Top Industry Analog Mastering Work for Artists
The music industry has several recording and mixing tricks to make the best commercial records. CD mastering is one of the best kept secrets of the best mastering engineers today. Since most everything is mixed in the digital realm, top mastering houses will do what’s called layback mastering. The digital signal is converted back to an analog version in order to be mastered through analog processors, though many times it is also recorded to an two-track machine in order to get the richness that original analog tape gives to the album. It also takes the harshness away from purely digital recordings, and can round out the bottom end giving the low frequencies that signature analog sound.
The fact is the pros for outweigh the cons. Analog mastering often does cost a bit more than basic purely digital mastering, since it takes more time and there are the costs for the analog tape, but for serious projects, it can be the last step in achieving the best sound quality for the album. The reason for this is digital recordings can seem cold to many people because no matter how loud the sound gets, digital always gives you flat reproduction. Analog tape, however, saturates as the DB increases in level, so heigh end peaks are smoothed over instead of clipping, which becomes a warm, fat sound as the harmonic series is excited. To the listener, this sound is much more nice to listen to. Also, an increased input song will create a larger effect. As the top ranges saturate first, this transilates that as the signal increases, the highs naturally smooth out, creating a less cold, and a more pleasing recording. This is the magic of the analog mastering method.
There are different mastering studios around the country that have the equipment to do analog mastering, however, it also necessitates you have a solid professional with the track record to get optimal end product possible with the gear. I have sampled a few recording studios and one of the best is www.stevethomasmastering.com. He is a top analog mastering engineer, yet he also has done thousands of albums as a recording engineer as well. But his expertise is similar to some of the most expensive mastering houses in the United States. If you already have someone you are using that’s fine. But, I would certainly to look him up.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 3:31 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.