Mastering is simple. Not easy, but simple.

That's the message behind this series of 6 video tutorials I made recently for Sound On Sound magazine.

In them, I walk you through my entire mastering process from beginning to end, explaining how and why I work the way that I do at every stage.

It's not every day you get to make a new master of an album you've already worked on – especially not from a completely new mix !

But that's exactly what happened for me recently.

Dan from Ember Rev had never been happy with the guitar parts on their 2019 album "From The Country To The City To The Sea" and recently decided to re-record them. At the same time he used the opportunity to make some changes to the arrangements and song structures that more closely match the way the band perform them live.

The album was originally mixed by Simone Silvestri, but for this new version Simone wasn't available and Dan asked Sam Inglis from Sound On Sound to handle the re-mix. Sam took quite a different approach, which he's written about in detail for a fantastic new article in the latest issue of the magazine. He also asked me to contribute a short segment talking about the differences I heard from a mastering perspective, and the different approaches I took when mastering each version.

You can read the full article here, (or sign up here to read the whole "Replica" issue for free !) and in the video above I demonstrate how all this sounds in practise, using the song "Ultramarine" as an example. You can download and compare the files for yourself, plus many other examples, here.

How much difference does mastering really make ? And perhaps more importantly, how much difference should it make ?

Take a listen and decide for yourself !

PS. You might also like to take a listen to Ember Rev's latest album, also mixed by Sam and mastered by me, here

I get quite a bit of push-back about the Loudness Penalty idea – and I think some of it is a simple misunderstanding.

In a nutshell, the "penalty" isn't about the numbers, it's about how the music sounds because of those numbers.

It's easier to hear (and see) than explain in words, which is why I made the video above, using example songs from this week's UK Top 20, including "Golden" from the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack.

It's a great tune, but like most K-Pop the loudness has been pushed really hard, so I couldn't help asking - how would it sound with better dynamics ?

And in fact we don't have to wonder - I can demonstrate it to you.

Which is exactly what I do, along with two other examples.

Take a listen – can you hear the difference ?

I'm seeing this question all the time recently:

"I hit the LUFS target, but my mixes still sound smaller than the pros - WTF?!"

Which seems like a perfectly reasonable question, right ? LUFS measure loudness, so just match the LUFS to the appropriate target and you're good to go… why wouldn't it work ?

Well (as always) it's not quite that simple.

"Headlock" by Imogen Heap went viral recently and has gone platinum, 20 years after it was first released.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary, a re-mastered version of the album "Speak For Yourself" has been released. But does it REALLY sound better ? Or just louder ?

In this video I take a listen to find out, using "Headlock" as an in-depth example.