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~ Audio Mastering

What is Audio Mastering?

It can be creative or technical, to enhance the sound or repair problems. It's where the mix is approved, both in terms of esthetic or technical.
If the mix is already great, the mastering engineer might not even use any processing.

Mastering is a fairly subtle process, that polish the mix. There are several different techniques, but during this phase, less is certainly more!
If the mastering engineer notices too many problems, he might even ask the mixing engineer to solve those during the mixing phase.
For mastering, is critical to have a acoustically treated room.

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~ What's the difference between mixing and mastering?

Different skills, with different techniques.

The mixing phase is where every track can be adjusted or edited. The mastering phase, is a post mixing process, where it only works with one exported track or stems (tracks exported as groups).
The big bulk of work is done during the mixing phase. Mastering it's only the final step. When mixing, the engineer have total control of every track. While in mastering, it's very limited.

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~ Mastering audio for film

Mastering for film vs mastering for music

The concept of mastering is different for both fields. Technically, there's no equivalent of film mastering in the same way music is mastered. In film, the person in charge of the final mix (re-recording mixer / dubbing mixer) should handle all the technical aspects required for delivery. This ensures that the final mix is 'mastered.'

When mastering music, the mastering engineer might make adjustments, such as changing the tone. In film, these adjustments are typically resolved during the mix phase, otherwise, the overall tone and quality can negatively affect the entire film.

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~ Loudness wars

Don't be fooled by loudness.

Due to our hearing system and psyacoustics, loudness affects how we perceive sound.
There are a lot of misconceptions about loudness and it's fairly common to see professionals getting loud mixes or masterings in order to impress their clients. This is a cheap trick, since getting things loud, does not mean getting better quality. Although, the listener might perceive loud as better, when both versions are compared at the same loudness, the louder one might sound worse.

To make a mix sound very loud, it needs a lot of processing, which will affect the fidelity of the audio. In other words, you're trading quality for loudness. To combat this phenomeon, of differnt loudness levels and the degreding of audio quality, a loudness standard called EBU R-128 was created.
Depending on the platform and playback system, loudness might need to be according a certain standard.

  • What is loudness?

    Loudness is a hearing phenomen and it's perceptual. While measures such as SPL (sound pressure level) are analytical.

    That means that two audio files, can measure the same amount of dB, yet the perception of loudness can be different.

    Loundness is not percepted as a linear function, it's sensitivy varies across different frequencies. Loudness is a sensation of level, while the other is a measure of energy. They're two different things. You can't measure loudness using dBs, but you can measure the energy of the particles. This is a more technical approach, although in reality, we often refer to 'loudness' without being aware of what actually is.

  • What's the difference between Dynamic Compression and File Compression?

    Although both are called compression, there's a difference between compressing an audio signal and compressing a digital file. They are not the same thing.

    When compressing a digital file, you're reducing the size of the file. There are lossless file formats, where no data is lost and lossy file formats, where some data is removed.

    When applying dynamic compression to an audio signal, you're altering the amplitude of an audio signal, not the actual size of the file.

  • Is Analog gear better than Digital gear?

    Not really, although sound exists in the physical domain and we do need analog gear to capture and reproduce it. The advantage of digital sound lies in fidelity, precision and data storage. In those areas analog can't compete with digital. However, there are some disadvantages to the digital domain, such as "aliasing," which can create unwanted distortions when using non-linear processes. Analog does not suffer from this issue. Today, most top mixers work primarily in-the-box (ITB), using digital gear.

  • Digital clipping vs Analog clipping?

    When clipping digitally, the signal's harmonics can alias down into the audible range due to the truncation of the waveform. In contrast, analog clipping results in a rounding effect where frequency components fade away without aliasing. Both types of clipping create distortions, but analog clipping often produces harmonically rich distortion that can be perceived as more musical, while digital clipping, with its potential for aliasing, can lead to inharmonic artifacts.

  • Do films need to be mastered like music?

    No, there's no mastering in film as there is in music. Instead, there’s a quality control process to verify that levels and other parameters meet the requirements of the intended medium. However, there is no mastering process to shape the overall sound like there is in music.

+ Audio mastering tips