The Gossman Passion, Post-Mastering Thoughts

I think I can safely say that I'm done with producing the master for this project. Since finishing the mixing about a week and a half ago, I had some difficult decisions to make about how the master should sound. I'm not surprised that I had a second revision done to the first master I had made a week ago. I've only gotten the mastering thing right on the first try a handful of times.

Mastering affects audio mixes in at least three ways. First of all, the overall EQ of the project is determined in this last phase of production. Secondly, some amount of compression and limiting is applied to make the overall volume consistent from track to track. And finally, the overall perceived volume of the project is determined.

EQ can have a large impact on how commercially appealing a CD can be. A lot of country records are typically considered "bright" meaning there's a great emphasis on adding "zing" and "sizzle." This can help make a track stand out against others on a radio program. Alternately, some jazz recordings are often mixed and mastered "dark." It's all about what you are going for. A danger in making something "bright" is that some of the upper frequencies (5K-10K) can hurt one's ears if they are driven too hard. On this Passion, we often notched out some frequencies at around 8K, just to get a handle on some of the "esses." The name Jesus has two big "esses" and those happen quite a bit in this recording.

Compression and limiting is a double edged sword. On one hand, compression can be used to tame elements that are a bit "in front" that shouldn't be. On the other hand, compression can squash the life and natural dynamics out of a mix. Often, compressed mixes sound better on the radio than uncompressed ones. Also, compression applied too heavily can alter the inherent dynamics of a mix. This was one of the mistakes I made in the first master of this project. I jammed the compression down a bit too hard. It sounded good in the mastering room, but when I took it to the car, everything sounded murky and muddy. To fix this, we backed off the gain.

Overall volume is what is adjusted in order to make a record "loud" or "soft." Rap records and a lot of rock records are commonly made "loud" in order to make them stand out. This is good for pop songs and radio oriented things, but for dynamic recordings it doesn't really work that well. In the first pass of this master, I also made the recording far too "loud." This enhanced some of the murkiness and made is sound even more unclear. In the second pass, I opted to make the master "soft." It works so much better in just about every environment I've listened in. When I think about the recordings this project emulates, I realize that those masters are also "soft."

The biggest lesson I learned on this trip to the mastering studio is that "louder" isn't always "better." "Loud" seems to be the mentality among record labels and many producers I know. "Just make it loud," I've heard more times than once. I think a lot can be said for records that breathe. I mean, people still listen to Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall all the time. Those records are quite soft when compared to most of the disposible crap that gets the loud treatment. I guess if you want to make a classic sounding master, the best thing to do is to let the thing breathe. I'm happier now that I've seen the light.