In our mastering studios, we see a lot of music and a lot of music files coming our way. Many musicians and producers know just how to prepare their mix for CD mastering, but on the other hand, a lot of the files we see coming in are not prepared correctly for the mastering process. The main problems we see are either 1) the file was exported too hot, and there is no headroom to work with, and the sound clips; 2) the producer used a mastering plug-in on the export, and the song is already mastered, to a fashion; and/or 3) the vocals are distorted or are not sounding good.
When a file is exported too hot, the result is that there is no variation between the louder sections and the parts that are supposed to softer. The reason is that in digital music production, there is a ceiling to how loud a track can be, this is referred to as the zero attenuation point and roughly corresponds to the 'red line' maximum level on the output slider. If the song is mixed correctly, the output mix will never touch the zero line. But what we often see is the whole output file touching and in fact attempting to push above the zero line. In such a case, all the softer sections of the music are pushed almost as loud as the zero point, and all the louder sections would have crossed the zero point, except that they are "clipped" by the fact that the sound cannot be louder than the zero point. The result is that all the louder peaks are cut off and "clipped" by the zero point whereas the softer parts are pushed almost directly to the zero point. The result is a marked lack of dynamic difference between what are supposed to be louder and softer peaks and valleys in the music, which should have shown more dynamic difference but were thwarted due to the clipping process. And in most cases, the clipping results in distortion and aliasing which were not present in the music when originally produced.
Similarly, if a producer or self-produced musician employs a mastering plug-in on the entire track, this also destroys any sort of variation between the louder peaks and the softer valleys of the sound track file. While usually such a plug-in does not allow the sound to clip past the zero point, nevertheless it compresses the track into a dynamic range which eliminates this so-called headroom from the track, and invariably makes it difficult for us as mastering engineers to do anything creative with the dynamic range that remains. Therefore, if you are going to get your track professionally mastered, it is imperative that you do not use a mastering plug-in when outputting your mix. The plug-in itself may be nice and sound good and provide some form of mastering, but the fact is a mastering engineer can do a lot more with your mix than a mastering plug-in. So, you should choose: mastering plug-in, or mastering engineer? not both.
The third more common issue we see with files coming into the studio is a track with badly recorded or distorted vocal tracks over a beat. Believe it or not, many self-produced musicians have this problem. The way to solve this is, first, get a decent microphone. There are a number of microphones on the market today which one can purchase for less than $200 -- basically imported knock-offs of high-end microphones, which work very well and sound great. Get yourself one of these microphones. Then, you must experiment with your input levels until you've found that "sweet spot" where you get a strong signal coming in with zero distortion. Once you've found this spot with a halfway decent microphone, that is half the battle. The other half is delivering a strong performance, which is up to the musician.
In conclusion, the best practices to follow to prepare your mix for professional audio mastering are: 1) make sure your mix is not maxing out at the zero point and clipping; 2) get rid of any mastering plug-ins you might have on your output mix; and 3) make sure you use a decent microphone and make sure the input levels are set correctly for clean recording of your vocal parts.
Hugh Jarvis Hitchcock is an award-winning producer and mastering engineer, and proprietor of Groove-Phonic Mastering and Mixing on the web at http://www.groovephonic.com/, where you can get quality audio mastering at affordable prices. Groove-Phonic is currently offering a promotion where you can get your song mastered for free! Go to http://www.groovephonic.com/freemastersignup.aspx
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