In modern times musicians have all sorts of great tools for producing their music. The beauty of making music at home or in a project studio is that it offers a non deadline situation to tweak your mixes to get them as possible to how you want it to sound. However many musicians who have a project studio for audio production may lack the sound enginering skills and definition of monitoring that are required to make their music stand out. It is not enough to have “demo tape” standard material these days. Especially for EDM and dance music, you are pretty much expected to have a very high quality mix for a label. Professional mastering will assist in being able to stand up to the many submissions a label receives each day. It is little different for other genres of music release, be it rock music, mastering folk, acoustic and styles in between.

You can see myself, the room and equipment here in this short video I prepared, the real deal for a great price:

As such, employing a mastering engineer that has real industry sound engineering experience can provide a very important advantage to a band, producer, mix engineer or small label. At Safandsound Mastering I keep my prices as low as is possible and yet work with high end equipment and produce the best possible results from the mix presented.

Analogue rack with Crane Song Solaris Quantum conversion

I have 22 years of professional sound engineering experience 10 of which was gained from working at one of the U.K.’s largest audio production company based in London. (daily tasks included recording direct to stereo, multi track recording and mixing music and bands, in addition I worked on many BBC and commercial broadcast programmes.)

In addition I have been dedicated to online mastering for 12 years. A decade where I have worked on the full spectrum of mastering jobs through.. budding producers, experienced producers and world class releases, including a UK Top10 album chart release.

Legendary valve mastering eq – Manley Massive Passive

Whilst the dedicated mastering philosophy and approach is high end, the mastering rates are kept at the lowest possible price point to continue to appeal to all. If you are a musician who usually pays £50-£90.00 for a track then it would be very worth your while to get a single mastered as I can compete with the results of the most expensive out there. You could save yourself a lot of expense and obtain the same quality of results. I aim to please and include free revisions if required. Have a look at the kit list here, all truly mastering grade equipment.

Fully treated room flat to 25Hz – 28 x huge Rockwool/Knauf henge bass traps for linear low end

PMC IB1S + Hypex amps monitoring (3 way – silk dome mid range – 10 inch driver) Superb definition and clarity.

Crane Song Solaris Quantum DAC – lowest published jitter spec DAC in the world. Class A output.

Manley Massive Passive EQ Hardware

Summit Audio tube compressor

VARIS Tube compressor

Sontec clone stereo stepped mastering equalizer – Mytek ADC

A constantly updated, ear selected set of plugins from all major software developers. Such as those from DMG Audio, Oeksound etc. e.g. Multiplicity/Soothe. I use a plug in from virtually every developer, just those that excel.

In addition to this working practice and serious equipment fit for the task of mastering I offer free mix appraisal for those who ask. 100’s of clients have benefitted from this feedback before I start work in order to produce the best end results possible from the material. I am well versed in getting good sounding masters for all purposes including streaming services such as iTunes, Spotify, Youtube, Soundcloud and distribution services such as Bandcamp etc.

HCL Varis Vari Mu valve compressor

In 2023 a mastering engineer is an ally in getting your sound where you want it to be. Being able to hear precisely what adjustments are required and what is not required is the fundamental difference between a home studio and a mastering studio. Having eliminating acoustic problems I can play a mix through the PMC IB1S and very quickly understand what the music needs in order to translate and sound as good as possible wherever it gets played. Be it a massive sound system or a small set of laptop speakers. I really don’t think people generally understand the kind of clarity, detail and definition high end audio systems can reproduce. The presentation of music through the PMC IB1S, Hypex (super fast transient amplification) and the lowest jitter DAC (Crane Song Solaris Quantum DAC) is extremely revealing. By being presented with accuracy and what is really in your mix I can take remedial and enhancing actions to make your music sound the best it possibly can. There is just no way a set of near fields can provide as much information as a set of highly detailed mastering specific, large format, full range (down to 25Hz) monitors.

1 Track mastering is just £30.00 and as more tracks are mastered the price lowers as less studio time is taken per track. At these prices there is really no excuse to not have professional dedicated online mastering. In 2023 it is more of a case of asking if you can afford not to give the respect your music deserves from professional mastering.

So what do you need to send me ?

24 bit mixes as a .wav or .aiff file – no clipping of master output and no limiting. You can send some basic notes (which platforms you will release on is uesful) and if you wish, a reference (mp3 is fine) to give me an idea of your anticipated perceived volume. Upload with wetransfer.com using my email and your email and payment can be made by clicking on pricing and payment at the top of the website.

High end mastering from a truly industry experienced engineer has never been so valuable and low cost as in 2023. Get in contact today by email or phone : safeandsound123 at googlemail.com (replace at with @)

Or telephone 0044 (0) 7810 271371