Mastering Defined
A fine tuning technical and sometimes artistic process that is applied to a final studio mix. No matter if your audio is planned for CD replication, cassette duplication, is to be included in CDRom authoring or published to the World Wide Web, it must be mastered to take full advantage of the media in which it is to be released. Mastering is the last step before replication therefore your last chance to correct any deficiencies or accesses in your program material. Projects that contain material from various sessions, overdubs, musicians, engineers, producers... sometimes in itself can lead to a lack of perceived consistency of your project. Mastering can help fused all these elements into a cohesive sounding package.



In Short: Mastering is meant to correct audio deficiencies and accesses in regards to; audio fidelity, noise reduction, tonal balance, stereo imaging, fade ins and fade outs, relative volume level from track to track, track sequencing order of final master, and overall consistency of the program material and package...



These are the main concerns of the mastering engineer that must be dealt with during the mastering process [but certainly are not limited to these issues]. Equalization (EQ), compression, de-essing, expansion, noise reduction, frequency analysis [FFT], stereo spectral enhancement, ambience enhancement [which can help fuse overdubs that where done in different studios with different ambience characteristics]. These are just some of the tools and techniques that the mastering engineer can provide to help your project achieve the necessary audio fidelity heard on national commercial recordings. Soweto Productions has been achieving this quality for more than 30 years, and can do the same for your project.