What is Mastering?

This is a very commonly asked question. For most people, the process of audio mastering is a complete mystery. Its like some audio magic that some sort of sonic wizard sprinkles over your mix, tranforming it into a finely polished professional sounding product. While this is of course an exaggeration, it is not too far from what a mastering engineer does. The mastering engineer lays down the final layer of audio processing like icing on a cake. he applies the finishing touches to enhance the mix and ensure optimal playback on a wide range of speaker systems.

It is the mastering engineer's main goal to increase the perceived loudness of a mix, while keeping the reduction of dynamic range to a minimum. A talented mastering engineer will make your track sound nice and big, while at the same time retaining the punch and dynamics of the natural unmastered mix. This can be quite difficult to do, and should always be left to the professionals.