ONE PERSON’S OPINION

Audio
Mastering
Philosophy
Why Mastering Matters

By Gene Williams
Audio Mastering Philosophy
Why Mastering Matters

By Gene Williams
© Gene Williams
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what
is essentially your own”

- Bruce Lee
Introduction and Caveats

Audio mastering is an extremely deep and complex

subject. Many great mastering engineers have written
extraordinary books, papers and articles on the subject, so
why would you read this book, written by someone that, at
present, doesn’t have any big name credits, doesn’t possess
a degree in sound or music, and that you’ve probably never
heard of?

Why not?

There are numerous people that have taken on the role of

mastering engineer in the last two decades especially.
They’re not working out of big mastering houses, they’re
working exclusively with underground unheard of artists,
and a few are making a living doing it. I’m not aiming this
book at them exclusively, not at all, but I am presenting a
perspective from a mastering engineer that does largely
work outside the big names, big labels arena. I hope this
will have a broader appeal that will spark new
conversations about the process and speci cally the
philosophy behind mastering.

There’s a lot of good resources online, but do your due

diligence when perusing them. They can be great, but they
are often parroting other sources that can easily get
misconstrued. One online resource I would highly
recommend considering is the Audio Engineering Society, a
great resource for learning, networking and so much more.
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In the bibliography I’ll list my sources as well as
recommended readings from some of the stalwarts of this
industry. Most of them have contributed information that
far surpasses what you will nd here. What I hope to bring
is another voice, another perspective that is neither better
or worse. A view from the back of the room if you will.

This book started as a conversation among a small

collective of mastering engineers on a Discord server. I’ve
chosen to leave the majority of this work in that posting/
conversational style. I beg the forgiveness of the
grammatical and editorial powers that be that may
potentially cringe at many of the conventions I’ve abused
here.
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 Chapter 1 - Rules of Mastering

The rst rule of mastering philosophy is possibly, " rst do

no harm." This is a quote attributed to Hippocrates, from
the work, Of the Epidemics, and the full quote in context is:

"The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the

present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things,
and have two special objects in view with regard to disease,
namely, to do good or to do no harm."

I'm guessing that Hippocrates wasn't actually referring to

mastering engineers, but there is an apt analo y in there,
and not just the "do no harm" part. In fact, that oft quoted
snippet is perhaps the least useful analo y for a mastering
engineer.
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Indulge me in creating a new version of said quote:

"The mastering engineer must be able to remember the

collective past and one's individual experience to know
why we got where we are, know the present/current artistic
and production styles, and foretell the future about the
direction we are moving in and that we want to move
toward— we must mediate these things in a meaningful
manner, and have two special objects in view with regard
to music and sound art, namely, to do good or to do no
harm.”

How to "do good" in a mastering perspective? Seems easy.

You make things better, yes? Maybe. The answer to that
question is incredibly subjective. Example:

You have a mix that is lackluster, certainly timid, and

lacking any real character. You pull out all the stops, add
some bounce and groove, add some low end focus and high
end silkiness, you push the singer forward in line with
modern pop standards. And then....

The artist/client hears it and says "WOW!!! That's incredible,

I didn't know my music could sound that good....."

or...

The artist/client comes back after listening to your master

and asks, "why did you alter the timbre so much? The vocal
is too far out front, the lows and highs are too sharply
exaggerated and de ned. We just wanted to make it ready
for release and I feel like what you've done is change the
mix entirely..."
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They are the same master, only the client’s point of view
has changed. Obviously the artist may not share your
perspective, and we should both be aware of that and
actively try to understand the expectations of the artist/
client BEFORE you even take the job.

There's a mentality that a mastering engineer operates

from, or at least a mindset we often claim we operate from,
that posits we serve the music. Or another one is, we want
to make the music the best it can be. What happens when
an artist or client asks for something that is clearly not
serving the music or making it the best it can be…?

