Album mastering

Welcome to Safe&Sound Mastering, Album mastering = £230.00 no tax added (10 to 12 tracks !!!) 9 Tracks £210.00 / 8 Tracks £190.00 – Let me exceed your expectations.

If you are looking for an experienced mastering engineer for your album mastering you have found the right service. An album release is a big project for any musical artist or label and my album mastering rates are highly competitive. I can get your music sounding as good as possible taking your music to its maximum sonic potential and add value to your album mastering project.

1. 10 years pro sound engineering, + 13 years full time mastering engineer.
2. Fully treated room, linear low end response.
3. Specialized mastering studio, no mixing. (specialist album mastering)
4. Dedicated equipment for mastering. (PMC IB1S, Manley, Summit, Crane Song, Mytek etc.)

What I can offer

Your album will be mastered by myself Barry Gardner (sole engineer, no trainees) at what can only be termed an amazing price. My album mastering will hold up to any other mastering engineer at any price point. I am very serious about my work and you can see I have years of professional industry experience having worked with world class musicians and top level projects. Link below to see my biog :

Barry Gardner BIOG

If you think this is a surprisingly low rate and are used to paying the best part of £1,000 for an album, try me, you are going to be very pleasantly surprised. I am proud of my work ethic and the equipment used in the studio and is why I am pleased to show it on the website. Album mastering here uses full range monitoring and super high end equipment (PMC IB1S Crane Song, Manley, Sontec etc.) just like any big name mastering studio. LP Mastering at a superb rate with real knowledge and experience applied. Albums usually take around a week to turnaround, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little longer.

A short video on album and LP mastering :

In this video Barry Gardner talks about your album mastering at Safe&Sound mastering. (Play the video then select 720p with the Youtube cog wheel for better quality)

Album mastering prices :

10 to 12 tracks : £230.00 (no VAT is added)

DDPi file set £ 35.00 (with DDP client player so you can hear the DDP in your studio using any mac or PC computer) or CD-R masters created using Taiyo Yuden CD-R, PLEXTOR professional burner, error tested using Plextools Professional software and manually listened to by myself before dispatch.

What is involved in mastering an LP album of music ?

Mastering engineer Barry Gardner has 22 years professional audio engineering experience and has worked with some of the industries most well known musicians. Working in the mastering profession for 13 years he has mastered hundreds of albums and EP’s for independent musicians and record labels, therefore your music is in safe hands.

Mastering an LP album includes, correcting and enhancing the tonal balance of tracks in their own right and with reference to the tracks appearing on the album in specific sequence, volume adjustments, increasing the overall perceived volume. In addition, applying musically sympathetic spacing/gapping, fades (if not already chosen at the mix stage), choosing musically sympathetic relative volumes between tracks. Furthermore, applying quality control to ensure clicks, glitches, vocals pops, bad editing and other extraneous noises are not heard on the final released recordings. Therefore, being equipped with high end analogue equipment means I can add a superior finish to your tracks.

I can prepare DDPi with MD5 check sum or Red Book CD-R or simply produce broadcast .wav files for delivery. Not to mention, CD-R’s are sent to yourself by Special Delivery to ensure security in transit. As a matter of fact DDP is most commonly accepted in 2023.

Please check out the clients that I have worked with and check my professional engineering background and experience:

Clients list and testimonials

The mastering studio is equipped with the finest analogue equipment, in detail:

MANLEY Massive Passive equalizer

PMC IB1S – large scale reference speakers with Hypex Class D amplification (down to 25Hz).

Crane Song Solaris quantum DAC / MYTEK ADC

Summit Audio DCL-200 valve compressor

HCL VARiS Vari mu compressor (valve)

Sontec custom mastering equalizer clone.

Ear selected constantly up to date plug in selection.

I use only the finest ear selected digital tools in conjunction with analogue equipment. Using SADiE, Nuendo, Plextor tools on a high end custom built Intel i7 PC. I have a wide range of plug in software from all of the major developers. Therefore, I am seriously equipped to enhance, correct and quality control your album before release for either digitally distributed audio files or on physical CD. The studio is fully acoustically treated for the most accurate of monitoring environments.

How do I proceed with mastering my album ?

You can get in contact with Barry Gardner to discuss your album mastering project on 07810271371 or via email at Safe&Sound123atgooglemail.com (at being @ with no gaps)

Though I offer unattended album mastering rates I like to speak to album clients and it also reassures that the engineer is both professional and available to answer your queries. I generally request reiteration of discussed detail in an email nonetheless so I have something in your work folder.

Send your 24 bit non clipped, non limited album tracks using https://wetransfer.com/

Please read the FAQ page as it has a wealth of information on how to prepare your files for your album mastering and reduce and avoidable delays.

Please click the link below:

Mastering frequently asked questions