Product Description

It wasn’t all that many years ago that almost every serious audio recording session took place in a commercial studio and was performed by professional engineers and producers using highly specialized, extremely expensive equipment. But those days are long gone. Today, artists of all levels–from amateur to mega-star–are working in their home and project studios, sometimes with an engineer and/or a producer to help them and sometimes without, doing the producing and recording themselves. Using a personal computer and today’s affordable software and hardware tools, it’s possible to capture professional level tracks and create perfectly balanced mixes right from the comfort of your own home without spending a fortune. But, there’s one part of the process of creating music at home that has eluded many home recordists. The final stage that puts the polished sheen on the mix. The step that allows homemade productions to better compete with those coming out of multimillion-dollar commercial recording facilities. The final preparation that will ready the music for release on CD or over the Internet. This step is called mastering. Mastering Music at Home is for any home or project studio owner or operator. It's for musicians and engineers who can't afford to pay a professional mastering engineer thousands of dollars to master their music, but who still want to get professional-level results when releasing their songs to the web or on CD. After an overview of mastering and the gear required, the book goes on to cover acoustic considerations, problem solving, distribution, and much, much more. Throughout the book, audio professionals provide additional “in the trenches” case studies on how they approach the art of mastering. The book's companion CD-ROM includes numerous real-world music examples to help you work through the book's tutorials. This is the only guide you’ll ever need to take your home recordings to the next level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51394 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 350 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781598633924
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
The former Senior Technical Editor of Keyboard magazine and former Editor-in-Chief of EQ magazine, Mitch Gallagher studied electrical engineering and computer science, eventually earning a degree in music. Graduate studies included music composition and classical guitar. He toured as a guitarist/vocalist in rock and country bands, also playing with big bands, fusion and experimental music groups, and as a classical and steel-string guitar soloist. As a music technology specialist, he has taught college courses, lectured, given clinics, and spoken at festivals, conventions, and conferences around the world. His compositions cover genres from classical to heavy metal. Prophecy #1: At First Glance, his experimental percussion ensemble/ synthesizer work based on the Fibonacci number series, received a Grammy award. He has published nearly 1,000 articles in magazines such as Performing Songwriter, Acoustic Guitar, EQ, EQ en Español, Keyboard, Pro Sound News, Guitar Player, Government Video, Extreme Groove, Music Technology Buyer's Guide, Videography, and Microphones & Monitors. His books include Make Music Now!; Pro Tools Clinic: Demystifying LE for Macintosh and PC; The Studio Business Book, Third Edition; and Acoustic Design for the Home Studio. In addition to freelance writing, and recording and producing a variety of projects in his studio, Mitch is the Editorial Director for Sweetwater in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Customer Reviews

Must have for do it yourselfers
I stumbled on this book at a book store and it was a lucky find.It's new so it's up to date with current trends in software plugins.If you are just getting into so called mastering like me this is a must have.There is a good balance between areas dedicated to software versus hardware approaches,interviews,history and current trends in technology,etc...
This is more basic than Bob Katz book on the same subject,so if you are just getting started on home mastering and want a comprehensive overview of everything involved I highly recommend this book.If you are more advanced maybe take a look at the Katz series.
If you are planning on taking the software/plugin approach to mastering then this is the one book that addresses everything.In fact,in the interviews mastering engineers recommend starting with software even though very expensive hardware is better right now.Allthough you could probably find most of the info in this book scattered all over the internet it's great to have it all in one place.

a good book for a general overview
this book clearly defines basic mastering techniques such as compression, equalization, etc, along with some general methodology for each. the interviews with well-known mastering engineers are also helpful.

A Must-Have For All Home Studios!
Whether you want to learn to master your home recordings or not, this book is a must-have for any home studio. The information in this book will give you a good understanding of just what mastering entails which can translate into you making better recordings in the first place, so you would benefit even if you ultimately have your recordings professionally mastered. However, the focus of the book is to help you to learn to master recordings yourself!

Author Mitch Gallagher manages to demystify much of the art of mastering. He has a knack for presenting technical information into laymen's terms in a way that does not water it down. His writing style keeps it interesting too, which is a neat trick for so technical a subject.

There are interviews with pro mastering folks loaded with insight and tips. But not only do you get to read about these tips and techniques, but you get to hear them to! The included CD contains samples of music these folks have mastered. Even more cool, the pre-mastered songs are also included, so you can hear the difference. Plus, you can try to master these tracks yourself and see how close to the pro masters you can get them to sound!

There's even a section on Separations Mastering, where groups of tracks (e.g. guitars, bass, drums, vocals) are mastered individually before summing. It's a very flexible technique, and Mitch interviews the premier pioneer of it, John Vestman. The CD contains a sample of a track done with Separations Mastering along with the raw separation tracks for you to practice on.

Regardless if you want to master tracks at home or just improve your home recordings, this book will give you a great understanding of what mastering is, and what can and can't be done with it. And it manages to do this in an easy-to-read style that is both informative and enjoyable.