mastering
Mastering
Listen for yourself
A producer entrusted a track to Mr. Hartman, a trainer, mastering engineer, and co-manager of a label, for mastering. To assess the quality of the work, I'm offering a blind listen of two versions: one mastered by Mr. Hartman and the other by White Mastering.
This exercise will allow you to compare the two approaches and judge for yourself the expertise of White Mastering. I have anonymized the versions so as not to influence you. In your opinion, what is the mastering done by the training engineer? And what is the mastering of White Mastering?
A third excerpt is also available: this is the unmastered track. This will allow you to better measure the impact of mastering on the final result.
For copyright reasons, each clip is limited to 78 seconds.
Mastering plugins used: DMG Audio, Tokyo Dawn Labs, Tone projects, FabFilter bundle.
Mastering is often seen as a mysterious alchemy, a final polish that transforms a good track into one ready to take on the world. Yet, behind this final step lies a subtle dialogue between the artist and the sound engineer, a tension between artistic vision and technical constraints, between emotions and industry standards.
The exchange between the artist and the sound engineer is based on a mutual understanding, which is sometimes difficult to establish. The artist wants to preserve the raw essence of their music, its dynamics, its texture, while the sound engineer must consider sound translation across a multitude of listening systems. This dialogue can be fraught with misunderstandings: an artist may want a "warmer," "wider," "more immersive" sound, but these terms remain subjective and must be translated into concrete adjustments—equalization, compression, stereo imaging.
One of the biggest challenges in mastering is ensuring good sound reproduction on radically different equipment. What sounds balanced and detailed on a high-end audiophile system may sound flat or overly busy on AirPods, Bluetooth speakers, or even car stereos.
The engineer must therefore play a balancing act, relying on reference listening and tests on various devices to ensure acceptable homogeneity without sacrificing the subtlety of the mix.
The loudness war has long driven the sacrifice of dynamics for perceived volume, but today, with the standardization of streaming, a new requirement is imposed: consistency of listening across different platforms. Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube—each applies its own processing, and poorly adapted mastering can end up weakened or overwritten.
Faced with these challenges, the role of the sound engineer is also psychological: he must understand the artist's expectations, sometimes defuse frustrations, and guide towards choices that will preserve the musical intention while ensuring a faithful translation on all media. Good mastering is an intelligent compromise, a successful dialogue between artistic sensitivity and technical rigor.
An example that illustrates this well is the Jadiris album: some folk tracks will sound very good on one system, but less so on another type of horn speaker, where the hiss will be very accentuated, while it remains just perceptible on a system equipped with tweeters. It is also necessary to accept certain artistic directions.
