ABSTRACT
The mastering process is an art form that uses specialized, high-quality audio gear in conjunction with one or more sets of critical ears to help the artist, producer and/or record label attain a particular sound and feel before the recording is made into a finished manufactured product. Working with such tools, a mastering engineer or experienced user can go about the task of shaping and arranging the various cuts of a project into a final form that can be replicated into a salable product. While dynamics is a hotly debated topic among mastering and recording engineers, most agree that it's never a good idea deliver a sound file to a mastering house, or to begin the process of mastering with a sound file that has already been compressed and raised to levels approaching digital full-scale. Within mastering, dither is often manually applied to sound files that have been recorded at 24-bit-depths to reduce the effects of lost resolution.
