ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the key corrective and creative processes involved in mastering metal music and looks at mastering for loudness-normalized environments. Mastering is the final creative phase of the production process prior to the music’s distribution, and therefore the very last opportunity for any deficiencies to be corrected. With so much music accessed via earbuds/headphones, it is vital the playback mediums are represented during mastering. Good-quality headphone monitoring can also help reveal flaws less apparent through loudspeakers. Excessive or unnecessary processing is a common novice error when mastering the style of music. Mastering stage reverb processing can introduce an increased sense of depth and space into a production, as well as some audio “glue” that gels the ensemble together. One of the common problems with mastering applications of broadband compression—and particularly with the style of mix—is the low end having a disproportionate influence on the gain reduction applied.
