Why is audio mastering important?

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010

If you have read my last article, ?What does an audio engineer do when mastering music??, you already know what is involved in the professional mastering process. To re-cap what that article said to all who haven?t read it, the mastering process adds polish to your songs and makes them sonically cohesive. A lot of albums are recorded and then thrown on a disc, sans mastering. While this works fine, by no means do I recommend it. There are a few reasons why I wouldn?t recommend doing this.

1.Mastering adds a professional, commercial sound to your songs or album.
All of your favorite albums and bands you hear on the radio have had their audio mastered by a professional mastering engineer before it was sent to CD manufacturing facility. This makes sure that you hear all the CD recordings low-end bass, mid-range, and highs crisply.


2.Audio mastering allows another set of ears to evaluate your audio.
Having another skilled audio technician listen to you recording is always a plus. They can bring a fresh perspective and ideas to your album production. Your recording and mixing engineers spent hours and hours listening to your music, someone who was not present and has a skilled ear can point out and help better the quality of your finished project.

Audio mastering is a vital step in the recording and CD manufacturing process. This article should help you understand why professional mastering is a step you should not leave out of your next recording project. All commercially released audio CDs utilize the CD mastering process, and you should do the same.