A Q&A episode with a twist - we recorded it live, with questions arriving all the time we were recording. We’ve added them all to the list for future episodes - here are the ones we had time to tackle this time:
- How has mastering changed over Ian's career, and where is it going next ?
- Is there somewhere out there with reference tracks for mixing and mastering ?
- Are there any tips for avoiding the trap of "mastering with your eyes" ?
- Should you use compression when mastering classical music ? If so, when ?
- Why you shouldn’t make master everything at -14 LUFS for online streaming
- Is absolute polarity audible ? Does it matter ?
- Is “AI” mastering like iZotope Ozone 8 any good ?
Links
TMS #27 - Mastering for games
Playlists of Ian’s masters on Spotify and Pinterest
How loud should you master your music online ?
YouTube normalization - stats for nerds !
This episode is sponsored by the Home Mastering Masterclass. If you enjoy The Mastering Show, take a look !
Hi Ian!
I'm adding another question, now that you mentioned "absolute polarity": I've always wondered if audio players such as Amarra or Audirvana — who advertise themselves as "magnifying listening experience" or "best sounding music" — are just a fraud for weak-minded people or actually doing something to the phase or something before hitting the DAC?
They usually claim to "polish" your sound with upsampling or oversampling... but I'm quite convinced it's something that's rather done at the converter level, not at the software level. What do you think?