Mastering drum and bass | Mastering d&b | Mastering drum & bass

Mastering drum and bass, 1 track £30.00 / 4T EP £112.00 no tax added (Mix appraisal inclusive when requested) Allow me to exceed your expectations.

Recent client : Omni Trio

Tom Hicks, Co-Owner and Director of Digital Assassins LTD :

“Impeccable communication and crystal clear mastering. Barry is outstanding in his field.”

Excerpt from a drum and bass track I recently produced and mastered MP3 :

If you are looking to get your drum and bass tracks mastered you have just found the right place. PMC IB1S 10 inch driver large format monitors (flat to 25Hz) with 500 Watts per channel Hypex Class D amplifiers. (High end drum and bass mastering, MANLEY Massive Passive EQ hardware, Elysia – Class A analogue equalizer, Crane Song Solaris Quantum DAC, (28 x 1.2M x 0.6M bass traps, no joker mastering here.) MYTEK ADC, Summit Audio DCL-200, HCL VARiS Vari-mu compressor, Sontec inspired custom fully switched EQ,) The studio also uses the finest, regularly updated, ear selected software plug ins available, from all developers.

Maybe you are a label owner wishing to reduce operating costs and increase quality for your artist roster ? Do not hesitate to get in contact for serious proposition mastering (correct experience and equipment) at a great price. No second tier trainee engineers, myself, sole engineer Barry Gardner will be mastering your music.

* As I know the high technical knowledge of D&B producers have please see bottom of page for acoustics details.

Included in the price of mastering is free mix down appraisal/review before we start mastering the track, advice and suggestions on balance and eq can be sent concisely via email ensuring the mix is well balanced in terms of instrumentation and tone before mastering commences. It is often best to correct a mix at source to ensure the best mastering results. This added value service proves very popular, especially so for new producers.

Video tour of the studio and about mastering drum and bass :

Mastering dnb needs an ear that understands the genre, the sub bass present in Jungle and dnb is critical to the momentum of the music. In addition the punch and rhythmical attributes of the mastering must fall into place with the forward moving drive of the break beats/beat structure. It is important to ensure that high levels of punch are maintained and yet retain competitive perceived levels.

Mastering drum and bass also often benefits from the use of high end analogue equipment (such as equalization and compression) which can help reduce the harshness that is sometimes associated with in the box mixing. In addition the euphonic secondary attributes of analogue equipment (over and above the main purposes as EQ or compressor) can add something that digital emulation is still unable to produce. Judging the right level of bass is also critical. The music whilst created with skill, passion and enthusiasm may not have been produced in an acoustically optimized room. When mastering drum and bass this means special attention to the low frequency content is required to ensure that the music will translate as well as possible to all reproduction systems, including club systems.

Extensive clients list and testimonials

I am using PMC IB1S monitors which are perfect for the genre as they offer scale, have a wide frequency response with an excellent low frequency output, crystal clear mid range and detailed top end. Of course they are also accurate throughout the response. Stereo imaging is excellent and it allows me to hear deep into music mixes so the subtle adjustments to the music add up to create a much greater subjective improvement to drum and bass masters. Especially important for mastering dnb is a properly acoustically treated room. I have no less than 28 bass traps in the room created from Rock Wool RW3/RW45/Knauf RS45. All corners have floor to ceiling in-fills 1 meter deep behind IB1S for excellent and accurate low frequency definition and response. This is very important for translation to club type reproduction situations.

In addition I have a ceiling cloud and side wall absorbers (10cm thick RW3) which keeps an accurate and comb filtering free monitoring position along with perfect stereo imaging.Diffusers provide a natural sounding and even mid range. There are additional bass traps at the front of the studio, ceiling to wall joints and where the walls meet the floor/ceiling.

Audio examples (mixed genres)

Ensure the mix you have created is the very best you can achieve and then upload the full track for a free preview (time permitting). For less experienced drum and bass producers a useful suggestion when you are getting your mix ready for mastering is to reference a track/s you like and respect mix wise and that has a good bottom end response. So in your mix project import a track and lower it’s perceived volume to match your mix down.(Please remember I require your mix without a limiter and no clipping on the stereo master )Then you can judge more easily whether your bass level is in the right ball park on your own studio monitors. This greatly assists mastering drum and bass as when I receive your file I can focus on sonic enhancements instead of being too concerned about large bass frequency eq changes. These are never ideal in retaining the sonic integrity and balance between bass line and kick drum. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.

When working with the low frequency content of your mix pay close attention to the sub content of your bass line and your kick drum. One of the worst scenarios is when you have a bass light kick drum and a bass heavy bass line or vice versa. Any changes to bass levels in stereo mastering obviously affect both the kick and the bass line. So if I add sub to a kick it affects the bass line too. An additional suggestion is to double check your mix against others on decent quality headphones (not ear buds). When you get your drum and bass tracks mastered at Safe&Sound you are sure of a skilled engineer who loves the genre and has been listening to (and also involved in producing) drum and bass since the origins in Hardcore circa 1990.

If you are experiencing continued issues of balance in your mix down consider stem mastering. Details on the left hand side.

Mastering drum & bass is best performed using 24 bit audio files that do not have a limiter on them and that do not have any clipping. This will create the best sounding, clearest and punchiest masters possible.

I can master all sub genres, liquid drum and bass mastering, neuro dnb mastering, jump up d&b mastering, jungle mastering, dark dnb mastering.

* The mastering studio is treated with no less than 28 bales (1.2m x 0.6m) of Rockwool RW6/RW45, Knauf RS45 and Knauf 28kg/m3 fibre glass/mineral wool. Room is flat to 25Hz meaning I know precisely what is happening to the low end in this room using PMC IB1S (with 10 inch drivers and large format cabinets) not a set of nearfield monitors. I use a Crane Song Solaris Quantum DAC with the lowest published jitter specs of any DAC in manufacture. When your music hits a Funktion 1 system you want to know it is going to sound right. The acoustic treatment at Safe&Sound is copious and serious. I understand the sheer quantity of treatment required to have a flat bass response in a room. Some traps here are 2 meters deep ! There is significantly more treatment in room today than in the site photos, you won’t find better results and at a price that is right. It seems there are some whose acoustic treatment leaves much to be desired, just near field speakers with a couple of thin corner straddles 100mm thick, that does NOT cut it for flat low end, not even close, don’t take a chance. I respect my clients by using the gear designed for the job of mastering. Serious quality at a price that won’t break the bank.