When your song is ready for the mastering phase of post-production, you may be wondering if you need to hire an outside engineer or you can just do it yourself (or have the mixing engineer do it?). This is an important decision because if everything is done right up to this point, you do not want to confuse it in the last step. Here are some things to keep in mind when making this decision.

WHAT IS THE QUALITY OF THE MIX?

Before you spend money to hire a master engineer, you want to make sure that the product you send them is quality. Is the recording good, is the editing done correctly, does the mix sound professional? If the answer to these questions is yes, then it makes sense to attract someone from outside to bring the finishing touches to this project. However, you may already have these skills available ...

DO YOU OR THE MIXING ENGINEER ALREADY HAVE EXPERIENCE?

Mastering is something like a black box, from which the experts manage to get a great end result. The basic concepts of mastering are quite basic and every musician and engineer with more experience knows them. You want to shape EQ and compression to get crystal clear sound, and the volume is on par with all similar professional recordings currently on the market. If you or the mixing engineer have a solid level of comfort with these tasks, this can be done internally (probably for a relatively small additional fee for a mixing engineer). But the challenge is not to get carried away and change too many things in the wrong way. This is where the danger of the last step is. But if you have a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve and you can apply the mentioned techniques correctly, then you have a chance to succeed.

IN WHAT FORMATS DO YOU RELEASE THE SONG?

If you're just releasing songs for online streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.), this would be a good time to test your mastering skills or trust a mixing engineer. These platforms have an algorithm to balance the levels that increase or decrease the levels to keep them in line with the other songs. However, if you are planning a physical release (CD, vinyl or other), then the master engineer can contribute his experience and prepare the songs in a way that is suitable for each medium. In our opinion, this is one of the key moments when a master engineer can really upload a record to the required level.

HOW LARGE IS THE PROJECT?

If you only release a single, then it may be too much to seek paid outside help. However, albums really need to benefit a master engineer because of the way they can create smooth transitions and consistency between different songs. This can be of great benefit when different songs do not sound well put together directly from the mixing phase. If there's one place we think hiring a master engineer is most needed, it's when creating an album or EP. Given how much time, effort, and money are spent on working on such a large project, then the cost of mastering is more than justified.

AUTOMATED MASTERING

Services are now available that can provide mastering for your mix with only a very high level of input. Although these services were terrible in the beginning, over time they continue to improve and become more acceptable. In our opinion, a computer cannot completely replace an experienced engineer, and this service is not suitable for everyone. Listening to music creates an emotional reaction in the listener and the creation of such music cannot be easily replicated by a computer. Perhaps mastering is the part of the songwriting process that makes the most sense of this type of computer automation. But we will just have to wait and see how far technology will take us.

We hope this gives you a good frame of reference to make your decision on mastering. If you have questions about your music projects, feel free to contact us, and see how we can help you.