I'll cut to the chase here before wondering aloud about how
to actually achieve the above and make everyone happy,
including yourself. So, what's the big takeaway? Check your
id at the door. No matter how good you may think you are,
you will never be the nal arbiter of whether or not
something is great music. Only the end listener determines
that. What we need to do as MEs is to give the music the
best chance it can to do that... The rest of my rant will focus
on how to do this. Let's start with "what is music" anyway?

To better de ne this idea, let's also agree that mastering

engineers are in fact a kind of nal arbiter of whether a
piece of music is great. And in fact that's our skillset, we
have a broad knowledge base of the art of music and the
science of sound, we are perfectly suited to make the
decisions necessary about a particular recording's potential
greatness. More to come....

"Music" is roughly de ned as organized sound. So that

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makes the de nition quite broad. Additionally, we all know
that what some people call noise, others call music. Many
parents consider what their kids call music as noise.

A better more accepted form of the de nition of music

could be:

“sounds that are sung by voices or played on musical

instruments”

A more "scienti c" version of that de nition might be:

1a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in

succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships
to produce a composition having unity and continuity b :
vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm,
melody, or harmony

2a : an agreeable sound

That last one kinda brings us full circle.

Anyway, this gives us the basic outline of what we are

working with:

Something agreeable sounding that is created via the art/

science of ordering successive sounds in space and over
time to produce a uni ed composition.

Now we're getting somewhere. There's the sounds, the time

between the sounds, the ordering and presentation of the
sounds over time, and the silence that everything lives
inside (outside?) of. I posit that how an artist handles the
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silence gives us a tremendous amount of information about
what we can be done and what we should be looking at in
the mastering process. Think about the silence.

The metaphorical silence is what exists before the sound

starts, and it is what remains when the sound stops. The art
of music can only be experienced in real time, once the
sound completely stops, so does the art. There may be
"silent punctuations" in a composition, but once the
composition is complete and the nal sound stops, the art
of the thing disappears as well... To my knowledge it is one
of the only forms of actual ephemeral art. I like this idea,
and apparently so did Plato who supposedly believed:

“beautiful things are not enduring, since the only eternal

thing is the "idea of the beautiful”

So we have an art form, at least according to Plato, that

potentially quali es as beautiful as it is "not enduring."
Check. Stay tuned.

How do MEs (Mastering Engineers) balance making the

music the best it can be with artist/client expectations and
desires?

It is truly important to listen to the client AND the music,

and from those two elements to extract the best balance. A
lot goes into this.

• Client's expectations
• Potential of the music from a performance and technical
aspect
• Adequate tools to perform your job
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• Adequate experience and understanding of the musical
idiom

Client's expectations can be derived from communication

with the client. Be as clear and direct as possible without
being intolerant or judging. Ask the broad question of what
are the expectations that the client has for the mastering
process. Be speci c and ask for details. Ask them what the
release is about, what is the theme of the song or project,
should it make you feel something, make you want to
dance, etc.? Who is their audience? What is the main age
group of the listener? What other music does that audience
listen to? What is the medium/media of release?

This is also the point that I'll usually include my own

statement about how I usually work... In most cases I'll say
something similar to:

I work from a place that assumes the artist and mix engineer
have made something they're proud of and my rst intention is
to "do no harm." With that in mind my process all about
preserving the work you've done and then enhancing it in a
manner that you and your audience can appreciate. If I do my
work well it results in subtly amplifying the emotional content
and deepening the audience's connection to you and your
music.

To expand a bit more, I work to objectively treat the dynamics

with respect to program context, insure an involving
soundstage and achieve appropriate tonal balance to create
the optimal experience for the listener across the widest range
of media.
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 The more I know about your vision, your goals, etc., the better
work I'll be able to do. And always feel free to question or ask
for clari cation. I'm an open book and utterly transparent
about my process and the speci cs of what I do.

This spells out what the client can expect from me and also
opens up a dialog for potential problems that the client can
note/tell me about if it's not necessarily true that "the artist
and mix engineer have made something they're proud of."
If they are not proud of the mix, that should be a ag that
this is more than a mastering job, it may be helping the
client and mix engineer get to a more fully realized mix that
will result in a better master. You are really working with
them, not for them, at this point.

