The Elusive Art of Mastering
and some upcoming concerts!
Dear Listeners,
So far in this newsletter series I’ve written about listening and the audio engineer’s mindset. But I haven’t talked about my area of focus within the vast realm of audio engineering: mastering. Mastering is a field that remains mysterious to many musicians, and even other audio engineers. There are dozens of memes about mastering, and in recent years there has been a proliferation of AI-driven automated “mastering” services on the internet. As a result of this shroud of mystery, many musicians don’t understand why they should have their music mastered at all. I hope to illuminate what mastering entails, why it matters to people who create and listen to music, and why I love it.
But first: I have to tell you about some upcoming concerts!
Friday, September 13, 2024, 7:00pm at Round Lake Auditorium
Sophia Vastek is performing on her new tiny upright piano at this gorgeous venue in Round Lake, NY. Drummer Nick Kopp will join her, with me on sound. Tickets
Saturday, September 14, 2024, 7:30pm at Arthur Zankel Music Center
I will be taking the stage for a solo set of saxophone and electronics in the beautiful concert hall at Skidmore College (where I also work). I’m splitting the bill with other Skidmore-employed Trojans, Sun Dogs. It’s free! More info
Saturday, September 21, 2024, 7:00pm at Troy Listening Room
Sophia Vastek and I continue to host shows at our house venue this fall, next up featuring singer/songwriters Naomi Westwater (Boston) and Sellers Webb (Troy). We’ve started to sell advance tickets for these, so pick one up here.
What is mastering?
Audio mastering is the final step in the music production process after recording, editing, and mixing. Mastering engineer Piper Payne describes mastering as “quality control,” an analogy that I like as it’s easy to immediately understand the concept, even if the specific steps that go into mastering may still be mysterious.
Mastering is when we (mastering engineers) make sure that music will sound as the artist intends it to on as many different kinds of speakers and headphones as possible. We make sure that it’s sufficiently “loud” while not being fatiguing to listen to, and, in the case of a collection of tracks like an album, we’ll make sure that the songs make sense together in terms of their overall tone and dynamics.
We do other less interesting things like embed information about the music (song title, artist name, etc) into the track, and create other necessary files for things like manufacturing CDs, vinyl records, or uploading to streaming platforms. But in addition to these very technical things and making sure the music sounds how it’s supposed to, I also like to think of mastering as making sure the music feels how it’s supposed to. For me, that’s where the mystery is.
Music is an ephemeral thing. It can make people feel strong emotions: move them to tears, or to action. Hearing one version of a song – like a live version played by the original songwriters – can be a remarkably different experience compared to the same song recorded at a different time, or by a different person. The same goes for the quality of the engineering that went into the song. Hearing the same recording, mixed and mastered poorly, will not have the same emotional impact as one that was mixed and mastered well.
Recording sound is, in a basic way, recording the movement of air (sound) onto a format like magnetic tape or a digital version of those movements. When sound gets played back over a headphone or speaker, it gets turned back into moving air. If a recording can accurately capture a singer’s voice moving air, or the unique tone of a performer’s instrument, that recording should be able to reproduce a similar experience to hearing that person playing live when played back – but only if the recording was made with care and attention to detail.
Why care about mastering?
Almost every recording you hear – whether it’s on a streaming service or on a CD or record, in a film, or on the radio – has been mastered. Some older recordings have been mastered and remastered multiple times, leading collectors to look for original or specific versions (the Robert Ludwig “Hot Mix” version of Led Zeppelin II comes to mind, or Beatles purists swearing by the mono versions of their albums).
It’s hard to demonstrate the difference mastering makes, since there are very few examples of un-mastered music readily available. Before the digital streaming era, music that wasn’t mastered wasn’t released: mastering was an inherent part of the manufacturing process. Nowadays, artists can digitally release their music more directly, but mastering is still nearly ubiquitous.
What I love about mastering
One of the things I love most about mastering is getting to work on such a wide range of styles of music and with different kinds of artists. Some of my clients have been making records for years and work with incredible producers and mix engineers. Other clients are just starting out: recording, producing, and mixing everything themselves. I get a lot of joy from the variety, and getting to collaborate with artists at any stage of their career. I also find it immensely satisfying to contribute a final polish to a song or album and know that I and everyone involved with the process did their best work.
Thanks for being here.
– Sam
Listening: Singles from Meet You At The Maypole, by my friend Half Waif
Brilliant. Thank you for sharing! Maybe see you at SPAC one day.