INSIGHT Mastering: online, attended, AI, or DIY?
Before getting into the nitty gritty of working with plugins, considering maximum output levels and the difference between average and peak volumes, let’s remind ourselves what mastering is designed to do. On an album, mastering is the final stage where the ‘program’ of musical material is made coherent, with an evenness of tone, dynamics, mix space and width applied to each track, as well as considering factors such as the spaces (in seconds) between tracks.
However, mastering is also designed to give music a role in the wider world, seeking to ensure that, compared to other musical material, the tracks we write ‘sound right’. If that sounds wooly, we make no apologies; your masters can sound great without any of those clichéd phrases…