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Professional CD Mastering Online

Using our web-based, audio mastering service is a great way to get your mixes professionally produced at major label quality for affordable prices from anywhere in the world. As the last stage of the digital recording process, mastering is the final opportunity to tweak your music before duplication.  Your mastering engineer is not only responsible for audio sweetening, but for helping set track order, track gaps, and in general make all of your individual songs relate to make an album.  Good ears are essential above all.

Charles Szczepanek of Winding Road Studios has mastered audio in every genre from classical to jazz, R&B, and pop/rock.  He is in tune with the intricacies of tone, and through his strong training as a musician, can hear and listen better than most every engineer.  He is someone you can trust to give your album that extra edge over everyone else’s.

Working completely in Pro Tools gives you the advantage of using world class gear in combinations never before possible while saving an incredible amount of money over the competition.

Delivery is preferred at the highest quality possible, up to 96 kHz/24 bit.  Masters can be made from one stereo file, or from stems.  Accepted formats include WAV, AIFF, CD audio, CD24 (Masterlink), and DAT.  We will provide a master of one song for you to sample before beginning your entire album.  If you are not satisfied for any reason, you will not be charged for the song.

The Recording Process and Music Mastering Services

A master can only be as good as the original tracking and mixing.  Every step of the recording process depends on the step previous.  Great mixes can be turned into great masters.  But, an average mix will never quite be a great master.  There are certain audio mastering techniques we can employ, but nothing can take the place of quality at each step.  The same goes for the mastering itself.  A recording can’t reach its full potential without getting good mastering treatment.  So… what exactly is mastering?

Mastering is the final polish… putting the finishing touches on your recording.  A mastering engineer gets the stereo mixdown of your songs and applies equalization (EQ), compression, limiting, and other processing as necessary to 1) get the most punch out of your music 2) make your album sound complete and one (not a bunch of separate tracks but one journey through your music) and 3) get your album ready for radio play and manufacturing.

You can hear from the samples, the masters are usually “louder” than the other tracks.  This is normal, however just one small part of mastering.  Very fine adjustments to tone, color, dynamics, and transparency are made in mastering.  The goal is that your album will sound professional on every type of system: boombox, ipod, car stereo, and full home theater.  Many times, mix engineers mix according to their room and their monitors, but the mixes don’t always transfer very well across many types of playback machines in many rooms.  A good mastering engineer ensures that your music will always sound pro everywhere you play it.

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You can contact Charles Szczepanek at:  Charles@wrdstudios.com
Or call (480) 358-7637

Copyright © 2007-2010 Charles W. Szczepanek, All Right reserved. Text and image files, audio and video clips, and other content on this website are the property of Charles W. Szczepanek and may be protected by copyright and other restrictions as well. Copyrights and other proprietary rights in the content on this website may also be owned by individuals and entities other than, and in addition to, Charles W. Szczepanek. Copying of any protected materials on this website, except for personal, educational or non-commercial purposes, is prohibited.

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