Modern Mastering. Part 1: Aims, tools and principles

The mastering process is as susceptible to trends as any other part of music production. Mark Cousins looks at the state of the art.

Ever since CD writers became affordable and TC Electronic released the infamous Finalizer, mastering has become one of the biggest growth areas in the world of the project studio. Indeed, where once it was unheard of to question or understand what happened in the few mastering studios around the world, we’re all now actively engaged in compressing, EQ’ing and PQ encoding our recordings to create masters every bit as loudand professional as a commercial release.

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 34
Filed under General Features, Mastering

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