Why Does Audio Mastering Really Matter?

Music is the quintessential expression of what it means to be a human, and as an artist, you put your heart and soul into your music. But how do you make sure your music reaches its full potential?

In the modern world of music production, technology has enabled artists to create music in their own home-built studios. They are able to get the basics done in this home studio, but that is simply the first part of their musical journey. 

After a record is released, one of the worst things that can happen is to realise that your track sounds dry, empty, and one-dimensional. This may increase your song’s skip rate and ultimately put your audience off. As a result, the Spotify algorithms won’t work in your favour and curators will be less likely to add your release to their editorial playlists.

What is Music Mastering?

Not everyone is aware of how important music mastering is. It’s audio mastering that makes a good record sound exceptional and ready for streaming platforms. There are many automated mastering services that are cheap, but they usually apply a pre-used template to your music that will just make it sound louder. The right master will bring your song to life. Our Grammy award-winning engineers are the best in the business with an impressive tally of global hit records between them and over 100 years of combined experience. They are here to help you bring your music to life.

There is so much music out there, now more than ever, and how we listen to music has drastically changed. Instead of buying a record or an album, most of us acquire our music digitally and combine them into playlists, listening to one song after the next (with varying genres). With this combination, audio mastering is now more important than ever to add that crisp refinement that will have your music stand out amongst the noise. 

How do you get your music ready for the release?

Let’s take a quick step back to review the three major components of making music for commercial use. The very first step is recording the music in a recording studio, however, these days many artists record their vocals in their bedroom. It is then sent to a professional to be mixed. In this process, all of the different elements in the track are combined and refined to ensure the music sounds balanced so, for example, the bass doesn’t drown out the bass drum and the vocals are clear without overpowering the instruments. 

Finally, audio mastering comes into play. Here, an audio mastering engineer takes a fine-tooth comb to your finished track, gives it a final polish and ensures it’s suitable for mass distribution. This process prepares music to be listened to anywhere, not just an acoustically perfect studio where the music has been produced. It can be listened to in different environments such as with headphones, soundbars, or even speakers in a car. 

The will mastering engineer will use a similar process to ensure that the music sounds amazing in all different formats. They also take into consideration the overall meaning and tone of the music, enhancing the overall sound quality to match that message. It is an iterative process and the ears of a mastering engineer work to consistently refine the audio to perfection. The art of mastering is similar to using Instagram filters; touch up and add to your photos to make them look amazing. This is exactly what our engineers do to your music! 

Think of mastering as the Instagram filters you apply to your photos to make them look amazing.

At Metropolis Mastering, we have some of the most sophisticated and experienced mastering engineers in the business. They have won Grammy awards and worked with the biggest selling artists ranging from Adele, Led Zeppelin, Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Amy Winehouse, Elton John, Lana Del Rey, Stormzy, Headie One, George Michael, Rita Ora, Gorillaz, U2, Blur, Ellie Goulding to name a few. 

However, Metropolis is not just here to tune up your music, instead, we will help you reach your full potential. We know what it takes, and what is needed to give that song or album the final touches it needs to make it the best it can possibly be. Our mastering rooms were designed and built to the highest possible specification, to ensure they have the perfect listening environment for discerning ears. 

Described by specialist audio manufacturer PMC as “the best audio environments in the world,” the rooms have to be experienced to be believed. The results speak for themselves and the mastering house has earned a reputation as, arguably, the best mastering house in Europe, if not the world.

Sounds good, why not use an automated mastering service? 

It might seem simpler or faster to push music through an automated mastering service, but at most these systems and tools only produce an average audio mastering. In reality, these types of systems simply apply a templated audio enhancement, which is not complex enough to account for the nuances of music. There’s no way to iteratively make changes to it, provide any real direction of what you want your output to sound like, and more often than not, it ends up usually only being a louder or denser version of your song.

An automated system such as this may be well suited to stock market trading, but music can rarely be based on metrics and numbers. While elements of music can be relatable to mathematics, the combinations that are used, and the music generated by artists are truly a unique piece of art, that requires a bespoke approach to make that music realise its full potential. This is exactly the type of focus our engineers provide towards mastering your music. 

Our engineers understand that wholeheartedly and ensure that we take the necessary time with each of our clients and their partners to produce something exquisite, satisfying, and release-ready every single time. If you are looking for something that gets your music ready on a smaller scale, then AI might be a good way to see how a small sample size reacts. 

If you are looking for a professional mastering service, where the nuances of the music that you produce can be properly finished, then do not even consider AI when it comes to audio mastering. The machine learning behind it will only push facts and raw data, without thinking of what the actual needs might be. 

We work with you to make sure that we capture your true essence and get your tracks radio-ready. 

Sounds good – but it is hard to get into your studio. 

That’s okay. We are not opposed to technology one bit. Long before the pandemic we completely redesigned how we work to offer an online mastering service. You access our online, professional mastering services via our portal here. Depending on your timeframe, you can select a specific mastering engineer, or you can simply select the first available engineer option fur a faster turnaround.

Then it is a simple process of selecting your desired mastering service, and securely uploading your music files to us, with any specific instructions and reference tracks you want us to consider (if you have a clear idea of the sound you aim for). This is where our mastering engineers really shine. They take the time to fully listen and appreciate the music you have created and use all the audio mastering tools at their disposal to finesse the track and prepare it for mass distribution. 

They will then give you back your mastered audio ready for distribution. Not only that, if you’re not fully satisfied with the finished result you are allocated one revision free of charge. But don’t worry, that does not happen too often.

Humanisation of Music

Always consider the pros and cons of going with an AI audio mastering service. With no one behind the steering wheel, be prepared to receive results that will be disappointing. If there is no proper feedback loop or experience behind the audio mastering, then you will simply keep using their service over and over again, expecting different results. 

Since we’ve been offering online mastering, we’ve been able to provide music mastering engineers at the top of their game to a global market. So long as you have an internet connection, we have you covered, working tirelessly to provide you with our mastering services, to help you produce the best quality records in the business. We’re an industry favourite mastering house, not without reason.