Mastering rates:
Online mastering is $50 per track and is for those artists looking to submit their tracks to a record label, online distribution, DJ’s looking to play their tunes out in a club, and those people wanting a more experienced pair of ears to provide a second opinion and fix any issues. Unless you are having a physical CD replicated, this is the mastering option to choose.
CD mastering is $70 per track and is for those musicians preparing a physical CD for replication and/or duplication at a pressing plant. This service includes embedding ISRC codes, track spacing, and the generation of a DDP (Disc Description Protocol) file needed by the CD plants. The additional cost of production mastering covers the time needed to prepare these CD-specific items. Both demo and production mastering involve the same actual audio processing, one is not better than the other in this regard. Please email me for a quote if you are interested in CD mastering.
DJ mix mastering is $80.00, and includes making sure all the track levels are consistent, and correcting any frequency imbalances between songs. If you need a physical CD with track markers for each track in the mix, there is an additional fee depending on a few factors, so please contact me for more information.
I do offer stem mastering in special circumstances, however the rate for this service will vary depending on numerous factors, so please send me an email to discuss the options and pricing.
For online mastering, you can use the PayPal shopping cart below to make a payment , or you can log into your PayPal account and send the money directly to InnerPortal@Gmail.com.
Preparing your tracks for mastering:
- Include your artist name and the track name in the wav or aiff files when you send them to me. Usually something like “Artist Name – Track Name.wav” works best.
- Please wait to send the tracks and the payment until BOTH are ready. It can take up to a week to get a PayPal account set up and verified, so I recommend completing that process before you send me any of your tracks. Likewise, please don’t send a payment if the tracks still are not finished.
- I accept WAV and AIFF files at any bit depth and sample rate, but would prefer 24bit or higher files when possible.
- Try and leave at least a measure of silence before and after the track if at all possible. If you need a fade out at the end of the song, let me know where the fade out should start.
- Leave approximately 3-6dB of headroom (or more) for me to work with, and make sure that the “Normalize” and “Dither” options are turned off in your DAW when you render or export your song.
- If you used a compressor or limiter on the master channel of the DAW when rendering the song, please let me know, as I may ask for versions of the song with and without this.
- Turnaround time is usually less than 1-2 days, if it’s going to be longer, I’ll let you know before I take the job. I do my best to make sure clients don’t have to wait long to receive their masters, but I cannot be responsible for your deadlines. Leave enough time for mastering and proofing the tracks I return to you when planning your release schedule.
- Typically masters are returned as 16bit/44.1kHz wav files. I can deliver your song in any format you want however, so WAV, AIFF, AAC, FLAC or MP3 are all available if you need those formats as well. If you require MP3s, please let me know what bitrate you prefer (I.E. 128kbps, 192kbps, 320kbps etc).
- Once you have prepped your tracks per the above instructions, please visit the Upload Page to send the files to me.
- Once I receive the track and have confirmed receipt of the PayPal payment, I’ll listen to it and see if I hear any obvious issues that might be better addressed by the artist going back and adjusting the mixdown (when possible). If I don’t hear any major problems, I’ll start work on the mastering.
After the track is mastered, I’ll send you a link to download the mastered song as a CD-ready 16bit, 44.1kHz wav file. If you need other formats like MP3 or FLAC, just let me know (and what bitrates you prefer, 128kbps, 192kbps, or 320kbps) and I will provide those at no extra charge.
If you’d like me to make any changes to the mastering once you’ve listened to the track, I will do up to 2 revisions for free. After that I will have to charge you for additional mastering time. This does not apply if you change the file you sent me, i.e. you redo the mixdown on your own and not at my request. That requires starting the mastering over from scratch, and the full mastering rate will apply again.
Please be aware that I’m often correcting issues in the tracks you send me that are caused by acoustic and/or monitoring issues in your studio. For this reason I recommend listening to the mastered track on as many different playback systems as possible before asking for a revision.
I’ll be up front in telling you that I am not a fan of making things loud simply for the sake of making them loud. When you get the mastered track back, it will be at a volume that I think strikes the best balance between competing with other commercial releases, and preserving the integrity of the dynamics in the song. However if you absolutely have to have it louder, let me know and I’ll do my best to achieve this as cleanly as possible.
If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at: