As a musician, band or record label you will want the best for your musical releases. This means it is time for considering mastering your music. Mastering your music is a great way to ensure quality control and sonic enhancement happens to your musical release before it is distributed to the wider world. Online mastering is performed by a mastering engineer, a mastering engineer should have many years of audio production experience. Normally he or she should be well versed in recording and mixing audio as this demonstrates a competence in the basic music production chain. Such experience is vital to have the qualities and skill set to become a mastering engineer. The mastering engineer will have a high quality inventory of audio equipment, this equipment will be put to work on your music to enhance and offer quality control. Mastering is the final "icing on the cake" once you have mixed your multitrack audio recordings.The online mastering studio should have very high resolution monitors which can hear deep into your musical mixes and pinpoint any potential problems missed in the often stressful and tiring mixing stages. These problems may include, pops, clicks, rumbles, bad edits and other sonic defects. The studio will also be operating from an acoustically controlled room.

In addition, your music will be listened to carefully and each track on an album will be enhanced using state of the art analogue and digital tools. One of the most powerful tools the mastering engineer has is the equalizer. This can shape the sound of the mix and correct problems with tonal response as well as enhance and clarify the overall sound. Dynamics processors such as compressors will be used to thicken the mix and add a professional feel to the texture of the audio. This will also increase the perceived volume of the mix if this is deemed required.(or requested by the client)

Online mastering used to be quite an expensive procedure but in recent times the price has come down in line with the changes of budgets within the music industry. Now record labels are looking for the same high quality but with lower prices. The music industry is competitive and of course bands, musicians and record labels must seek services that keep the industry as profitable as possible. However this must not sacrifice audio quality and quality control on their musical releases.

The internet is filled with online mastering studios so you do need to be a little bit careful about who you choose to master your music. Not every website is 100pct honest, the last thing you would want is an inexperienced student practicing on your mixes or a mix engineer who is not a specialist in mastering having a guess. So make some common sense choices about who masters your tracks and bear these points in mind.

1)Choose an experienced engineer who has details about past audio experience on the site.
2)Make sure you can see room and equipment photo's on the website. (check acoustics)
3)Do not be overly swayed by expensive flashy looking decor.(you will be paying for this)
4)Check the online mastering studios recent clients list. 5)Do ensure mastering grade monitors and analogue equipment is being used.
6)If the studio offers it get a free mastering preview (often time permitting)
7)Avoid websites with graphics only, i.e. no photos, and only a payment and upload button.
8)Avoid websites with large format mixing console pictures. (Never used in mastering)

Armed with this information you can be confident that you will make a better choice when selecting online mastering services.