If you’re reading this, you have most likely sold merchandise. You probably already know the basics and the obvious aspects of selling it.
The best mastering level for streaming is an integrated -14 LUFS, as it best fits the loudness normalization settings of the majority of streaming services.
Apple Digital Masters is a protocol set by Apple Music to ensure that the highest quality masters are created for their Apple Music Platform. Based on the Apple Digital Masters guidelines, your master should be of the highest original bit-depth and sampling-rate possible and should avoid clipping.
Occasionally, with digital music, you'll find unwanted distortion in your mix after changing the bit depth of your track. This is an effect called quantization distortion. The way to fix this is to apply dithering when you process your music from one bit depth to another. Here's how dithering works...
It can be difficult to take criticisms on a mix. After you have put in hours of work, having somebody tell you that there is too much of this or too little of that can become frustrating.
De-Essing is any vocal technique, plugin, hardware, or post-production technique that reduces vocal sibilance, and causes a balanced frequency response in the higher-frequency range. Excessive vocal sibilance can be unpleasant for most listeners; as a result, De-Essing is typically used to remedy these issues.
Audio formats can become complex pretty quickly. There are a lot to choose from, and picking the best one for your professional audio needs, or just for casual listening can easily become daunting.
Mastering is the last step in the audio creation process. It takes stereo mixes and prepares them for distribution.Within this process most people view the main goal of mastering as creating a cohesive, balanced body of work; but it’s so much more than than this.
Have you ever found yourself wondering what people are talking about when describing the qualities of audio? Many adjectives that get used to describe audio make little sense when thinking of them in their literal definitions.
Quick Answer A “Loudness Penalty” is the amount in dB your mix or master will be turned down by loudness normalization. Loudness normalization occurs right before streaming and is something any engineer or artist needs to keep in mind before distributing their mix or master for distribution.
Sibilance...Right when you think you may have made the right adjustments on your EQ and set the compressor just so, a sharp, harsh “s” jumps from your speakers.
Mastering is an exciting and ever-changing field. Some of the information available about mastering is well known, and some are certainly unique.
Mixing and mastering can be done with analog and digital workflows. Often the choice of which to go with comes down to user preferences, cost, and desired features of a system.
Yes, in most circumstances mastering is needed in order to prepare a project for distribution. Although the choice to master your music depends on the desired outcome, it is always helpful to have another engineer listen to and assess the quality of your project before it’s distributed.
Mastering music for streaming is the process of preparing a song or project for distribution on a digital streaming platform.
