(Ebook) The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook by Bobby Owsinski

(Ebook) The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook by Bobby Owsinski

IntroductionMastering used to be the process of turning a collection of songs into an album bymaking them sound like they belong together in tone, volume, and timing(spacing between songs). Mastering nowwadays is the process fine-tuning the level, frequency balance,and metadata of a track in preparation for distribution.It’s already been 16 years since the first edition of The Mastering Engineer’sHandbook came out, and boy, have things changed. It’s safe to say that there’sbeen a mighty revolution in the mastering world, with old technologies replacedand new ones continually evolving. Gone are the days of tape machines (for themost part), and soon even the CD will be a thing of the past.Gone—again, for the most part—are the days of “heavy iron” customizedoutboard gear that was necessary for a high-quality mastering job. Even thoughthe basic mastering tools are still the same, they’ve mostly moved into theworld of the DAW, so even someone with the most entry-level system now hasthe use of powerful tools that only the top mastering pros had access to in thepast. And maybe best of all, it’s now possible to totally prep just about anykind of audio for any kind of distribution (which is what mastering really is) athome in your personal studio.Just like everything else in music and recording, some really excellentmastering tools are available to just about anyone with a DAW (which is mostof us that are into music these days). That makes the process of mastering veryinexpensive compared to previous generations of musicians and audioengineers, but just because you own a hammer doesn’t mean that you knowhow to swing it. A lot of harm can come from misuse of the tools of masteringif the process and concepts are not thoroughly understood.And that’s what this book is about.