Audio Mastering: Separating the Science from Fiction is an ideal guide to tangible development as a mastering engineer. This book offers a comprehensive overview of mastering processes, teaching the reader to link critical listening skills with analysis to comprehend the processing required to improve the quality of their audio.
Whether involved in game audio, composing for film and television, producing rock or programming EDM, the aesthetics required to manipulate and assess audio for mastering are a highly valuable addition to any artist or engineer's skill set. Audio Mastering encourages readers to engage in personal analysis and, in doing so, contextualise their evaluations by linking to appropriate and available processing tools. Discussion of processing conventions and theory are included to help readers create an effective audio chain utilising the best properties from each process, as well as practical examples and additional online resources to support development of skilled processing control.
This is a thorough and practical textbook for audio engineers, artists, producers and students on music production, music technology and music performance courses, and for aspiring and developing mastering engineers.
1. What is mastering... really? 2. Enabling analysis 3. The monitor path 4. Looking to the mix 5. Analysis: Constructive, comparative and corrective 6. Mastering tools 7. Equalisation and tonal balance 8. Dynamic processors and tonal balance 9. Contextual processing analysis 10. The transfer path 11. Practical approach to dynamic controls 12. Practical approach to dynamic processing 13. Practical approach to equalisation 14. Navigating loudness 15. Bring it all together: Engaging in mastering 16. Restrictions of delivery formats 17. What’s next?
Biography
JP Braddock is a highly experienced audio engineer focused in both analogue and digital domain mastering. With over thirty years of experience in the music industry, he has delivered hundreds of albums over the last three decades, spanning a wide range of genres, including dance/electronic, folk, jazz and rock/metal. Through Formation Audio (https://mastering.ninja/), JP works as a mastering engineer, writer and educator delivering workshops for higher educational institutions across the UK.
