STEREO MASTERING
We utilize both hardware and software tools to turn your mix into the best version of itself.
STEM MASTERING
If you feel like certain elements of your mix need special attention, or you simple want to make sure you get the best master possible, our stem option might be for you.
Why does our mastering sound better than A.I. Mastering?
In our modern fast-paced music industry the argument for A.I. Mastering is pretty strong. A.I. Mastering platforms analyze your mix and compare it to a large dataset of professionally produced music. They then match those parameters to make your song sound in line with most others. So why would you opt for a human-made master over the cheaper and faster A.I. solutons?
Unlike machines, experienced human engineers can do more than just match parameters – we can hear what sound amplifies the emotional content of the song, and we can use a variety of tools in a studio environment, depending on what the specific song calls for.
Why still analog in 2025?
While in some domains plugins have certainly already surpassed hardware, especially when it comes to workflow and flexibility, high-quality analog processors possess a certain magic that can hardly be emulated by plugins. To this day pretty much all equalizer plugins on the market work based on biquads, a calculation to boost sample volume at certain frequencies. No matter how this curve is designed, it is fundamentally different from an analog circuit, boosting an electrical signal. That difference can mostly be heard, in our opinion, at the mastering stage. While composing and mixing a song takes place in a huge universe of possibilites, mastering has rather specific goals. Those goals can best be achieved by transparent sounding hardware, which does not alter the sound in slightly unpleasing ways likes most plugins do, but lets you shape the sound without artifacts.
What is Stem-Mastering?
I like to say that the secret to a good master lies in a good mix. One of the big advantages of using an external mastering studio, is the fact that somebody who has never heard your song before is making the final decisions. If you enjoy mixing but your judgement might be clouded by sub-par acoustics, or simply working on a song for too long, opt for stem-mastering to delay some of these decisions into the mastering process and into an optimized listening environment.
Mastering for Spotify, Apple Music & co. - what's different?
Mastering for streaming services has been a hot topic ever since Spotify & co announced to normalize songs according to their LUF-reading. In reality though, not much has changed in the approach of most mastering studios. Why is that? In modern music, especially Pop music, we collectively have gotten used to a general sound-signature that is considered desireable and therefore accepted as the state-of-the-art. This sound has historically been shaped to a degree by technical requierements and limitations, but much more by our subjective preferences. Hence we know that for example in Pop-music the desireable sound will usually end up somehwere around 10dB of dynamic range in the final master. Streaming-services normalizing to 12 or 14 dB of dynamic-range, does not mean that every song will neccessairy benefit from using 14dB of dynamic range, which has been a widespread misunderstanding.
Experienced engineers know that mixing and mastering is always a blancing act of compromises. While higher loudness meant lower impact and punch, thousands of songs had to make that compromise during the CD era and the loudness wars. So if anything, loudness-normalisation is a blessing for mastering-engineers, because for the first time in decades sound quality clearly wins over loudness.
Another ever-evolving factor is the format of delivery. While many steaming services already offer lossless audio at 24 bit resolution, most distributors still to this day accept CD-Qualliy (44.1 kHz, 16 bit) as the standard. The fact many distributing-channels have not caught up yet, leaves a couple questions about dither and bitdepth unanswered. In theory, media-encoders will do the best job encoding from the highest-resolution source-file possible. Practically however, there is no real information on how different platforms process your files before delivery, especially if the samplerates or bitdepths don’t match the specifications. Depending on your needs we deliver multiple files at different specifications for your master. These would usually be 96/24, 48/24, 44.1/24 and 44.1/16.
How to prepare you mix
Mix and master can be seen as seperate stages of production, but the results codepend on each other.
Since compression and limiting used during mastering “glue” elements of the mix together, they can also reveal faults and frequency masking. I hence recommend using a variety of limiters and “one-trick-mastering” plugins to double-check how your mix holds up once peaks are eliminated and certain frequencies are brought up. You should always strive for the best possible and balanced sound without any plugins on the master – fix it in the mix.
Once you are in love with your mix, make sure you leave around 3db headroom from your loudest peak, and export your song at the exact sample- and bitrate you produced it at.