Understanding the actual potential of the music from a

performance and technical aspect takes time to learn, but it
is one of the more useful skillsets that you can develop.
If the performance is weak, in the most diplomatic way
possible, you need to tell them so. You don't have to be an
ass, simply ask something like, "do you feel strong about
the performance(s) on the song? Everything have the
ener y that you want?" If they answer a resounding "yes"
then you are now better informed about what you're up
against and can discuss in detail what the clients
expectations are. If they answer "no" then perhaps ask
about the possibility of retaking some of the recordings and
then supplying a new mix.

The technical aspects are a bit easier for an ME to gure out

on their own. If the noise oor is really high on a jazz
recording, make sure you mention it, again in a diplomatic
way, to help keep the client's expectations in check, or
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potentially encourage re-recording if possible. If the mix is
unbalanced with respect to the style take careful note from
the beginning of what you can do to rebalance the issues
you're hearing. If the phase is out of whack, can you gain a
half a db by correcting that, and should you?

Insure you have adequate tools to perform your job. That

means having tools that are high quality and unless color is
part of the plan, doing so in the most transparent way
possible. Some engineers are known for "having a sound"
that they impart t to their masters, but I think the majority
of MEs do not have a “recognizable sound.”.

If we do our job right it was like we were never there at all from
the end listener’s perspective.
- Matt Davis

So, if you only have tools that impart signi cant color on a
master, consider upgrading/sidegrading, to tools that have
a higher transparency potential.

Your tools need to be able to do their work in the cleanest

most bit perfect way possible. You don't want to create a
beautiful master only to "shitify it" with a cheap sample rate
conversion. Utility tools aren't sexy, but IMO more than any
other tools this is where you shoot for the highest quality.
I'm not saying the highest price, there's some great tools
out there that are really cheap, but do your due diligence.
Read reviews and most importantly test things for yourself
to see how it works in your system.

Having adequate experience and understanding of the

musical idiom is critical, IMO. If you don't know how metal
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sounds, what turns metal fans on, and probably most
importantly what the client thinks metal is (derived from
your communication with them) it's gonna be di cult to
make something you're con dent with. AND if you don't
know a style or genre well, inform yourself. Study it. Listen,
listen, listen and really try to hear what's going on. Ask for
references both from the client and (don’t be afraid to ask)
your peers that might specialize in that idiom or at the least
have some greater familiarity with it than you do.

I strongly suggest you don’t try to pretend you have

knowledge of something that you do not. If you start going
on about how much you like Metallica, or Cannibal Corpse,
or whatever, you might get called out, you’ll look dumb and
if that happens you'll probably lose that client and anyone
else they might've referred to you. Bullshit erodes trust
quickly. You needn't announce that you have no real
experience with the idiom, but if asked, be honest.

To note, because you're not schooled in metal doesn't mean

you'll suck at mastering it. Mastering IMO is at least 50%
science and technical chops. If the client loves their mix
you just have to keep from fucking it up. Giving yourself a
few good listens to known good references will get you very
close when coupled with good technical skills and a
thorough understanding of client expectations.

The above are just ideas, not rules. You'll nd your own
way of doing all the above in time, but at least for me, that's
ongoing. All things change, so do you, so does music, so
does what people want to hear.... A quote from Jimmy
Iovine that is about general producing but is a great way to
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 look at artist and producer (or mastering engineer)
relationships:

“Nothing should start without an idea. This is a song about…

This song is supposed to make you dance. The song is
supposed to make you cry. This song is supposed to make you
feel good. This song is supposed to make you feel down. It’s
your job as a producer to translate that, to get in with the
artist, and together make that emotion come true. That’s it.
Don’t think about the radio, or the chart, don’t think about
anything else; think about getting it right in that box, without
windows.”

I've mentioned many times what is somewhat common

knowledge amongst engineers, at least I hope so, you
should consider using your ears not your meters/eyes to
make judgements about a piece of music.

