Yesterday I talked about how mastering is one of your biggest problems to overcome when releasing your records. 

Getting your songs to sound as loud and competitively punchy as the professional records you compare your mixes to is no easy feat.

And if you don't master your mixes, it's impossible.

It's what a lot of my students struggle with, and the reason I'm making my exclusive Master Your Mixes training so affordable this week at $100 off!

But what is mastering exactly?

Mastering is the final creative process in the production of a piece of music.

Before we even start thinking about mastering, we've gone through quite a production journey: the song is written, recorded, and mixed to the best of your abilities.

By now, you should know how to create great mixes by reading my best-selling book, Step By Step Mixing.

When I talk about mastering, I'm ultimately talking about one thing:

Taking an already great sounding mix and making it the absolute best it can be.

Basically, if the recording is capturing all the tracks together to make a song, and the mixing stage is to align those tracks together through processing to make the song as good as possible, then mastering is adding that extra 10% of polish on top.

Mastering achieves things like:

• Taming and tightening the low-end so that the bass response is great
• Getting rid of any leftover muddiness in the mix so that the mid-range is clear
• Smoothing out any harshness and adding high-end sparkle that lifts up the mix

And of course, making the mix as loud as possible without squashing the dynamics of the production.

What Mastering Isn't

I've learned a lot about mastering in my career and what I've discovered is very similar to what I've discovered about mixing.

There is no way you can create a great mix if the underlying composition, recording, or editing is lacking.

The same goes for mastering.

There is no way you can master a great record if you're working with a bad mix that doesn't have the necessary ingredients to make up a good song.

So, mastering is not a fix for a bad mix. It's not some voodoo magic sauce that magically makes your song a hit, and it's certainly not a substitute for a good arrangement, recording, or a performance.

However, if you have a decent mix that you like, mastering can take it to the next level.

An unmastered mix may sound great, but it doesn't sound like a record because it's too dynamic, too quiet and under compressed. 

When you add your mastering polish to the mix to remove the dullness and mud, and increase the loudness to competitive levels, it becomes a record.

An unmastered mix and a mastered record is the difference between a B- and an A+.

So if you think your mixes are already sounding decent but want to get them to an A+ level, make sure you enroll in Master Your Mixes right here if you want to make pro records.

Talk then,

Björgvin