Why Master?

These days it's common for the contemporary artist to fulfil the role of engineer, producer, arranger, tour manager, tea boy etc... Often projects are recorded and mixed in the same room with the same monitoring system. Any flaws in the frequency response of the system/room can become exaggerated at every stage of the production process. Mastering achieves several essential purposes; firstly proofing your mixes sonically - ensuring any peaks and troughs in your systems frequency response are smoothed out, along with any other sonic problems such as phase errors, pops, clicks and other noise removal, appropriate dithering etc. Second, we ensure the tracks are balanced and consistent with each other in the manner of chapters in a good book. Thirdly we ensure your master is - thanks to the "loudness war" - of a commercially acceptable loudness. Finally, an experienced pair of ears from a third party can point out things that may have been overlooked, both artistically and sonically. We want your music to be as good as it can be when it reaches the ears of the public. …

Mastering Services

• Red Book Mastering. CD Pre-masters for CD manufacture must fulfil certain criteria and these standards have become known as the "red book" standard. As well as preparing your audio to the highest standard we can create these red book pre-master CDs for you. For an album approximately 50 mins long (12-13 tracks), by the same artist and mixed in the same place prices can be as cheap as £350 per album. We provide one approval disc and two "red book" pre-masters on top quality low error Taiyo Yudon discs. Or alternatively we can deliver the final master as a DDP fileset. All jobs depend on a number of factors and it's always best to call and discuss your specific requirements.
  From £350
• MP3s. MP3 is an essential way of showcasing your music on the internet. We can ensure your tracks are eq'd effectively for the this type of encoding and compression, so your tracks always stand up against the competition!
  From £45 per track (min 2 tracks).
• Archiving Ensure your precious masters or personal memorabilia are saved for future generations. Dat, mini-disc, cassette, vinyl, and some multi-track tape formats can be accommodated. Call for details.
  From £35 per hour

Facilities

Acoustically treated bespoke mastering suite and the following equipment:

• Monitoring by PMC, Genelec and Tannoy
• Amplification by Flying Mole
• D/A conversion by RME
• Wave Arts Mastering plug-in bundle
• Bias "Peak Pro" XT mastering software and plug-in bundle
• Plextor CD writer with Plextools
• Taiyo Yudon discs