h1phop.com does mastering.
H1PHOP.COM:
Details: Professional Mastering...
Please read below and contact us with questions...
Mastering is essential to endure that your music is of commercial or broadcast quality. Whether your seeking airplay directly, or are submitting a demo, you are likely wasting your time if you do not have the material professionally mastered. Competition alone assures that even if your idea is good, it won't matter if the product is badly produced or mastered.
This Mastering service is geared to the independant artists who may be on a tight budget, but need their recordings to sound professional and meet professional standards. We will work with you the artist to ensure your tracks sound as good as possible, for example before the mastering stage we will carefully listen to the mixed version you have provided us with and if there are any changes that can be done to improve the sound we will let you know.
What will we do as part of the mastering process?
Audio Mastering is the art/science of assembling individual songs into a cohesive album. ALL comercial releases are Mastered. The steps taken and/or tools used in mastering vary from project to project, but in general can include:
Results to expect after we have mastered your track include:
· Smoothing rough or harsh sounding mixes
· Ensuring that there are not fluctuations in volumes and eq of the tracks
· Adding 'warmth' to your tracks and giving them a fuller fatter sound
· Removal of clicks and pops
· Input of PQ codes
And most importantly, the assurance that the cd will be acceptable at a duplication plant
Methods to achieve the above include:
· Noise Reduction
· EQ
· Multiband Compression
· Sidechain/Bandpass Compression
· Overall Compression
· Dithering
· Limiting
Some of the things Mastering can NOT do are:
1. Remove Distortion in individual tracks or the mixdown
2. Remove excess reverb or effects
3. Change the left/right location of one instrument in the mix
4. Turn a bad recording into a good one
So if you are mixing the track yourself (i.e not using our mixing service, or another mixing service), we strongly recommend that you don't apply any effects to the entire mixed down track (including compression and loudness maximisation etc).
Mixdown Service
Mixdown and Mastering, traditionally speaking, are two very separate processes. Mixdown is the art of leveling, equalizing and effecting all the various sources from many tracks down to a stereo Mix. Mastering is the process of taking the stereo mix and putting it in the final album-ready form.
Our mixdown process involves carefully 'soloing' each separate track in the mix and ensuring not only that the levels are correctly set, but also that the track has 'air' (i.e the track doesn't sound overcrowded with sound, but each sound sits in its own place on the eq spectrum).
Contact us for more details on the format we would need in to receive your tracks for mix down.
What do you receive back from us after we have mastered your tracks?
Before we finalise the mastering process, we will always consult you to ensure you are happy with the final result (i.e send you a samples etc).
When everything is complete, we will send you 2 CDs:
CD 1 - This will contain an audio version of your track(s) for listening, it will be created using red book standards.
CD 2 - This will contain a data version of the track(s) (wave format 16 bit 44.1 khz digital audio)
Pricing:
Professional mastering at the lowest possible price!
Mastering: $30 per song
Mastering whole CD (11-20 track lp): $180
Mastering whole CD (5-10 track ep): $110
Mixdown & master: $100 per song
Mixdown & master whole cd (11-20 track lp): $500
Mixdown & master whole cd (5-10 track lp): $250 (5-7 tracks) / $350 (8-10 tracks)
Policy:
Satisfaction Guaranteed...
We will work with each artist until they are completely 100% happy with the final product. You will not receive money back (due to theft and people getting a mastered product and cheating us), but we will make sure you are 110% satisfied with your finished product. There is no company online that offers professional mastering services at a price lower than ours.
More detail coming soon...
http://www.h1phop.com/mastering.html