If you have recorded any tracks and aim to distribute them to record companies or sell them through your own means, you will want them sounding their absolute best.

Whether they were recorded in a studio (with a professional engineer) or recorded on a home set-up, you will have spent time and effort crafting your songs. The next step in the process, before putting them in the public domain, will be to have them mastered.

All professional and commercial recordings will have been mastered. Even if they have been mixed down for a week in a world class studio by award winning producers and engineers, they would have still been sent off to a third party mastering company.

Having your recordings mastered will help your music stand out from the others when posting it on your music pages or sending it to record companies. The A+R department and your fans will be presented with a professionally finished/radio ready product.

With the rising popularity and availability of distributing and selling commercial and self released music on-line, now more than ever is the time to have your recordings professionally finished to a store and radio ready standard.

You already believe your songs are worth listening to, so do them justice and ensure your recordings sound the best they can.

What is mastering

Mastering is the process that takes place after the final mixing and editing has been rendered into a stereo track. During this process your recordings are given a final "tweak" and "polish" to eliminate any sonic problems and add extra clarity.

A variety of processes and effects can be used to achieve this. Equalization, limiting and compression are generally the main processes, however each track is different and some may require none, some or all of the above plus other methods such as bouncing the track to analogue tape or other effects to maximize your tracks potential.

Mastering is not all about making the tracks sound "big", although this is often a requirement. The main purpose of mastering is to obtain an accurate tonal balance which is achieved by mastering through a wholly accurate monitoring system and sonically sound environment.

If your project contains more than one track, such as an EP or album, the mastering process will ensure that the track order and fades between tracks are correct. Mastering will also maintain a consistent level across the project giving you a professional, radio ready final master.

What we offer

At Carbon Studios Mastering, we feel this final process should not be exclusive to the recording artists with the big budgets (some studios will charge up to £190 per hour), so we are offering a mastering service at a fraction of the price. Our prices start form £25 per song (£20 if your project was recorded at Carbon Studios) with reductions for more songs in the same project. Email/contact us for full price list.

Even if you are a competent home engineer/producer, it is worth having a third party master your recordings. It is not wise to master your own mixes as mastering needs an objective perspective and should be treated as a separate process to recording and mixing. "It needs to have a fresh pair of ears that wasn't part of the mix." We have dedicated mastering engineers at Carbon Studios. If you have recorded your tracks with us, we will not use any engineer that was involved in the mixing process.

Some studios now offer mastering as part of their deal and it will be treated as part of the mixing process by the same engineer. This will most often cause much poorer results than if you spend that little bit extra and have it mastered properly. If your recording studio is offering this kind of deal, ask for a pre mastered mix as well so it will give you options later.

Our guarantee

The guarantee is tied into the three step process of our mastering service. You do not pay the whole amount until you are happy with the results. You pay 50% upfront and the remainder when you approve the finished work. All pricing is agreed before the mastering process is started:

1. We agree the price for the project and you send in your demo;

2. We master your demo and we send you a sample of the finished master;

3. You approve the work then send final payment and we send you the full master.

We even offer an upload facility for direct transfer of your demo, it couldn't be easier to upload your tracks please go to our upload page here.

We will master from CD, Minidisk, Mp3 and cassette tape, (CD quality is recommended).