Describe
Mastering is the final part of the recording process where you are dealing with the EQ and compression of the whole track. This is done after the track has been mixed to finalise the track. Once the track has been mastered it's ready to be distributed. After the track has been recorded it is sent to the mix engineer then a left and right track are sent to the mastering engineer who will complete the process.
This relates to my future careers as I would like to have the experience of learning to master as well as getting my own music mastered. I think it's a good idea to know how the process of mastering works if you are recording and writing music that will be mixed and mastered. Now that I have a fairly good idea on what mastering does I could tell someone how I wanted it to sound, whether that be bass heavy or very prominante in the high or mid range capturing a very vocal track.
Explain
A mastering engineer is a fully trained engineer who specialises in EQing and compressing a track after its been mixed. They deal with a left and right track. This is the final stage of the recording process before the music is ready for release. The working environment for a mastering engineer is a very natural studio that has great monitoring. High quality mastering studios will have a small amount of hardware such as a couple of compression units and a couple of EQ units.
Critically comment
Mastering techniques have gone through changes and genres over the years. Having a track sound bass heavy and fat sounding is the way that recent tracks have been mastered. They are also compressed massively so that the track can be made louder and sound fatter. This is because people generally think louder tracks are better. As well track who is listening the way music is distributed apart from CD is a much larger range. The way the market has led is to people listening to track on their iPhone. This has effected the way track are being mastered.
Radio stations compress tracks a lot before they will put them on the radio stations. This is because they can make the tracks louder and this will attract listeners.
The music that is recorded more recently is specifically written for instruments that have a low dynamic range. The music itself will also have a low dynamic range and not need it either. This was because they know what when the track is mastered they are going to compress the track so much that they can then turn it up as loud as possible to have a louder track. This all links back to people think a louder track sounds better.
There are many techniques to mastering but because you are mainly working with compression and EQ you can toy around with EQ before compression or compression before EQ. If you were to EQ a bass guitar you might boost the low end but then if you compress it you are just squashing all that bass you have just boosted. You could then try EQing ager compressing. Once you have compressed the track you can then work on the EQ without having to compress it after.
Tracks that were recording in the 60's and 70's the music was very much about have the raw instrument sound and making the record sound as good as possible and as real and exciting as possible where as now its made to sound as loud and as bass filled as possible because this is what the music industry it trending at at the moment, this will change in time.
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