Preparing Files For Mastering
I often get asked what I need in order to master a record. Let’s go through my usual suggestions and guidelines.
In most cases I’ll get a limited and unlimited version of the mix. If the team hasn’t been listening to a version of the mix with heavy limiting then an unlimited version may not be necessary. The only difference between these should be the final limiter. The goal is for me to get a sense of the loudness and sonic qualities everyone has been working with. I’ve been in situations where the limited version of the record wasn’t sent to me and after several revisions and pushing the mix louder, I’ll found out they were listening to a heavily distorted version that sounds completely different from the unlimited mix and that’s what they’re used to and the vibe they’re aiming for.
I ask that all alts (instrumental, clean, etc.) be delivered along with the mix. The exception would be for an album where it’s generally easier to approach them after the album has been finalized and approved. The alts should have the same processing and timing as the main mix. At the moment I don’t charge any extra fees for alts but if 2 weeks after a project has been finalized I receive alts, it’s a hassle to pull the project back up, work on the new files, go through the export and QC process, and deliver those files. It’s significantly more streamlined when I’m able to handle everything at once.
For sending files, please either send a zipped folder or send it through a service which allows me to download everything as a zipped folder. This could be Dropbox, wetransfer, Boombox, etc. Please avoid sending files directly via email or Google drive.
Please send everything as wav files. Other formats like MP3 are compressed and lower quality. The files should be at the native sample rate the projects has been mixed at and either 24 or 32 bit. Avoid converting files before sending them to me. If you’re working on an album where tracks have been mixed at different sample rates then please contact me to come up with a game plan before starting and that way we can figure out what sample rate the project should be approach at for mastering.
When working on an album it’s generally best for me to approach it as an entire album. If every week I receive one track and you’d like me to send back masters then each track will be either treated independently as a single or only based off of the previous tracks. This limits the possibility of approaching the album as a whole. It’s common to release a few singles before the album is released or finished which is no problem but in those cases I’d recommend working on those tracks and then holding off on the rest until it’s all ready to be mastered.
I don’t charge for mastering revisions. If we’ve gone through several revisions and things aren’t working out and being productive then I’ll recommend you find someone else to work with as it wasn’t a good fit. Having said that, mix revisions (sending me an updated mix file) is something I charge extra for. Worst case scenario the mix has been entirely changed and I need to treat it as an entirely new master. Best case scenario it’s something like a single word was edited and there are otherwise no other sonic differences. Even in the best case, it’s not a simple “mix swap” as some believe. On my end there’s processing done in RX which must manually be done on the new file, then the rest of the processing needs to be done, followed by exporting and QCing all of the files. I’ll usually also A/B with the previous version to make sure nothing else changed. This all ends up taking a significant amount of time even if I do nothing differently with the new version of the mix. A mix revision could easily take 70% the time of working on a new master.
Atmos mastering is entirely separate from stereo mastering and is an entirely different fee. The stereo master must be completed before the Atmos mastering can be done. A common misconception is that the Atmos version of a record can be created at the mastering stage and is a simple additional deliverable. Atmos is an entirely separate mix from the stereo. What I work on is the Atmos mix prepared by a mixing engineer. In some cases I’ve created the Atmos mix from stereo stems but that’s beyond the scope of regular Atmos mastering. If you’re interested in releasing your record in Atmos (or if it’s a requirement), it’s important to factor that in and plan for it early on in the production (and budgeting) process.