Popular Science published an article earlier this year on mastering and remastering audio. I’ve found myself thinking about the article many times in the months since I’ve read the article, so I decided I would list some of the main takeaways as bullet points.
- Mastering an album literally means creating a master copy
- Newcomers in the record business used to create the masters, but it’s now a highly skilled career
- Creative mastering started in the 1970s when some people said, “Hey, maybe if I add a little low end here or a little top end there, the result will just sound a little bit better to the end listener”
- To make an album louder, one can’t simply turn everything to 11, since there is a delicate balance of frequencies created by the mixing engineer
- Furthermore, in the case of vinyl, too much volume in the low bass frequencies can actually kick the needle out of the groove
- Record companies created albums for the lowest common denominator (i.e. cheap record players likely to skip if there’s too much volume on the low end)
- If one listens to old records by Led Zeppelin or the Beatles, for example, there is very little volume on the low end
- Remastering an album happens when a previous master is optimized for a new format
- The first remasters were released in the 1980s and early 1990s, coinciding with the burgeoning CD format
- The first remasters for the CD format were “flat transfers,” which meant there were no alterations
- These older CDs can sound bland and quiet compared to the remasters available today, though some prefer the sound of these older CDs
- Remastering became a highly sought-after career because of the possibilities the CD format created
- Taste is subjective and every remastering project will have its share of fans and detractors
- In the digital age, masters are no longer physical objects but rather a digital file from which all copies are made
- Streaming music involves low bit rates, but their compression algorithms are more efficient than the those of the MP3s one may have from the era of pirated music
- Streaming platforms have all their music mastered specially for them, so the volume doesn’t change from one song to the next
- The demand for immersive audio with the rise of home theaters presents another opportunity for mastering
- This stereophonic sound is meant to emulate seeing a band live, with the vocals and drums coming from the center, the bass close by, and one guitar from the left and another from the right
- It can also be used to create sounds that seem to move from one side to the next
- Spatial audio standards, such as Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, add a third vertical dimension
- This adds a new challenge for mastering, since the audio needs to sound good in both spatial audio and standard stereo audio
- Mixing involves editing the sound on each individual track in a multitrack recording, whereas mastering involves editing the entire recording as a single unit
- The main tools in mastering are equalization (or EQ) and compression
- EQing is similar to adjusting the treble and bass knobs on a stereo
- Compression is about leveling off the quietest and loudest parts of a song so it sounds more even
- Mastering involves nuance, skill, and even knowledge of how perception works in the psychology of human hearing
- For example, loud sounds seem louder if they last longer and drums in hip-hop seem louder if they are in mono (or centered in a stereo configuration)
- Mastering is a lucrative career and is in as high of demand as ever
- Now that artists have moved out of the studio and record in their bedrooms, there is a greater need for professional mastering
Scribner.org 