SERVICES

Mastering

What is Mastering?
Mastering assures the compliance of the final CD to the relevant standard and shapes and enhances the audio through the application of various processes. The Mastering Engineer also lends a sensitive pair of ears to the project.

The Process of Mastering
Mastering unites a number of tracks into a complete Album. The source tracks or “songs” are loaded onto a Digital Audio Workstation, checked for errors (such as dropouts or false starts) and arranged in the desired order.

After assessing the audio, the Mastering Engineer makes the necessary artistic changes to the audio (This includes applying equalization to correct the frequency response, and compression to shape the dynamics). Other processes are also used to manipulate the stereo image and remove noise.

Track gaps and track volumes are adjusted in order to establish the flow of the album. Before writing the final master, the sub-codes that indicate starts and pauses (ISRC Codes, EAN Codes and CD-Text), are inserted. This is often referred to as PQ coding. The master CD is then written and tested for audio and optical errors.

PMCD
PMCD or Pre-Master CD was a format for master delivery developed by Sony and Sonic Solutions in the early 90's Although the PMCD format is obsolete, the term is still sometimes used synonymously with Master CD.