Choose engineer

Unless you specify a preference, we’ll book you with whoever has availability first.

At Resonant Mastering, you have a couple mastering engineer options to choose from: Ed Brooks, Rachel Field, both as a team.

Get an estimate and Policy Information

We work hourly, so once we know who you would like to work with, the scope of your project in terms of number of songs and approximate total running length, we will provide you with an estimate and policy information. 

Book a date

If you choose to book with us, we will get you in our calendar, then provide you with mix file delivery instructions. 

Deliver mixes and album information

We will need your mixes no later than 9am on the date of your session, whether or not you have arranged to attend. We will also need your album information. Mix delivery instructions will be provided once a date is booked. Please do not send mix files or download links before booking a session.

Mastering Session

Your engineer will work from your provided mixes to optimize your music for playback across multiple sound systems and bring continuity across your songs using our ears, skills and the gear available to us in the studio. We work mostly in hardware with our hybrid analog/digital chain. Each mix is run through the hardware chain and recorded into a DAW where we then trim, sequence, set spacing and encode CD Text. 

If arranged in advance, EP and full length sessions can be attended. Please note for budget purposes that attending often adds time to the session.

Invoice and Payment

Once the mastering session is complete, you will receive an invoice that can be paid online through our secure payment portal via the links within the invoice. We can also accept payment in person. We prefer bank transfer through our payment portal when convenient. Mastered material does not go out before the invoice is paid.

Reference Material Review & Approval

After the mastering is complete and the invoice is settled, you will receive your reference material, at which point the ball is in your court to review and approve the work. If you have revision requests, let us know and we’ll make the requested changes, then provide you with a new Reference Package for you to review. Once we have an approved version of the album, we can then get started with any additional formats depending on your manufacturing plans. 

Formats for Production / Manufacturing

Let us know your release and manufacture plans and we can help you determine what you do and don’t need to go forward.

These take a bit of time to format, generate, test and listen through before delivering, therefore they are an additional charge. Please refer to rate and policy information provided with your project’s estimate.

• For CD- there are usually a couple of options, depending on who you are going through and how many you are having made. We can help you determine your options if you let us know who you are going through, and how many discs you are ordering.

• For Vinyl- we most commonly prepare and deliver high resolution WAV files rendered as a single file per side. We also create and provide a Tracklist/Cue sheet for the cutting engineer. There are a couple of outlier plants that prefer a different format, so it’s good to know who you’re going through before we generate this.

• Cassette- we can prepare a cassette duplication master as a single, high resolution WAV file per side, or in most cases you can also use the WAV files from the approved reference package.

If it is determined that you need or want any additional formats, they will be invoiced at the time they are ordered, after approval of reference material and once we have the necessary order details. At that time we will get you in our production queue, and get everything out when ready. 

Backup/Archival of your Project From our System

Once we are finished making and delivering all release parts, we keep your project active on our servers for approximately six months, at which time we archive all the project’s materials. We make every effort to keep an archive of all projects, but make no guarantee that we will be able to recover any archived project.

Mastering is the final step of music production.

The process puts the final touches on a song by enhancing the overall sound. On albums it brings a consistency of tone and overall volume song to song.

The mastered versions of the songs are then prepared for distribution for all the different release formats.

Our preference is to receive full resolution WAV or AIFF files at the highest sample rate possible without any conversion. Please render your mixes at the same sample rate of the recording and either 24bit or 32 bit depth. If other formats and lower resolutions are the best source available, we can certainly work from that if need be.

More important than peak headroom is your Crest Factor, or Peak to RMS ratio.  Of course this varies between genres and aesthetic styles, but RMS level is typically not more than 14-16 db below peak level, and not less than about 10db. Peak levels up to -3 or -2 are fine.

For example, if your peak level is -3, you would look for RMS levels to be around -17 to -19 or so. These numbers are rough guidelines.

Avoid any digital clipping including tracks, outputs, busses, sends, plugins, etc. Even if you can’t hear it, it can sometimes become audible post mastering chain. Remove any processing that is specifically for loudness (ie a limiter for loudness) and do not normalize your mixes.

All that said, please do not change your mixes to meet these criteria if it changes the way they sound in a way you do not love. Mixes that sound the way you want them to are the top priority.

Please do not send us any mixes until we have booked your session.

Please upload your mixes directly to our server using the instructions you receive after booking.