Auditory neuroscientist Seth Horowitz says,"Eyes lie . But

the ears don't." An example that I'll pull from his excellent
book "The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind,"
but which again is not new information:

"it takes our brain at least one-quarter of a second to

process visual recognition. But sound? You can recognize a
sound in 0.05 seconds. And our brain is so adept at hearing
the di erences between sounds, we can sense changes of
sound that occur in less than a millionth of a second."

There's evolutionary reasons for this, as there usually are in

such biological systems, but I want to keep this fairly
straight-forward and focused on music and mastering. So,
less science and more anecdote...
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Your ears adapt incredibly quickly to the ambience of a
given space. Walk from a treated studio space into a
concrete walled stairwell or similar highly reverberant very
live place. They are radically di erent sonically, yet you can
quickly adjust to being able to understand distinct musical
tones (and/or speech) in less than a second. Visually that's
like going from bright sunlight to a dimly lit room. Your
eyes can take minutes to fully adjust. Your ears do it almost
immediately.

Aaaaand I rather think that is one of the reasons people can

mix good records on NS10Ms, (rant alert) they are horrible
sounding (to me), and successfully mixing on NS10Ms has
to do with our ears' ability to adjust to any sonic space.
Obviously, a lot of great records were/are made using those
horrible beasts, and looking at the specs it seems highly
unlikely that the speakers are capable of reproducing
sound accurately enough to make good musical
judgements.... but the evidence says otherwise....

Sure, people will say "it's the excellent mid-range detail" or

something similar that connotes a kind of magical mojo
that these speakers have. Rubbish. They sound shite, full
stop. The common mytholo y is that if you can make
something sound good on NS10Ms, it'll sound good
anywhere. So what's going on here?

Here comes some made up by Gene shit. It takes the ear,

with proper care and caution, something like four months
to recover from all but the worst hearing damage. Longer
for some things, quicker for most others. Keep this in your
head for a minute....
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NS10Ms were cheap, and they were marketed to studios like
no other speaker had been before. My suspicions are, you
put together a good ad campaign, a lot of phone calls to
studios by Yamaha reps, and a super a ordable price
compared to "mains," and you have something that
proliferated in studios everywhere.

Now if something is in a space, you're gonna try it out. And

let's say sometimes it's the only thing in a space, so you
have no real choice. Then you hear that so and so made a
great record and it was mixed on an incredible console
using NS10Ms.... that only needs to happen once and you
have a trainload of engineers spending the relatively short
money to add-on or "upgrade" to NS10Ms. You get the
picture...

To note, I ain't really shitting on the NS10Ms, , as I

mentioned, a ton of great records are/were made using
them, they are just a really good example to illustrate my
next bit... Objectivity.

We can adjust to almost anything from an aural perspective

and be able to make sound (hahaha) musical judgements
even on less than pristine speakers in a less than an
anechoic chamber.

AND we can grow numb to a sound or tune it out entirely,

to the point we no longer perceive it.

A big di erence between the above two phenomena is the

time it takes to "really get the e ect." Adjusting to imperfect
sound to reliably make musical judgements, may take
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maybe four months (note the correlation with the time to
recover from hearing loss). Growing "numb" to a sound can
happen the rst time you hear it.

The hard part in learning a less than perfect listening setup

is time, patience, and lots of listening. The hard part of
mitigating growing numb to a sound is trained listening,
combining incredible microscopic attention that is always
informed by the macroscopic. Both of these issues have a
lot to do with your why and how your brain processes the
"what."

Our hearing is always on. It is the only one of our senses

that literally never sleeps. Part of the reason we evolved for
our hearing to always be on is a simple protective
mechanism. Hearing a twig snap while you sleep could
make the di erence between your ancestor living long
enough to procreate and eventually bring us to you... OR
you wouldn't be here right now. Whether through
evolutionary change or adaptive process, those who were
warned about deadly things approaching in the dark, while
asleep, they survived.... You don't know about the ones
who didn't wake up and thus were eaten because that
lineage died out.

