative compression on the master bus is okay if it's integral to the track's vibe. Additionally, provide a list of any reference songs you'd like us to consider while mastering your material, and a list of any special delivery requirements you may have.

The specific loudness of your mix isn't crucial for the mastering engineer. However, a good rule of thumb is to aim for a TRUE PEAK level of around -3 dBFS, providing about 3 dB of headroom before clipping. The most important thing is to avoid clipping (distortion). As long as your mix isn't clipping, the mastering engineer can work with it.

Maybe. During your initial consultation, we'll discuss your vision and any reference tracks you'd like us to consider. While we can work on increasing level, frequency balancing, and stereo field to match your references, the final result is largely based on the quality of the mix you provide us.

Yes, you can actively attend and participate in your mastering session remotely! Unlike traditional unattended services, your mastering session is a live, interactive experience.

Here's how it works:

1. You'll select and book your dedicated mastering day and time via our online calendar.

2. On your scheduled day, you'll join a dedicated video call where you can communicate directly with your mastering engineer and hear your music streamed live from our mastering studio throughout the entire process.

3. By the end of your session, your professionally mastered track will be finished and uploaded to your client portal immediately. You still receive 5 complimentary revisions after the session to ensure everything is perfect. This real-time, collaborative approach ensures precision and immediate delivery of your release-ready tracks.

Our primary goal is to achieve competitive loudness while preserving your music's clarity, dynamics, and sonic integrity.

We optimize your master to sound great across all playback systems and streaming services, understanding that while loudness normalization exists, optimal perceived loudness for your genre is key to standing out.

We also offer you control over the final loudness, with several options to choose from during the mastering process:

• Do what is best for the song (RECOMMENDED): We will use our expert judgment to achieve the optimal loudness and dynamics for your specific track and genre. This is our strongest recommendation.

• -5 LUFS to -7 LUFS (CRUSHED): (Not generally recommended) This option provides an extremely loud, highly compressed master with minimal dynamics.

• -7 LUFS to -9 LUFS (AGGRESSIVE): A very loud master with reduced dynamics, suitable for certain genres.

• -9 LUFS to -11 LUFS (MIDDLE GROUND): A balanced approach offering good perceived loudness while retaining more dynamics.

• -11 LUFS to -13 LUFS (OPEN): A more dynamic master, suitable for genres where openness and transient punch are paramount.

  While we provide these choices, we generally don't recommend going louder than -7 LUFS or quieter than -11 LUFS, except in special situations. We believe our "Do what is best for the song" approach ensures your track achieves its full potential.

We typically deliver the mastered audio via a secure client portal for your review. You'll receive high-quality WAV files.

Our mastering service includes 5 complimentary revisions. Additional revisions are billed at the studio's then hourly rate with a 1-hour minimum. We aim to deliver revisions as promptly as possible, generally within 3 business days of receiving a clear request.