Mastering with Mike Cave
During this module we have spent a number of sessions with award-winning mixing and mastering engineer Mike Cave, including spending a day session shadowing alongside him as he completed a mastering job for a pop track. During these sessions we have learnt comprehensive workflows across the mastering process in both digital and analogue formats.
The mastering process is the final steps of audio processing which any piece of audio will go through before distribution, and is done to ensure quality, transferability in playback, and cohesion of the various instrumentation or wider layers of sound in a mix.
The process which we covered followed a chain of processing which was applied to the whole final mix as one wav, this process is done to enhance the mix and uses a number of digital and analogue tools to do this, alongside a number of metering tools to monitor detail and sonics of a piece of audio. The effects applied in the mastering stages can range from very subtle small incremental changes, to quite significant depending on the source material and what it requires.
Mastering ideally is performed by a professional mastering engineer, with a fresh perspective on the material, in a treated and specially designed room specifically for the process. The aim of mastering is not only to characterize and enhance a piece of audio, but to also fit it to the various different loudness and peak specifications for delivery to it’s playback medium whether that is streaming platforms, physical playback (disk / vinyl), broadcasting, tv / film, and their respective LUFS and RMS standards. Some of the signal processing effects which are typically applied at the mastering stage include :
Compression : to bring character and cohesion to a mix compression is applied very subtly to round and shape the overall sonic and tone of a track. DIfferent compressors impact different timbre and sonic qualities to a track and therefore both digital and analogue compression units, as well as different models and brands with different internal circuitry or digital processing all impact slightly different characteristics and tone.
- EQ : used similarly with very subtle cuts or boost in both stereo and mid-side formats to balance audio, accounting for issues that may be present in a mix due to non-ideal mixing environments, or either again to impart characteristics sonically and tonally.
- Limiters : applied to ensure stray waveform peaks do not clip the final audio, as well as to boost levels up if required to match LUFS standards. Again, the specific limiter here used will also impart character, and therefore both analog and digital limiters may vary in their tone. Typically at the final step at the chain, a transparent limiter will be applied alongside tonal limiters to catch peaks before printing.
- Saturation : utilised to enhance tonally the tonal qualities of a track, and add reinforcement to both overtones and transients, as well as to thicken low-end frequency ranges.
- Widening : used to processes the stereo imaging of a track to either narrow or widen frequency bands as required to mould the stereo image and spread of audio.
Some of the metering utilised in mastering include : loudness metres to measure LUFS / goniometers to monitor phasing and correlation / EQ analysers to monitor overall frequency information of audio in both fast for small segments and infinite return rates for overall measurement. One of the most important aspects of mastering is the engineer's skill in the process, and in their knowledge of the listening environment which they are performing the process in. It is crucial for the mastering engineer to know the room and playback medium (monitors or headphones) which they are utilising, for the assurance of both quality and consistency in playback.
