Online mastering is mastering from the comfort of your living room!
If you would like to use my services without visiting my studio, you can send me your songs over the internet. I will master them and send them straight back to you. You will get one free master revision, so if you would like anything amended, it's no problem at all! These days, this is the most common way of mastering, and I collaborate this way with clients from all over the world. Online mastering is definitely the most popular service, I offer.
Since audio CDs are slowly disappearing because of digital downloads and streaming, clients (more then often) demand tracks to be delivered in what is known as WAV format.
The figures are unambiguous:
While audio CD album sales declined from 112.5m to 60.6m in UK in the last 5 years the digital went from 16.1m to 32.6m albums sold. The singles were subject to similar trend. While audio CD single sales declined from 2.5m to 0.359m in UK in the last 5 years the digital went from 148.8m to 175.6m singles sold.
Streaming also made its way to the history books in 2013, when digital reached 50% of total UK music industry trade revenues (up by 41%) which became officially the fastest growing-sector over the twelve month period.
The demand for various digital formats is quickly growing, therefore digital becomes the most common delivery method. Now, more often than ever the mastered tracks are delivered in an uncompressed audio file format such as .wav or .aiff using online delivery methods, which eliminates the need for physical medium such as CD or DAT. This minimizes the expenses linked with pressing and makes the delivery a lot faster, safer and considerably cheaper!
So how this all works? You will send me your full resolution .wav of .aiff pre-masters. I will master them and export them in 44.1kHz/16bit.wav (Or other - depending on your preference. Bear in mind you can get one other format for free!). I will then make these available for a secure download. Please note that the delivery format is dependent on the original format and upsampling won't add anything to the audio itself. So please don’t upsample your mixes! For more information please visit the F.A.Q. tab.
Please note that I am able to embed the ISRC code directly to the .wav file. This will allow your royalty collection society to track your royalties worldwide, which was impossible in this format beforehand. Additional fees apply.
I am not able to embed any other information than the ISRC codes. If you are releasing your music digitally you need to submit the relevant metadata to your aggregator, who will process them accordingly. You may use services such as Gracenote to submit your metadata for self-released promo CDs and such. More info on Gracenote here.
When I deliver your mastered .wav files they will be named appropriately:
for instance "We Are The Champions Master1 44.1/16" or "We Will Rock You Master3 96/24".
Please be aware: The filename is not considered as metadata and won’t be displayed on your domestic CD player or in your iTunes library.
If you wish to distribute your music digitally, please check what resolution is accepted by your online distributor first.
Formats I work with:
.wav or .aiff in 16, 24 or 32bit-floating and sample rates of: 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz and 192kHz. I can also provide you masters in mp3, AAC and AAC+ in various bit rates.