What is Mastering?

[Chili]

Cool, glad it helped.

Probably my next question will be: "I read everywhere that the song should be equalized to sound good in a hi fi sistem, earbuds or standard notebook speakers. My question would be: how to do that?"

Search the forums for the term "Translation". the basic gist is to get your mixing environment up to speed. Good monitors and proper acoustically treated room. Neither have to be expensive. You can also search through the Studio Build section to learn more about room treatment (it's different from sound isolation).

 

[scottjenx]

Mastering is taking "all" songs from a project that will be compiled to an "album" or CD, and making sure that they can be listened to in a successive manner as it relates to volume, eq etc. You want to make sure that the volume and eq of one track is not out of sinc with another, so that it sounds like they belong on the same record. This is where a lot of people head back to the mixing stage. Adjustments to eq and volume can be made only to the piece (individual track) as a whole, no eq or volume adjustments can be made to individual tracks during mastering. It really does takes a trained ear to master.

 

[CrowsofFritz]

Haha, I thought this thread was done with! Don't bring it back!

 

[Armistice]

Mastering is what the Irish did to the Australians in the Rugby World Cup over the weekend... sob...