And "hearing" isn't just strictly auditory, although the

physics that de ne it all relate to the vibrations that create
sound. You feel the sub bass which informs the parts of
your brain that process sound pressure. Cause that's what it
is, sound waves bouncing o shit around you and inside of
you.
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So, yeah, it's great and all how good we hear, but you might
say, if I only use my ears, how can I reliably know if my
LUFS is loud enough, too loud, etc.? You don't. And it truly
does not matter. It's a fucking number not a piece of music/
sound. LUFS is marginally better at measuring loudness
than RMS, which is almost pointless. Thus, LUFS is slightly
better than almost pointless. And the way that sound is
measured via RMS, LUFS, etc., is always going to be a
mathematical facsimile that is a very loose representation
of how a listener might perceive a given piece of music.

Your ears are far better at telling you when you've pushed
something too far and you're killing the dynamics, creating
ugly distortion, or when a record just isn't hitting hard
enough, is lacking focused low end thud, etc., than all the
meters and analytical tools combined.

More to come.... emotional content and hearing.

BUT FIRST!!! Allow me to illustrate one instance when

meters are awesome. You've just sorted a fresh (jazz)
master, using only your ears, you check the LUFS and
you're hitting -6LUFS!!! Cool! I have the loudest jazz record
on the planet... BUT I could also back it o a bit and have
even more dynamics.... wouldn't that be better?

Why do that?

If it sounds like you think it should it's impossible for it to

be too loud or need more dynamics. The meters in this case
have con rmed that you can make a great sounding jazz
record and have it at -6 LUFS, well beyond the
recommended range for a jazz record.
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What I'm illustrating here is while that number is really
high for that style of music, the way it was arranged, the
timbre choices, the way it was performed, etc., all came
together for an "LUFS score" that reads really high., That's
it. It's just an extremely simple measure of one method of
measuring perceived loudness.

Disclaimer: I use meters/analyzers all the time, I'm not

saying you shouldn't. Meters can be extremely handy tools
for a plethora of things. When it comes to phase issues for
instance, it's nearly impossible to identify them with only
your ears, but it's easy to see them. What I am preaching is
to always start with your ears, learn to trust them, let them
do all the heavy lifting. If you feel the need to reach for a
meter, think about why, and is using the meters really the
optimal way to analyze this sound? Sometimes the answer
will be, no, and sometimes it will be, yes. Both serve the
music in their own context. And that's what we're here for,
to serve the music, right?

Back to emotional content and hearing.

So the ear is the nal arbiter of what is or isn't good,

right...? Not quite. Sometimes music is judged and
appreciated on technical merit, and that is a very valid way
to appreciate a piece of music. More often it is the
emotional content, derived from the performance, the
lyrics, arrangement and even the very sounds themselves,
that really connects with the listener on a visceral level. It's
that thing that happens when you're in a club and you hear
the right kick drum, relentless, with a squealing synth and
rolling bass-line and maybe a vocal oating on the top...
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and you HAVE to dance.... that's emotional content that
pulls you onto the dance oor like a hungry hound is pulled
to bacon.

That's also something that's wicked hard to measure with

audio analyzers. Even more so because we all react so
individually to the same piece of music. If you dislike
something, it's real easy to perceive it sounds bad. In
contrast, if you like a piece of music, you will de nitely
perceive it as more pleasant sounding than not.

On the one hand emotions are your enemy, they can cause
you to "misread" a song's quality of sound. On the other, it's
very probable that understanding how to handle emotional
content, with respect to its preservation and presentation,
can be your most valuable skill.

Emotions are also messy and very deceptive. Sometimes

joy feels like love, anger gets misread for rage, playfulness
becomes dismissive, etc., very deceptive and hard to get a
guaranteed outcome. What if you have something more
straight-forward and truthful to compliment the slippery
emotional slopes, something honest that doesn't lie....? Oh
right, "the ears don't lie."

More to come.

General Midi. —
01/31/2022
So been thinking for myself if I was in any kind of position to
add anything to Gene”s wonderful rundown of mastering and
everything that he experienced and summed up true his 20
plus years of doing so. The answer to that question was a clear
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 NO. I can’t because I simply miss the experience and I’m not
going to act like I do. ( debatable) However I still like to drift
away on my cloud of hope and dreams and occasionally
stumble on some interesting thoughts.

