Ok, many of you dear readers can probably skip this bit. But if the term mastering is new to you or you’re wondering why you’re supposed to pay good money just to have something turned up then read on…
Mastering has long been regarded by many in the music industry as something of a dark art. Unlike mixing, which is fairly well understood, the process of transforming raw mixes into professional, broadcast standard, radio friendly tracks, has an air of mystery to it. Part of the reason for this is that the tools at the mastering engineer’s disposal are essentially the same as those used in the recording and mixing process; i.e. mainly EQ (equalisation) and compression. But an experienced mastering engineer, armed with a fresh perspective, precision tools and accurate monitoring, can elevate a track in ways that are hard to define, yet easy to hear. That’s why people often describe the effect with phrases like “the magic touch”, “bringing the tracks to life”, “making it sound like a record” or more prosaically “it’s the same, but better”.
The real goal of mastering is to ensure your listeners experience the same emotional impact you felt when you created the music. That feeling is what you’re trying to communicate.
The changes made in mastering can be subtle or significant. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, because every mix is different.
Some tracks just need the simplest tonal adjustments—more or less bass or top-end—while others may have more specific frequency imbalances caused by mix-room acoustics or other factors including listening fatigue. These can be corrected with surgical precision, opening up the mix and bringing clarity and cohesion.
Compression may also be applied, with techniques ranging from subtle glue to punch-enhancing dynamic control. Whether it’s giving the drums more impact, taming an unruly vocal, or tightening up the whole mix, dynamic processing is used with care and intent.
Those are the basics, but there’s raft of other processes and techniques at our disposal; harmonic enrichment and saturation, parallel processing, dynamic resonance suppression, mid-side processing and more, but whatever processes we apply our choices are always guided by the music itself with the aim of delivering your vision into the ears of your listeners.
In today’s world of affordable, computer-based music production, many tracks are recorded and mixed in less-than-ideal monitoring environments. That makes the role of the mastering studio more important than ever—it’s often the only place where the music can be heard with true accuracy before release. In fact, many producers now have even their demos professionally mastered to ensure they hold their own in a competitive marketplace.
It’s Your Mastering Session
We often hear from artists and producers who’ve previously spent time and money on mastering, only to be disappointed with the results. At Fluid Mastering, we understand that there’s no single “right” way to master a track — it all depends on you; your influences and your musical journey, your artistic intent.
If your music is commercial, you may want it to stand up against others in your genre — with a modern, dense, upfront sound. In short, you want it to be loud. We can absolutely deliver that.
Equally, you might be aiming for something more open and natural, preserving every detail and dynamic nuance. We can do that too.
In most cases, we’ll aim for a balance between loudness and dynamics, guided by the music and the mix itself. But our top priority is always to achieve the sound you want, so we’re happy to take a steer from you. If you’re not quite sure yet, don’t worry — we’ll guide you through the process and help you make informed choices, or you can just leave us to it and then we can discuss the results with you if you’d like any changes. You can read more about loudness and how it affects your music below.
Doing It On The Cheap
The mastering landscape has changed dramatically over the past few decades. In the 1990s, mastering could only be done at a handful of high-end studios, largely due to the cost of the specialised equipment required. Today, anyone with a computer, some plug-ins, and a website can offer a mastering service at a fraction of the cost.
It’s also now easier than ever for artists and producers to master their own material, or to use AI-based cloud services to do it automatically. That’s a win for smaller projects that would once have been priced out of professional mastering altogether.
However, it’s worth understanding the difference between true high-end mastering and budget alternatives — so you know what you’re getting for your money.
Experience and Taste:
Professional mastering engineers work on multiple projects each week, solving different sonic challenges and responding to a wide range of artistic goals. They’re constantly refining their skills, developing their ear, and deepening their understanding of how to enhance a mix without compromising its integrity.
More than just technical know-how, mastering demands judgement: knowing when to intervene and when to leave well alone. A good engineer understands that loudness isn’t the same as quality — and will tailor their approach to your vision, not someone else’s.
They also know how to get the best out of high-end equipment, avoiding pitfalls like jitter, quantisation distortion, clipping, noise, and phase issues — things that automated systems or less experienced engineers may miss entirely.
