Longview Studios: Mastering

Often Overlooked, Mastering is a vital part of the
music production process.

When your prized CD is played in public, you want it to sound 'polished', to sit comfortably next to the latest chart releases. That polish starts in the recording session, but is only completed at the mastering stage. Longview offer a comprehensive mastering service to complete your project. If your CD is to be pressed rather than duplicated, mastering is really an essential process to ensure your master meets the 'red book' standard required by the plant. We are also able to provide production masters in DDP format, often required by large scale pressing plants.

Many home based project studio's are now offering some form of mastering service. You really need to be careful when choosing where your work will be mastered, and we hope that the following information will help you make the right choices.

Even in a world where digital audio software abounds, audio mastering remains a specialist area. Most 'tools' readily available focus on increasing the level of the audio, which is a very simple process. However, increasing the volume is really only a tiny factor in giving your music that 'commercial' feel and polish. No degree of mastering expertise can fix a poor mix, so try to make sure that your studio mixes are clean and well balanced before you start on the mastering quest. You should also keep in mind that any fade ins or fade outs should be applied at the mastering stage and NOT at the mixing stage, digital audio will truncate the bit depth as the volume gets close to the noise floor, a process called 'dithering' masks this effect and is applied at the burn point. The services offered by most of the home based studios are, in fact, pre mastering. You need to pay special attention if your finished work is going to a pressing plant, there are certain standards which must be observed, and many plants will require production masters in DDP format, CD-R is often not accepted by large scale pressing plants. Longview make mastering affordable and simple!

Longview offer 2 levels of mastering service:

On-line pre master: Everything is done via the internet!

E mail or call us with your requirements, we will issue a PayPal invoice and password for you to upload your mixes (you'll need a fast connection for this, audio files are BIG!!) either as individual files or in a winRar zip file.
Upload your tracks to our server, we will eq them so that they sit nicely together, apply limiting and multi band compression/harmonic enhancement (where needed) and increase the level without introducing distortion. The cost of this service is £7.50 per track for tracks up to 5 minutes in length. Turnaround is usually 3 days, but may be longer during busy times. We will always give you a firm completion date when we receive your job.

Full production mastering:

We encourage you to attend this type of session, though it can be undertaken in your absence. Your tracks can be uploaded, sent or brought to the studio. After pre mastering (eq'ing, levelling, compression and inflation) your master will be burned to CD-R for reference or duplication and to DDP-DVD for transmission to pressing plant. The cost of this service is £15 per track for tracks up to 5 minutes in length.