Mastering (or pre-mastering) is the process of preparing a track or album for its final destination medium. This means ensuring that things will sound as good as possible on the widest variety of sound reproduction equipment, sequencing and preparing CDs for final album releases, providing an error-free master copy of such CDs, and in the case of vinyl, ensuring that a track can be cut to vinyl with no problems. Mastering an album also involves making all the constituent tracks sound consistent as a single project.
Simple. You send us a message via our contact form, and we will reply with details of how to transfer your tracks to us.
You send us your track or tracks then we master the tracks for you and send back a 2 minute clip of the track (or a selection of tracks) for approval.
Once approved, we will make the full final versions available to you upon receipt of payment.
One of our two experienced engineers will perform the mastering, depending upon the preference of the artist, and the nature of the project. When you use our contact form you can specify which engineer you would prefer to master your tracks. We will do our best to accommodate your preference, though schedules may mean that your choice of engineer is not available within the required timescales.
The simplest advice here is that you make your track(s) sound as good as you possibly can before handing them over. Make sure you have checked them on several different playback systems, and referenced them against tracks that you like (preferably at the same subjective level). Make sure that all of the parts in the track sound how you want them, the balance of elements is as you want it, and that all in all you can't think of any way it can be improved. We will then improve it.
It's also much better for the final results that you don't limit (L1, L2, L3 etc) your track. Often, inexperienced producers apply too much limiting without considering the damage they are doing. Limiting should be the last stage of processing, and it is impossible to undo! So please leave any limiters turned off, and ensure your track is not clipping. If you like to mix into a compressor, then go ahead - however, putting a compressor on after your mix is finished is not recommended.
Ensure that your tracks are mixed down to the required file formats and that you leave a minimum of 3dB of headroom for us to work with. Don't worry if the track sounds quiet, we will take care of the final loudness. Just mix it down with plenty of headroom at 24 bit, and we will take care of the rest.
Once you have registered an account on the SC Mastering website, you can use the form on our contact page order your mastering work. (Note that you need to be logged in to user the order form.)
When we receive a work order from you, we will contact you with details of how to transfer your tracks to us.
We support FTP, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) transfer, and Soundcloud.
You are welcome to also use your preferred file sharing service (e.g. Sendspace etc).
Our AIM details are:
Ben: SCMastering
Bob: MaccSCMastering
You can also use our DropBox at Soundcloud.
Once you have approved the work, payment can be made by PayPal (including credit cards) or direct bank transfer and must be paid before the full mastered tracks will be delivered to you.
This is the purpose of the approval process. In the unlikely event that you are not happy with the clips, simply tell us what changes you require and we will revise the master accordingly.
The first revision will be non-chargeable. Any subsequent revisions will be charged at a negotiable rate.
In the event that the artist/producer decides to make significant changes to the mix following mastering, all processing will need to be revised and redone. As such, this new version will be charged at the standard rate.
We aim to have your tracks back with you within 5 days.
If things are more or less urgent, then let us know and we will try to accommodate your time frame.
Prices can be found here
See our Studios & Engineers page to find out more about the SC Mastering studios and the equipment used by our engineers.
See our Format Requirements page to find out more about how you should prepare your tracks before sending them to us.
See our Format Requirements page to find out more about the formats that we will return your tracks in.