MASTERING IN THE BOX
Budget won’t stretch to a trip to a mastering engineer? Or fancy some DIY? Get started here…
There was a time, before the total dominance of computer-based DAWs, when the vast majority of bedroom producers really had no idea what mastering was, or why you’d want to entertain it. We understood mixing, because faders are fairly self-explanatory, but not so with the aural depth of mastering. Before we look at how we can now handle this process ourselves, let’s take a moment to reflect on its legacy. Mastering is the final process in the production chain; it’s where you take your finished mix and give it that final bit of spit and polish, before you send it up the wire to your chosen streaming service for public consumption. Make no mistake, a good master can breathe life into a mix, but how is this done?