Mastering is the final step in producing a track after the recording and mixing, the song is ‘polished’ and prepared for releasing. It consists of balancing sounds and ensuring the sound quality is good across all playback systems; headphones, speakers, etc.
Mastering has changed as a result of the Loudness wars, where artists prioritised loudness over sound quality. Mastering became a more competitive aspect in order for tracks to stand out rather then in today’s society where it is a tool for balancing and optimising audio quality. Many Producers aim for a LUFS (Loudness units full scale) level of -14 to -9 LUFS. There has been a rise of artists prioritising audio detail over loudness post-Loudness war era.
Listening to today’s music, you can explicitly hear the variety of depth and emotion throughout most songs. Songs are a lot more balanced and pleasant to listen to rather than the overwhelming loudness of the past songs. This is due to compression and limiting being used for its intended purpose and ridding faults rather than pushing sound to its limits. Audio formats such as apple spatial and Dolby Atmos also affect mastering decisions.Alongside this, file preparation is part of Mastering as it is one of the final things in order for the track to be ready for releasing.
The knowledge of how mastering has changed can help my future work as understanding how far mastering has come post-loudness war means that I can avoid over compressing my work and focus on quality.
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