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Online Mastering:
I
now offer online mastering services: send me your mixes as uncompressed
wav or aiff files and I will polish them ready for final release.
Mastering
will take place in my purpose-built architect-designed control room,
with extensive acoustic treatment, and 1200 watts of 3-way active
monitoring. Clicks, glitches or other unwanted noises can be cleaned up
with state-of-the-art software, while the overall frequency and dynamic
response of your audio can be tweaked to make sure it sounds good when
played on PA systems or iPod earbuds, or anything in between.
If
appropriate your mixes can be tastefully glued together using
analogue compression, or coloured with real high-voltage valves and transformers.
Mixes
can be delivered as individual tracks in any compressed or uncompressed
formats you choose. For a small extra charge I can also lay out a whole
CD album with all the relevant meta-data, and provide it in industry
standard DDP format ready for replication.
Rates: £40 per song | £30 for an album layout in DDP format
NB:
the rates above are a good guideline, but not all projects require the
same amount of work: if you provide me with the mixes in advance (or a
representative sample) I can quote a fee for the whole job which may
work out cheaper. Get in touch to discuss your specific project.
Attended Mastering Sessions:
If
you are in or near Sheffield you may want to attend the session, in
which case I charge the same hourly / daily rates as for recording
sessions.
Rates: £25 per hour | £200 per day
A quick note about the term 'Mastering': in my studio this does not mean slapping
on a multi-band
and a limiter and making it really LOUD. Check out the Turn
Me Up campaign, and remember
that the listener's usual response to a really loud CD is simply to turn their own volume down...
...
there is only one sure-fire way to make your album louder than the
competition on playback: make it sound so good that the listener
reaches to turn the volume UP instead! That's always what I aim for
when mastering.
NB: every mastering session starts with your Free Consultation Session:
bring
your mixes down to the studio (or send me the files) and I will check
them for technical or other
issues. If there are any problems that would be better solved by you
returning to the mix, this is our chance to find out in advance. This service is offered totally
free to
anyone that books a full mastering session.
Mixing:
A
lot
of people have their own recording setups at home these days,
which I think is great: that's how my own studio started after all.
However, it also means I know how frustrating home recording can be:
you can spend hours tweaking and refining a mix until it's just right, then play it in the car, or hear it on a club PA
system, and find it sounds completely different.
Its easy to blame your
equipment in such cases, but actually the main culprit is likely to be
your
room. Unfortunately, while microphones and audio interfaces are getting
cheaper all the time, a properly designed and acoustically treated
control room is beyond the reach of most project studio owners. So
that's where
I come in: bring your project down to the studio as stems or individual audio
tracks, and mix in an acoustically treated control room with excellent
monitoring, and with an experienced engineer / programmer versed in a
variety of styles.
Mxing can be performed in the digital domain in my own control
room: in this case you benefit from a large selection of
state-of-the-art software plus
an expert operator, and a monster 8-core
DAW system built by Carillon Audio Computers: large
ambitious projects with high track
counts and high samplerates are no problem at all.
Or you can book a session in the main control room, and mix hands-on
with classic analogue equipment, and a 56 channel Amek console.
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