I have a special place inside my head when I get into the

mastering stage of things, I no longer listen to individual
elements and start thinking in Ener y. Thats also how I call it
for myself. “Ener y distribution. This is also my main reason I
prefer hardware over my mouse. It’s connected with me and
my ener y. The connection between those two elements can be
seen as art or a collaboration of ener y or maybe called
exchanged ener y. Without that connection the whole process
of mastering would be nothing then a transaction for me. ( in
some cases that is just what it is) O course there is a technical
aspect that we all need to take note o to get a decent end
result. And in a ideal world you would not touch anything
when a mix reaches the mastering stage. Unfortunately I think
we can all agree that’s not reality. This probably doesn’t make
any sense but I shared it anyways. Maybe I triggered Gene to
nish his book after reading this

Gene Williams —
01/312022
What you wrote above is great, Frank. Mastering philosophy is
like any philosophy, it’s made up of numerous observations,
anecdotes, bits and pieces, and it’s uniquely personal in many
ways.

I very much vibe with your sentiments on Ener y and nding

more of that with hardware units than with a mouse. My
favorite example is using the Bettermaker Mastering EQ vs the
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 Pro Q3. The Q3 is far more versatile, I can add lots more
nodes, I can set each individual node to side or mid or stereo,
and it sounds great. Yet I consistently “ nd the sound” quicker
and more accurately with a more pleasing results with the
Bettermaker. I don’t think the Bettermaker actually sounds
better, di erent maybe, but not that di erent. It’s just the way I
interact with it that really makes a di erence for me and my
work ow.

The Ears Don't Lie

That's not entirely accurate, I spend a great deal of my time

fooling the ears into believing things are happening when
they're not, covering/camou aging things that are
happening so they get perceived less or in a di erent way
and so on. The ears may not be lying per se, but I am using
the ears ability to gather sound in a way that is fooling the
brain into believing what I want.

Additionally, your ears are di erent from everyone else's

AND everyone's two ears are di erent from each other. I'm
not sure there is such a thing as two perfectly identical
ears. Considering that, it should be apparent that there's no
such beast as a perfect mix/master. It is always a
compromise that one hopes has the broadest appeal to the
most people.

Drawing this out, consider that few people have good

rooms that they're listening in, fewer have good monitors/
speakers, and lots of people listen on headphones of
myriad types and quality, earbuds, computer/laptop
speakers, car stereos of every level and smartphones...
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 How can we possibly make something that sounds great on
everything?!?

In summary, the ears may not lie, but it is incredibly hard

to get an identical set, too. This seems as confusing as
emotions all of a sudden. So the ears don't lie, but they're
all di erent. There's a million combinations of things,
rooms, speakers, listening levels, and emotions are
complex and messy. How do we sort through this so that
we can reliably add to/enhance and highlight emotional
content in the best way...?

Let's talk about perception... stay tuned.

Perception - What our Brains Do

If you add up everything, ears, an understanding of human

emotional content, listening environment, sound
reproduction quality, etc., we are essentially talking about
perception. All of the above helps us discern things, make
sense of them and gives a context to them. That's
perception. It's the di erence between passive hearing,
which our ears do all the time, and active listening, where
you are intentionally focusing and gathering meaning.

It's the gathering of meaning(s) that I'll focus on here. How,

what and why we assign meaning to things is informed by
trained/experienced perception. Part of that comes from
our ears, which in this instance is the raw element of the
process. The ears and in fact our entire bodies help us
perceive pressure waves that we lovingly refer to as music.
That information is passed through to our brains via
nerves, bones, viscous uids and more.
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While there is a lot of information that is passed to our
brains in the hearing process, it's our brains that sort the
context. That is informed by our individual and shared
experiences, our lifetimes of interacting with the world we
live in and speci cally our experience with other humans.
In the musical realm, the two main factors that help give us
context are the intellect and the emotions.

