We offer basic digital mastering for bands and artists on a tight budget. Our specialism is mastering old demos and recordings for nostalgic reasons, low budget home recordings and GarageBand mixes. Essentially we work with material a lot of mastering services would reject! All we require is that you have the rights to the music.
Using a range of software tools, we balance the EQ and volumes between tracks and do our best to fix EQ errors in mixes and improve the overall sound. We don't perform miracles, we just do our best to improve your audio, which is where the 'human judgement' kicks in.
MASTERING SERVICES COMPARISON
| Online AI | Studio 109 | High-end | |
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| High-end Analogue processing | |
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| Checks for errors such as clicks | |
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| Can surgically improve less than ideal mixes | |
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| Noise reduction | |
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| Ongoing fees | |
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| Human judgement | |
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| Balance between tracks | |
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| Unlimited re-works | |
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| Mastering for Vinyl | |
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QUALITY COMPARISON
Online AI Mastering can work very well provided the mix is nailed. The tools are not designed to work with less than ideal mixes. For example, click and noise removal is still a subjective human process, along with balancing the EQ and loudness between more than one song. AI works on only one track at a time which can make balancing the levels between tracks challenging.
High-end Mastering can be amazing but few engineers will work on flawed mixes to protect their much-deserved reputation! Their very expensive analogue gear can impart 'sonic magic' on your audio but, again, you need very good mixes to get the best from the considerable investment.
STUDIO109 Mastering is pragmatic and aimed at sitting between the two options above. We use a combination of local professional AI tools as a starting point along with many other manual tools where we don't agree with AI. The key is we inject human judgement, plus unlike current online AI we can repair mixes and balance the tone and levels between a collection of tracks.
We are very happy to work with flawed mixes - we are not judgemental - we simply want to do the best we can with your music.
PRICE COMPARISON
Online AI Mastering costs can add up if you are not releasing a lot of tracks. Typically the annual fees are NZ$250, but you can master many times over without extra fees.
High-end Mastering ranges from NZ$70 to NZ$300+ per track. The prices are justified though - they have very expensive analogue gear, digital to analogue converters and monitoring, along with highly experienced ears!
STUDIO109 Mastering
| 1 track | $45.00 |
| 2-4 tracks | $35.00 per track |
| 5 tracks + | $30.00 per track |
TECHNICAL
- We prefer 24bit & 16bit WAV and AIFF files for Mastering. Mp3s are not suitable but if they are all you have we can consider them.
- Masters are supplied back to you as 24bit 44.1kHz WAV files, 16Bit 44.1kHz WAV files and 320kbps MP3s.
- For best results please do not apply any master bus limiting, compression or noise reduction to your mixes before sending.
- Tracks can be sent to us digitally using WeTransfer.com (free for up to 3Gb).
AUDIO SAMPLES
1984 Demo Mastered
Recorded to 8 track analogue in a small studio this demo song is taken from a low quality cassette copy of the master cassette 40 years ago!
The original track was heavy with hiss and slightly imbalanced (the original here has had the hiss removed). Otherwise the overall recording wasn't too bad.
We were able to bring our clarity in the song, a more engaging width, sparkle in the tops and better defined bass.
Apocalypse by Why
Extreme example of a home recording to tape
Recorded directly to 2 track cassette in a home recording session in a small room with lots of treble, distortion and saturation.
This band recorded many songs in studios but this track was only ever recorded very roughly at home. We were able to process it enough to at least make it listenable even if nowhere near good enough to release - the very definition of demo nostalgia! Too rough to split to stems, this song falls between restoration and mastering.
The original, as with other examples, was taken from a copy of a copy of a cassette. The original here has already had the hiss removed prior to some extreme EQ adjustments on the finished track.
Forever by The Stroppies
One of our own songs from 2019
A huge difference between this example and the previous one insofar as this is one of our tracks, recorded and mixed by us in 2019 in Studio109. We have come a wee way since then with our current productions sounding deeper, fuller and dare we say 'better'.
This is the difference between a 24 bit digital mix with no master buss processing before, and then after going through our basic mastering. And yes we left the guitar squeaks in - they can be removed!
We have released 3 more albums since this BUT we don't master our own material now. We prefer a second set of ears to do that, which is why you are here...
Got The Girl by OLDER