Vipen Studios CD Mastering
CD mastering is an art and a science. Mastering is the final creative and technical step prior to pressing a record album (CD, DVD, cassette, or other medium). Compare mastering to the editor's job of taking a raw manuscript and turning it into a book. The book editor must understand syntax, grammar, organization and writing style, as well as know the arcane techniques of binding, color separation, printing presses and the like. Likewise, the CD Mastering engineer marries the art of music with the science of sound.
The Craft of CD Mastering
The audio mastering engineer is a specialist who spends his or her entire time perfecting the craft of mastering. Audio mastering is performed in a dedicated studio with quiet, calibrated acoustics, and a single set of wide-range monitors. Signal paths are kept to a minimum and often customized gear and specialized tools are used. The monitors should not be encumbered by the interfering acoustics of large recording consoles, racks or outboard gear. In other words, the acoustics are first optimized, and all other considerations must be secondary to the acoustics. For optimum results, mastering should not be performed in the same studio as the recording or with the same engineer who recorded the work. It is important to find a mastering engineer who will bring his expertise and unique perspective to an album project, to produce that final polish that distinguishes an ordinary recording from a work of art.