The intellect makes sense of things as best we can. It relays

language, idiom, storytelling, timbre, rhythm, etc.,
basically covering everything that isn't exclusively emotion.
Yet, compared to the emotions, the weight carried by the
intellect in this process is almost minimal in a way. As an
example, I can easily name a number of pieces of music
that I might not fully grasp the lyrics, or even hear them
clearly, but I can feel the emotion of the performer. Same
goes for instrumentals that simply conjure a feeling with
very little overt intellectual content at all.

Next up: Emotional Content As Intellectual Informants

The emotional content in a piece of music is usually

critical to understanding how to best approach the
mastering process for that particular record. It can give a
ME guidance to the tools needed to help the music convey
the artist’s intent. It’s not absolutely necessary and in some
instances the record may be more about technical chops or
presenting a purely intellectual idea. The majority of the
time emotional content does matter and is often the most
important element to get right.
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 Emotions are often the main currency in a piece of
music. Artist’s are expressing something and emotions are
almost always at the top of that list. Think about your
favorite records and I’ll bet that the majority of them have
an emotional appeal that makes you feel something. It
could be joy, sadness, melancholy, euphoria, the list goes
on. When a ME is listening closely to what is being
presented that emotional content is a superb informant of
the approach for mastering that record.

Sometimes that emotional content is spelled out clearly.

Overt lyrics in a love song can reveal the intention of the
music. A song that contains lyrics about a lost love from
long ago lets you know that the song is about love, maybe
loss, and the words may hint at the bittersweet way our
memories reveal those things to us. At other times, the
lyrics might be a red herring, hinting at one thing while the
music is telling you something else.

Emotional content can also be discerned in the

arrangements and mix. If the record is upbeat with fun
sounding loose jangley guitars and a in a major key with
happy sounding chords it’s hard to feel down even when
the lyrics might suggest otherwise. There’s two pieces of
information being presented, the happy music and the
lyrics that are otherwise. Which direction would that lead
you to go? One? The other? Both? Neither?

Finally, the performance of the artists and players often

has the clearest indication of the emotional content of a
record. The happiest song sung and played in a sad fashion
by great artists could probably make you cry regardless of
the happy quotient of the original version of the song. Listen
 to di erent versions of Piece of My Heart (written by Jerry
Ragovoy and Bert Berns). In particular compare Erma
Franklin’s original recording of the song with the version
recorded by Big Brother and the Holding Company with
Janis Joplin on vocals. They’re both great records, but with
one I feel the deep emotional pain and resolution not to be
consumed by it. In the other, it’s a headlong dive into the
pain, taking it and not remolding it into resolution but
tearing it apart at the source. Both these songs aren’t
happy, for sure, and they are livid with real raw emotions,
but the presentation, especially of the vocals, comes at the
idea of loss and pain from very di erent vantage points.
One is deep and dramatic with pain, the other on re
consuming the pain.

Obviously there’s no real rules for what should be done

with any piece of music. Most people have heard songs that
are essentially dark sounding with respect to the music and
mix choices, but still sound upbeat and fun. You’ve
probably heard songs that are bright and shiny that make
you feel down, sad, or mental, too. The musical language is
rich with contradictions and exceptions. Just like people
are.
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Chapter 2 - Customer Service

Real truth, the part of the mastering process that may be

the most important of all the moving parts is customer
service. For real. It truly helps to have good customer-
service-fu. The cool thing is, having great customer service
is honestly mostly down to simply being kind and taking a
genuine interest in what your client is saying.

Remember the bit from last chapter about, “What

happens when an artist or client asks for something that is
clearly not serving the music or making it the best it can
be…?”

That’s a really loaded question. There is an assumption

that there is a potential best waiting to be realized and the
client isn’t aligned with that. There is an assumption that
you think the client is in error and that may be accurate
from your point of view.

What clients want from a mastering engineer is their

expertise, their knowledge of music and sound that creates
the ability to deliver great masters that translate well across
media and devices. That’s it. One might consider that
process as a part of the customer service, but you might
also consider that as completely separate. Great customer
service goes far beyond delivering that great master.
 About the Author

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