To prepare for mastering, you should make sure your mix is exactly where you want it to be, with no obvious errors or imbalances, and put together any reference tracks to accompany your mix, should you wish to. If you are using a good mixing engineer they will understand the exact requirements and help you communicate your desires with regard to sonic characteristics, but we are also here to support and offer you guidance and feedback on your tracks should you need it.

Before any work begins we will touch base to assure that we both understand what the project needs and how to proceed. We know how essential communication is and this is our primary focus.

While it's natural to want your music to be as loud as possible, excessive loudness can actually harm the listening experience for your audience, particularly on streaming platforms. This is because streaming platforms have their own loudness normalization algorithms that can reduce the volume of tracks that are too loud. This can result in a loss of dynamic range and overall impact for the listener.

Instead of focusing solely on loudness, it's important to consider other factors such as dynamics and overall tonal balance when preparing your music for streaming.

It's important to be aware of the loudness targets for each individual streaming platform. This can help ensure that your music will sound consistent and balanced across all platforms, regardless of any normalization algorithms they may use.

Here is a list of the recommended loudness targets for some of the most popular streaming platforms:

• Spotify: -14 LUFS (integrated)

• Apple Music: -16 LUFS (integrated)

• Tidal: -14 LUFS (integrated)

• YouTube: -13 LUFS (integrated)

• Amazon Music: -16 LUFS (integrated)

• Deezer: -14 LUFS (integrated)

It's important to note that these targets are subject to change, and may vary depending on the specific platform and the type of content being streamed (e.g. podcasts may have different loudness targets than music).

Simply put, Integrated loudness gives you a measurement of the average loudness of the entire track, while momentary and short-term loudness measure the short-term variations in loudness over a shorter or longer period of time, 400 milliseconds and 3 seconds, respectively.

Each of these measurements is useful for different purposes, such as ensuring that music meets specific loudness targets for different platforms or devices, or for understanding how the loudness of different parts of a track change over time.

LUFS stands for Loudness Units Full Scale, and it is a measure of loudness that is commonly used in the music industry. In simple terms, LUFS is a way of measuring how loud a piece of music sounds to the human ear, taking into account the dynamic range and frequency content of the music.

Unlike traditional measures of loudness, which are based on the maximum level of a waveform, LUFS takes into account the perceived loudness of a piece of music over time. This means that it is a more accurate way of measuring loudness, and can help ensure that your music sounds great on all types of playback systems.

When preparing your music for streaming platforms, it's not just the loudness targets that you need to consider, but also the true peak requirement. Most streaming platforms require masters that have a true peak limit of -1.0 dB or lower, and some may introduce additional limiting if this is exceed which can lead to undesirable results and differences from your final master.

Mastering for vinyl presents unique challenges that require specialized techniques to ensure the best possible sound quality. Physical limitations of the vinyl medium, such as inner-groove distortion, sibilance, and bass distortion, require careful attention to the frequency spectrum and peak levels of the audio signal. To address these challenges, specialized EQ techniques are used to balance the frequency spectrum and prevent extreme peaks in the audio signal.

Other considerations when mastering for vinyl include being mindful of low frequencies, using compression carefully and avoiding extreme stereo effects.

We can help you achieve a high-quality vinyl master that sounds great on any turntable and are happy to communicate with the vinyl pressing plant on your behalf.

Yes you can! Mastering your own music can be a cost-effective and convenient option for some, but it's important to recognize the limitations and consider outsourcing to a professional mastering engineer, who will be able to provide:

• Experience: at JCM we have 15 years of experience working in the music industry mastering audio for a range of artists, musicians and clients. We understand the technical requirements of all formats and have hands-on knowledge of the equipment and tools necessary to produce the desired result.

• A fresh perspective: After spending countless hours on a mix, it can be hard to hear it objectively. This is huge advantage of outsourcing your music to professional.

• An accurate listening environment: Accurate speakers or headphones are essential for hearing the nuances of your mix and making informed mastering decisions that will translate.

If you are set on doing it yourself, here are a few tips:

• Learn the basics: There are many resources available online for learning the basics of mastering, including EQ, compression, and limiting. Take the time to understand these concepts and practice on your own mixes.

• Get feedback: Play your finished mixes to people you trust (preferably objective listeners outside of your friend and family circle) and ask them for constructive feedback. It's essential that your mix is a good as it can be before the mastering stage begins. We are also happy to do this for you, and offer free feedback with no obligation to use our service. Just send us an email!

• Use reference tracks: Comparing your mix to commercial tracks in a similar genre can help guide your decisions and ensure that your track stands up to professional standards.

• Listen in a familiar setting: Amongst other listening environments, it is always good to listen on a system that you are used to and to ask yourself what your track needs that it doesn't quite have. This doesn't need to be fancy, for example if you usually listen on AirPods reference it here.

• Don't overdo it: It's easy to get carried away with processing and end up with a final master that sounds overly compressed or unnatural. As with any type of processing, if you are 100% sure what is actually happening, don't guess!