Guide To Preparing Your Song For Mastering

Summary: Guide to getting your music ready for high quality mastering results.

Getting the best possible mastered song starts with sending the best sounding mix to your mastering engineer. Here are some tips to getting your song ready for mastering.

Eliminate Noise In Your Mix. Go through your recording with your engineer to eliminate any pops and clicks in your tracks. You should also filter out any hums from air conditioners, refrigerators, and computers. If you have a track that can’t have the noise eliminated through gates and filters now is the time to rerecord it.

Get Your Levels Right. So many times we have artists contact us here at Distrophonix asking us something like when we master the track, can we bring up the vocals or lower the volume of the drums. Unfortunately this is not something that can be fixed in the mastering process, it needs to be fixed during mixing. Make sure that the song you send to your mastering engineer is mixed exactly the way you want it.

Don’t Make Your Mix Too Loud.  The loudest part of your song should peak at no more than -3db. To get the best master possible you should leave the final dynamic control and level engineer. Doing this allows the engineer to make sure that the master you receive back is exactly what you want. The volume and punch you desire should always be added by the mastering engineer.

Do Not Over Use Compressors. If you over use dynamic compressors on the final mix it can make it extremely difficult for the mastering engineer to do his job properly. It’s best to use it sparingly or not at all.

Send The Best File Format Possible. Make sure that you are sending the best quality file to your mastering engineer. Traditionally, AIFF and WAV are best. Make sure that the files you send are kept in the same resolution as what the song was mixed in.

Don’t Be Afraid To Talk To Your Master Engineer. We here at Distrophonix want to make sure that you are 100% satisfied with the work that we do. If you have a particular way that you want your song mastered please let us know and we will accommodate it.

By: Brenden Bosmans

Brenden Bosmans is a Marketing Consultant to Distrophonix LLC. Distrophonix LLC is a music marketing and distribution company based in Baltimore, MD. They design marketing plans for musicians, as well as offer digital distribution, CD pressing, download cards and mastering.
www.Distrophonix.com