Be sure to put all of your mixes into a single zipped folder before uploading.

Zipping your files ensures a complete and uncorrupt file transfer. This also helps to speed up your upload time!

After creating a folder with just your mix files inside, title it with your artist name. You can then zip the folder for delivery. 

On Mac, you can zip a folder by right-clicking it and then selecting Compress "folder name". 

 On PC, you can do it by right-clicking, selecting Send to.. and then selecting Compressed (zipped) folder.

Yes. Any normalization should be avoided in general.

The best way is to assemble a mock-up of your sequencing using your mixes, and send us a single MP3 of the full album to use as a guide.

Please render these independently of each other.

Any audio intended to overlap should be complete in a file, and not split across 2 files. If you have a transition piece, either render it out separately, or include it in the end of the mix file for the first song of the two that overlap.

Yes! We are happy to have you attend your session in person when scheduling allows. This must be arranged in advance.

Please do keep in mind that we work hourly, and often attending adds time to the session.

Yes!

Our ATR102 has 2-track ¼-inch and ½-inch heads. It can play back at 30, 15, and 7.5 ips.

Yes! We love when our work goes to vinyl.

If mixes have specific characteristics that warrant it, occasionally a song can be run a second time with separate settings specifically to address those characteristics.

Otherwise, there is no additional studio time for mastering specifically for vinyl, though there IS an additional set of files that get rendered and formatted for delivery to the lacquer cutter, which incurs a charge to prepare, QC, and deliver. This is referred to as a Vinyl Premaster.

We prepare the audio for your lacquer cutting engineer, but we do not cut lacquers in-house. We have developed a sense of who is doing quality work out there in the vinyl manufacturing world, so if you’re looking for recommendations on who to go through to have records made, just ask!

We work hourly and can put together a tailored estimate for you that is based on the specific scope of your project.

Average full-length albums run about $700-800. Additional production formats, if needed, are extra.

There are several factors that can affect how long any given project will take to complete. 

The biggest factors are: Number of songs, total project running length, quality of the recording and mixes. Whether or not we are working from stereo mixes or stems, files or tape.

Most full length albums from stereo mixes are completed in one day’s session. There are exceptions, though rare.

Feel free to get in touch with us with your number of songs and total running length and we can tailor an estimate for you.

Possibly. 

• If you are doing a vinyl run, you will certainly need a vinyl premaster. 

• If you are having CDs manufactured, you may need a DDP. This will depend on who you are going through and how many you are having made. 

• If you are having cassettes duplicated, you *may* want a cassette master, but this is optional depending on whether you want to make cassettes with higher resolution audio.

• If you are releasing through any specialty/high resolution digital platforms you may need a specific format run through tests and QC. (Apple Digital Masters, and HD Trax, for example)

In any case, we are happy to help you determine what you do and don’t need based on your release plans.

You don’t need to know this in advance of your session. These final deliverables are not invoiced or prepared until we have approval on your reference material and know your release and manufacturing plans.

International Standard Recording Code.

ISRC’s are primarily for digital commerce tracking purposes. Some radio stations read them from CDs.

We do not issue them, but we can encode them into mastered audio if provided to us. Many independent artists have their codes issued by their distributor, after mastering is complete

More info and ways to obtain codes can be found here: https://usisrc.org/

We encode CD Text information- Artist Name, Album Title, Song Titles, ISRCs if you have them.

We do not typically encode metadata. We deliver WAV files for distribution, which do not carry metadata, with the exception of ISRCs. The final formats for the digital and streaming platforms are generated by your distributor or the platform itself, at which time the metadata is encoded into those final files

We have encoded CD Text into your disc image and resulting reference CD. 

Computers don't read the CD Text from the disc. They reach out to online databases (Such as Gracenote Media) to match album information to a disc.

Once your album info has been populated into online databases, your computer will match your info to your disc.

Yes, we love working from stems when arranged in advance. Please bear in mind that working from stems can increase how long a session runs by up to double.

Stems should all be rendered as stereo sub mixes, so that when summed together, they match the main mix exactly.

An example of breaking them out would be: Stereo drums, Stereo Bass, Stereo Guitars, Stereo Vocals. If you would like us to weigh in on how to break out your stems, we are happy to.

No, not at this time. Though we can set up for surround mastering if specified and arranged in advance.

Yes.