Mastering dance music | Mastering

Mastering dance music : 1 Track £30.00 / 4Track EP £112.00 no tax added (Mix appraisal inclusive when requested) 23 Years of pro employed sound engineering experience. (13 solely dedicated to mastering) Allow me to exceed your expectations. Video further down the page where I explain my approach to mastering dance music and an insight to the studio. PMC IB1S – Crane Song Quantum conversion – Analogue rack – Ear selected DSP and I show all my equipment and studio on this site. (Do not use studios who do not show their equipment and BIOG)

Note : Mastering dance music tends to have great focus on bass. At this studio I have very serious acoustic treatment. Copious bass trapping is 100pct essential and I am still amazed to see people offering dance music mastering using foam corner traps. These are totally ineffective as a bass trap (they trap nothing below 400Hz ! Avoid studios using such foam traps as they may as well not be there even, if they look nice.) They offer no where near the trapping required to make the low end linear in a room offerred for mastering. I have let you know my thoughts o this matter, it’s your choice. Here, I use up to 2m thick RW3 and RS45 bass traps and have 28 in total. That is what you need to have an accurate room, anything less is not compatible with the laws of physics ! No studio pictures ? Don’t use them.

My Biog : (worked with world class musicians)

No trainee engineers. Barry Gardner will personally master your dance music, high end analogue equipment. MANLEY Massive Passive hardware, Summit Audio DCL-200, HCL Vari -Mu, Sontec inspired custom EQ, Elysia – Class A analogue equalizer. Crane Song Solaris Quantum DAC, Hypex Class D amplification, full range professional EDM mastering monitors (PMC IB1S). Highly experienced engineer and a professional acoustically treated room (28 x 1.2m x 600mm deep bass traps, serious bass trapping) for mastering dance music.

You have landed in the right place to get your dance tracks ready for your listeners, be it for club, radio and release for sale. Based in London, UK. Real analogue mastering equipment, real engineering experience for dance music mastering. At Safe&Sound you can see what you are getting, engineer, room and equipment.

Studio acoustic treatment

The acoustics in the studio are serious, copious and very deep bass trapping to get the low end tight and accurate. No stone has been unturned in getting the bottom end right so your tracks work properly wherever they are played. The studio has *28 x large henge type traps that give me complete confidence, see bottom of page for details. (using the PMC IB1S high end monitors, Crane Song Solaris Quantum DAC and analogue gear)

Properly equipped, acoustically treated with high end analogue EDM mastering equipment :

Considerations for mastering dance music

Dance music mastering requires a keen ear and an engineer who is familiar with the music form. One of the key requirements when mastering dance music is to ensure that the music will sound good on a large format club system and also on earbuds. Therefore, for this to happen the EDM mastering engineers monitoring system must be capable of presenting an impression of how the music will “scale up” on a much larger system.

Using large format, high end PMC IB1S monitoring (a 3 way system) with transmission line bass ducts and 10 inch drivers allows me to understand how the music will sound on a large scale system. The PMC IB1S presents accurate sonic information for mastering dance music.

Short video on mastering dance music

Your dance music and my approach to EDM mastering

When choosing a mastering studio for mastering dance music ensure you can see what speakers are being used. In addition, if a studio uses small speakers it is highly unlikely that the mastering engineer will be getting a realistic impression of how the music will sound on those all critical club systems.

Find out what speakers are being used and make a judgement. An EDM mastering studio has to have the right equipment and acoustics and understand the sub genres. Some “beginner” studios do not show any of their equipment online, you have to ask why ? It is likely it is no better (or possibly even worse) than your own.

Mastering dance music and mastering EDM is performed with great care and it is very important to balance punch, energy, detail and perceived volume. With any given track there will be an optimal trade off between perceived volume and the clarity, space and detail present in a track. As a mastering engineer who has experience working with dance music (I produce myself in spare time) I like to work closely with a client and understand goals.

I seek to impress with the best results possible. At Safe&Sound mastering I use a combination of both high end analogue equipment and the ultimate choices in software technology. Choice of tools makes a difference that is evident in the results, this is a key area which is rarely spoken about. Mastering dance music optimally requires an uncompromising tool set and engineer. Mastering dance music encompasses many styles. Drum and bass, house, trance, dubstep, garage, techno, psy trance, break beat to name a few. Furthermore an engineer who is sympathetic to these music forms will produce great results and ensure they work with competing tracks by other artists in any given genre.

How I approach your music

When inquiring about mastering dance music please let me know how important perceived volume is. And you may of course provide a reference track which should give me an idea of which sonic qualities you are aiming towards. In any event the music will be mastered to enhance the strong aspects and minimize any weaknesses. Whilst improving the overall translation of the music across many different sound systems. Additionally I am experienced in EDM mastering and cover all styles, d&b, house, dubstep, techno, psy, trance, mastering cumbia music and everything in between. I can bring your track volume up whilst retaining maximum impact.

Analogue versus digital, both are great

Another issue that concerns dance music producers is the use of ITB tools “in the box”. Software tools are always improving in this department but Safe&Sound uses an approach where the use of high quality analogue equipment is involved. In addition, valves and audio transformers can undoubtedly add an extra something to music that has been predominantly mixed inside a precise digital audio workstation.

Further information

There are numerous ways of adding warmth and character during mastering dance music and these will be dependent on any given mix downs strengths or weaknesses in this area. Suffice to say that Safe&Sound mastering is capable of giving your music the analogue touch should it be required. For mastering dance music we like show our analogue kit and high end mastering grade speakers on site unlike some. Be careful when choosing dance music mastering services online, the person may have very little real engineering experience or dedicated mastering equipment. Furthermore, when seeing similar kit the difference will be my decades of wide audio engineering experience.

Please read the FAQ section for lots of information on how to submit tracks for, but in short please send 24 bit (or above) .wav or .aiff files, with no limiter on the master output as well as ensuring files are not clipping. (exceeding digital zero / 0dBFS) These are the ideal audio file formats for dance music mastering.

https://www.masteringmastering.co.uk/masteringfaq.html

How to send your tracks

Utilize https://wetransfer.com/ to send the files using the following address:

Email: safeandsound123atgooglemail.com (at being @ with no gaps)
Contact Barry: +44 (0)7810 271370

* At Safe&Sound EDM mastering there are 28 x 1.2 Meter x 0.6 Meter x 0.4 Meter broadband bass traps in the room. A linear low frequency response that is both accurate and well damped is crucial to getting system translation. Such as for the superb quality of a Funktion 1 club, party and festival system. It is vital that a mastering studio has the acoustics accurate and under full control. The low end response of a room takes serious and copious bass trapping.

I am using Rockwool RW3/RW45 Knauf 28kg/m3 mineral and fibre glass products. One of the traps is 2 Meters deep ! This is what is required to get a flat response to 25Hz. The PMC IB1S are a large format EDM mastering grade speaker with 10 inch drivers (not small nearfield). At Safe&Sound you get truly mastering grade acoustics and equipment. Don’t leave your EDM mastering to a chance with nearfields and a few 100mm corner straddles. Here you get 1 low price and guaranteed quality results.