Perspective
Tracking, mixing, and mastering are three very distinct steps in music production. While for the sake of convenience it is becoming increasingly common for all 3 tasks to be done by the same engineer, more than not the project does not reach it's fullest potential. This is largely due to the fact that tracking and mixing generally takes a significant amount of time and the tendency to lose perspective and inspiration is very easy. Also, many productions are recorded and mixed under less than perfect acoustical conditions. The dedicated mastering engineer has the advantage of hearing a lot different types of music in a fairly short amount of time on a well translating monitoring system. Thus, the mastering engineer develops a consistent sense of perspective regarding the final product.
Balance and Compatibility
With a well trained set of ears, constant practice, and lifetime commitment as an engineer and musician we bring a passion to the mastering desk that goes beyond the task itself. We do not take a quick "cookie cutter" approach to mastering and will always carefully analyze each and every track we are given, no matter what length. Often, we will experiment with the processing chain while working; adding or removing processors or swapping the processing order to achieve the best result. In the end the goal is to get your music to sound consistently great on the lowest end to the highest end playback systems including ipods, radio, and the web.
