2002 Studios is proud to announce our new top line mastering service. We are working with the world reknowned mastering engineer Duncan Morrison. He has worked with a really wide list of acts and labels around the world such as:

Peter Gabriel
Joe Strummer (Comments: Best engineer I’ve worked with)
Jam Nation
The Afro Celts
Dr Dre
Orange Can (Comments: Better than Abbey Road)
Sony Australia
Virgin

Albums mastered by Duncan cost £450 and individual tracks (4 track minimum per order) is £50 per track.

You can contact us now to book his services… Don’t wait !

Mastering is a form of post-production. It is the last stage of producing a piece of audio to its ‘master’ format after the mixing process, from here the audio can be duplicated, pressed to CD vinyl etc…

The main reasons as to why we master audio is to improve its amplitude and clarity. It’s a vital part of the production process, literally everything you hear on radio, TV and in clubs has been mastered.

As mentioned above, mastering focuses on the overall amplitude of the final track. This element of the process is achieved through compression and limiting. Say for example you have a good finished mix that was peaking at 0.0 dB, a mastered version of the same mix also peaking at 0.0 dB would appear a lot louder despite the fact it technically hasn’t increased in volume, this is achieved by compression and limiting, at this stage of the process the engineer is cleverly decreasing the dynamic range of the audio without effecting its quality.

Another element of the mastering process is stereo widening and equalisation; this will give you more width, depth, clarity and punch. Other elements of the process include Noise reduction, which involve removing any pops, hums or clicks that might be in the final mix along with basic fade edits to bring the mix to a nice smooth end. At 2002 Studios we have the hardware, software and experience to achieve this.

I write this blog entry as an intern from 2002 studio. In my spare time I produce a lot of dance music and have recently been signed to a good dance label. Since then I released a lot of my material for club use. To begin with when playing my own tracks in clubs I didn’t really understand the importance of mastering…. I soon learnt! If your un-mastered tracks come in after a mastered track in a club you will be embarrassed with the difference. They’ll seem quiet, weak, flat, and your bass lines will be jumping all over the mix! Good mastering will fix this giving you a much bigger, constant sound, and most importantly keeping you on par with the other tracks played in that set. I know there are a lot of other young producers out there in exactly the same situation as I was. If you want your tracks to get played in clubs or on radio it is VITAL they are mastered correctly!

Whilst it’s easy to understand the process and production techniques behind mastering, to be able to perform them correctly is a different story all together. To perfect the skills will involve good out-board equipment but most importantly experience! If you want something mastered for a club or for serious release its VITAL you have it done by a professional engineer!! And for only £45 a track or £320 for an album the difference is definitely value for money!

npl: the characteristic way in which sound carries or can be heard within a particular enclosed space, for example, an auditorium.

The acoustics to a recording studio are as important if not more important than the technical equipment involved. If the sound of a room isn’t right then no matter how high the quality of recording equipment is you will always capture that boxy, ringing, hard sound.

In between sound leaving its source and reaching your ears it experiences reflections. In the case of a very large room these result in an echo with the sound wave bouncing of a hard wall and returning to your ears, but in smaller rooms these reflections are shorter and more frequent resulting in reverberations.

When thinking musically you may believe that reverberation or reverb as its know is a good thing, commonly applied on instruments etc to create depth, ambience and to increase the harmonic effects of a source… In actual fact when monitoring or recording sound it’s quite the opposite! Once you have recorded these natural reverberations you are then stuck with them. What you actually want in a recording environment are walls that defuse the sound resulting in as little reverberation as possible. This will give the source a very clean, pure and dry sound, enabling the engineer (with the use of effects) to then apply as little or as much reverb as needed providing maximum control over the signal and its final mix.

So basically, hard walls such as the ones found in your home studio will constantly reflect sound creating all sorts of acoustic related problems, these will include ringing, fluttering echoes and stereo imaging issues.

At 2002 Studios every single wall in both the live and control rooms have a thick layer of Rock Wool. These Rock Wool panels have been made to the perfect density and literally absorb (defuse) the sound, resulting in a far softer/true recording and a clinical listening environment for mixing and mastering. In the control room, we have offset the dampening effect of the absorbing walls with strategically placed plaster walls, designed to keep the sound moving just enough that it still travels to the engineers and clients. However we have no ‘ping-pong’ which results in a clean and soft mixing environment.

Other issues found in room acoustics and particularly the control rooms are roaming bass frequencies. This is because the bass in a track is the most likely end of the frequency spectrum to reverberate, therefore giving you the impression your hearing more bass than is actually in the track, this creates some of the most common mistakes in mixing and mastering.

These bass frequencies resonate at there worst in rooms with right angles. Although you wouldn’t notice it at first, the 2002 Studio control room features no right angles, at a first glance it may appear to be a normal room but on closer inspection you will see every wall and even the floor and ceiling are slightly askew. This design allows us to escape the boxy ringing sounds often picked up in your average listening environment.

Bad acoustics to a room will severely affect your recordings and colour your judgement of the overall sound. As mentioned at the start of this post, it’s these reasons that the room itself is the most important aspect of any recording environment. At 2002 Studios we have gone the extra mile to resolve any the acoustic problems mentioned above (and then some). The entire facility is a room built inside a room leaving us with perfect isolation from the outside world, providing a professional working environment for any audio based task whether it be recording mixing or mastering…..