Mastering
Al started Brighton
Mastering four years ago as a service to local bands looking for quality
mastering at an affordable price. Since then it's taken off as a business
in its own right. Al's many years of experience in record production
led him to work with all the major London mastering houses and he now
uses that experience to bring high quality audio sweetening to his own
clients. He uses a blend of valve equipment, half inch tape, Pro Tools
and very good ears to achieve this.
What Is Mastering?
Mastering is the
final process in the making of a CD. After you've mixed all of your
individual tracks you then look at them as a whole. We check to see
that they all have a similar volume characteristic, a good frequency
balance (EQ) and then we set the appropriate length of gaps between
songs/tracks. Getting the gaps right makes a difference to the way a
CD flows. Finally we make a master copy using all the correct PQ codes
so that your CD plays properly on all machines. This master copy can
then be sent to a manufacturing plant for glass mastering and manufacture.
"It's amazing the number of CD's I'm given that jump, get stuck,
have digital noise on them or just don't play at all. This is usually
because they have been 'burnt' on cheap computer software that doesn't
do the job properly. We use a mixture of valve, tape and Pro Tools to
enhance the sound quality and with good ears a huge difference can be
made to the impact of a stereo mix or to the soundtrack of a video."
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