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What is Mastering!?
It's the audio step that comes just before manufacturing a CD. Some people would even say it's a crucial step.
In general terms: mastering brings out the 'good' qualities of a finished mix, tries to minimize 'bad' qualities and ensures consistent playback from ALL sources (i.e. in the car, your friends car, your home stereo, your ear-buds, your computer speakers, and even the CD / Clock / Radio with just one speaker. Mastering also creates continuity from track to track in regards to both volume and overall sound quality.
Mastering includes but may not be limited to:
- Optimizing volume levels for proper relative loudness
- Signal processing - Compression, EQ, and More
- Arranging tracks in final sequence
- Clean-up start and ending of each track (including fades)
Does Certain Sparks offer Mastering?
Yes, Certain Sparks offers BASIC MASTERING.
However, if you are making a full length CD or an EP that you want to compete sonically with other professional releases, I highly suggest that you research dedicated mastering facilities, and find one that you can afford. Certain Sparks is a Discmakers Official Studio Partner, qualifying you for special discounts on Mastering and CD duplication. Click here to visit www.discmakers.com
Mastering is a skill and art that engineers specialize in; it takes many, many years to become an effective and efficient mastering engineer.
So, NO, we are not able to master your work in a way that rivals a dedicated mastering facility. But YES, allowing time for even basic Mastering means your finished CD will sound more like a commercially released CD. At Certain Sparks every effort is made to ensure that your material will sound GREAT even without taking the finished tracks to an outside mastering facility.
A Final Thought:
If you have the budget for it, GET YOUR ALBUM PROPERLY MASTERED! The new COLDPLAY, RADIOHEAD, ANGELS & AIRWAVES and other big bands with big budgets had their records mastered in the best facilities in the world! You may even be surprised to find out that most of the great commercially released albums are mastered by just a handful of world renowned mastering engineers.
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