Audio mastering online means that you are having your music mastered via an online mastering studio. Nowadays it’s simpler than ever for artists to connect with mastering engineers without even having to do anything beyond shooting an e-mail and their song files themselves along with payment to that engineer.
Also the recent boom in technology means that practically anyone with a computer thinks that they can be a mastering engineer so there are more options and people with audio mastering online studios vying and begging for your attention than ever before which can make it difficult to differentiate one from another when they are all promising roughly the same things.
This is why I have put together this audio mastering online checklist of things which you should consider before starting a relationship with an engineer.
First, make sure that you get a taskmaster from the engineer talking with. I know a lot of artists who will simply listen to the samples on that engineer’s website and decide that this person knows what they’re doing. Just like that they trust them with their music and money before understanding what their own music would sound like in that engineers care.
Any legitimate mastering professional will offer a free taskmaster to all new clients so that they can experience first-hand before and after effects of that engineers handiwork. There is no substitute for hearing your own music master by a particular engineer so do not pass this opportunity up.
Next, make your own checklist of what you want to accomplish with that engineer. How many songs do you need master and what format do you plan on releasing your music? These are two of the most important questions to be able to answer when you are conversing and interacting with a mastering engineer because they need to know these things in order to narrow how much it will cost you and to ensure that they have time to work on your project.
Additional measures need to be implemented and taken when you want your music mastered for a physical release here it some artists opt to forgo releasing their music in a physical format altogether and instead exclusively release it online in digital format. In this case, you don’t need to sequence the record or worry about creating an album file with spaces in between each and every song on that record.
It’s also important that you’re able to contact and get a hold of your engineer whenever you have any problems or issues and you want to have an open communication with them. The last thing you want is to achieve your music back and have problems with it only to find out that the engineer doesn’t have time to work on it or it’s going to cost you more money. These are all things to establish before any money changes hands or work has been done so that there are no uncomfortable moments to ensure they are both on the same page at the end of the day.