Quality Equipment and Accurate Monitoring:
Even the most subtle EQ or compression move can cause unintended damage if made using substandard gear or inaccurate monitoring. That’s why the best mastering setups rely on exceptionally transparent signal paths and monitoring systems that are ruthlessly revealing — not flattering.
Accurate monitoring is the cornerstone of good mastering — and requires great acoustics as well as the best speakers. It’s one thing you simply can’t replicate with software, and without it, even the most skilled engineer would be making decisions in the dark.
Mastering in the 2020s
Back in the day, mastering was largely about preparing audio for physical formats such as vinyl, cassette, and then CD, each with its own technical constraints and requirements. For analogue formats, part of the job was to work around the inherent limitations of the media. But with the shift to digital, mastering has become a more creative process focused on optimising sound quality across a wide range of playback environments.
Today, we still provide masters for all traditional formats, but most releases are digital — whether streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal, etc.) or downloads (Bandcamp, artist websites, and so on). In most cases, your audio will leave the mastering studio in the same format it arrived: WAV files.
A small number of listeners, using lossless services like Tidal through wired playback systems, will hear the master exactly as we delivered it. But the majority, whether streaming, listening on the radio or through Bluetooth, will hear a compressed, "lossy" version — in formats like AAC, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis — encoded downstream from the mastering stage. We can’t control that process, but we do need to account for it.
Add to that the fact that most streaming platforms now apply loudness normalisation — adjusting the playback volume of each track so it sits consistently within a playlist — and you begin to see how mastering today isn’t just about making something sound great and certainly not simply about making it louder; it’s about making it work across platforms and formats, many of which come with their own quirks.
This makes it more important than ever to master with the final listening environment in mind — not just the studio, but the phone, the Bluetooth speaker, the car, and the streaming platform. That’s where your audience will be.
Loudness
If you’ve heard of the “Loudness War”, you’ll know it refers to a trend that began in the mid-1990s, where records were mixed and mastered louder and louder — often at the expense of dynamics and punch, and even resulting in audible distortion on many big-selling albums. Despite the CD format offering excellent dynamic range, meaning that loud moments could be really loud provided the quiet sections were, well, quieter, many producers feared that if their track wasn’t as loud as the competition from start to finish it would be overlooked. And to some extent, they were right — louder tracks can seem more exciting on first listen.
But pushing too much level into a finite space has consequences, and the digital audio canvas is finite. When a listener turns up the volume at home, every part of the picture including the canvas and frame gets bigger while staying the same shape - but when a mastering engineer pushes the level, only the image gets bigger while the frame stays the same size. Go too far and you ruin the picture. In audio terms, transient muscle and punch especially in drums is usually the first to suffer, and if the final chorus was louder than the first, then it’s bound to sound squashed if you’ve already made the first chorus as loud as you can comfortably get it.
A track mastered to its limits might initially impress, but it can also lead to listener fatigue, and deprive the listener of the excitement that comes from experiencing those shifts in energy that can be an integral part of a musical performance.
More recently, streaming platforms have introduced volume normalisation, which evens out playback levels between tracks. That means the loudest masters are simply turned down — so the competitive advantage of loudness has largely disappeared. However, that doesn’t mean loud mastering is obsolete, and a quick look at the charts shows that some people are still absolutely spanking it, while others are choosing to inject a little more space into their sound.
So why master loud? Well, there’s an aesthetic to that dense, controlled, in-your-face sound that many people enjoy — particularly in certain genres, or if they’ve grown up with it. And for some things, it just works - provided you have a well crafted mix that can handle it. Additionally, a tighter dynamic range can help a track translate better on low-end playback systems like phones, tablets, and Bluetooth speakers, which often struggle to reproduce wide dynamics cleanly.
So today, loudness is more of an aesthetic choice than a commercial necessity. There’s no right or wrong approach — it all depends on the material, the playback context, and your preferences.
We’re happy to follow your lead. If you want to hit a specific loudness target (in LUFS), just let us know. Otherwise, we’ll aim for a natural balance: a punchy, contemporary sound that holds up across all devices, while preserving the life and movement that makes your music feel real. And as ever, we’ll be guided by what best serves your mix.