CD Mastering Engineers

If a recording artist or inspiring musician has any hopes of having their songs played on the radio, they'll need to have their songs mastered. The best way to do this is to hire a CD mastering engineer.

Professional music mastering can make a decent audio mix sound great and a good mix sound completely amazing. There are many different things that CD mastering can do. The mastering engineer will work with the artist to decide what order the songs should appear on the CD, equalize and balance the songs for consistant sound throughout your entire album, create a final CD layout with proper song spaces, segues, fades and crossfades snapped to CD frame boundaries, and more.

The order in which the songs appear on a CD can greatly affect the 'flow' when it's played. If similar sounding songs are placed side by side, it might lead to boredom or fatigue.

The CD mastering engineer, along with the artist, will determine how much time there should be between the songs on the CD. This spacing should be determined by the songs style, energy, tempo, key and more. I prefer to approach the CD as a concert; opening with a big song, and then a few mid-tempos, perhaps a slow song and a longer 3-4 second pause afterwards. And then back to another big song.

For an interesting career, being a mastering engineer is a great choice. They make excellent money, get to work with top artists, and enjoy what they do. If you like music this career may be what you've always wanted. For those who are already in the profession - it's a job unlike any other out there in the world.

Richard Dolmat (Digital Sound Magic Recording Studios)

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Get more studio tips and tricks at Richard Dolmat's Vancouver based recording studio Digital Sound Magic.

Visit his site at: http://www.digitalsoundmagic.com