Start
It all started for me in 1999. (Prince has nothing to do with that.) The band I was in needed to prepare the recordings for a demo. Somehow the job appealed to me and I started working on getting it sound brutal. To be honest the other band member didn't think that much of it but I thought it sound fairly OK. It taught us how you could use the technical aspect of mixing and mastering to create a more professional sound. Unfortunately the band broke up and we went separate ways. But still to this very day we're still friends.

Next step
Next step was to start mastering demo's for friends who even got noticed by the A&R people from labels. And ending up doing sessions for commercial releases. From singles, 12" to EP and later on whole albums. I even managed to get a deal for becoming the preferred mastering engineers for several people. From there my career kept on growing and I have the privilege to learn new things every day.

Advancing
Somehow the work of mastering other mixes was becoming a great way to learn a lot aspects of what mastering really was. Thanks to the rise of new breed of tools called software plugins I managed to quickly pick up the extra technical skills. Not unlike many other mastering engineers I'm also a engineer in the field of electronics and digital techniques.

Drive
As long as I can remember I always liked music. Playing organ and piano as a kid and later on getting into keyboards, synthesizers. Hooking it up to the Atari ST and explore the world of sampling. The fascination with music and tech sticked and will last forever.

It's the biggest challenge to try and get the best out of the mixes for clients. Constantly raising the bar and stay in touch with the newest technical developments. Not being about loudness or technical perfection but making a song work as it was intended by the people who created it.
Music is art and emotion.

Experience
Mastering is more than knowing lots about technical details. But also experience and training your ears combined with specialized tools and a acoustically optimized room. For 5 years I was practicing as much as possible with my own music and others. Even grabbing every mix from the Internet to try the impossible. Fixing up a badly mixed and mastered song which taught me a lot. I ended getting up more and more compliments from the people I helped with their mixes.

Courses
Since a lot of this knowledge about mastering and mixing is fairly unknown to musicians and producers I've started to give courses to those people.
This to prove it's not some kind of black-arts but a craft anyone can learn and it's nice to get paid for it as well.
I let the people decide what they want to learn and anticipate on that with explaining theory with giving examples.

Mastering
What is audio mastering?
Wikipedia says: Audio Mastering.

My answer would be that mastering is preparing music for being played via any media just like any music that is out there. This explanation does sound easy. But doing this is rather difficult. The more you learn about it the harder it gets. Which is the fun part.
The term audio (pre-)mastering itself has eroded for several decades from creating a master discs for vinyl cutting to whatever the crazy kids mean by it today.

Bring your own material
The studio is more than decent equipped to create a song (EDM) on the fly but often people bring their own material they have been working on as audio tracks.
It helps a lot when people get their tracks heard outside their own studio and get the perspective from someone who has a bag full of tricks and can teach them a thing or two. For learning tricks you don't need a course, but explaining them with use of the theory will enable you to come up with your own tricks as well and to keep developing yourself.

Mixing
Before you start mastering you need a mix which is sometimes also referred to as a 'master' which often is short for a 'master mix'.
Since the mix is the starting point of finishing a song it's vital that this mix is the best end result possible. In fact the perfect mix doesn't need any mastering whatsoever.
Previous to the mastering assessing the mix is vital so it makes sense that the person who does this is a veteran in mixing.

Tools
Just like mixing there are a lot of tools for mastering. They don't have to be expensive but they often are because they are specialized for a purpose. Just like any special tool it doesn't make sense to use it if you don't know how to use it. In addition combining those tools is like a chain where the weakest link will determine the end result.
Knowing to use which tools at certain points will save projects, downtimes and missing deadlines. Keeping up with the development of those tools is a smart thing to do. Especially in the digital domain the developments have been revolutionary the last few year.

Tracks
Price per track is 45€
Deliverance on CD will cost extra.

If you would like to have a demo mastered you can contact me and we can see if I can help you out. If you're not sure if my sound is what you're looking for I'm willing to help you out with that but I don't do freebies.

If you want to have more tracks mastered we can arrange on a discount.


Albums
Pricing for an album is 300€.
If the format of your album differs don't be shy to ask me what can be done with it.

If you would like to attend the mastering session in person keep in mind it will take longer to complete and I will charge per hour. Not that I mind the friendly chat and precise customization of the mastering session.
Current hourly rate is 60€

Album mastering includes 2 error-free copies of the master CD or DDP file ready for the processing plant.

Format
When you send over a track the preferred format is:
A stereo track (wav/aif) at 44.1kHz with 24 bit depth.

In case of a surround track all channels as an interlinked file or all separate at 96kHz at 24 bit depth.

Higher sampling frequencies or bit depths are possible.
No mp3 or mp4 or any other lossy audio format.

Fades
It helps when every song has enough room left in front and behind of the song so there is enough room to make the fades that are desirable.

When the song has a high level of noise it doesn't hurt to leave some extra room in there to sample that noise for creating a noise reduction profile.

Master compression
You make my work harder if you put a master bus compressor on your end mix and use more than just a gentle glueing. Especially when you're working for a longer time on your mix the ears get fatigued and you might end up making wrong decisions. You still can use that compressor on just your monitors and send me the clean end mix if you like if that helps you.

Mix errors/glitches
Every now and then the mixes I receive have been rushed and still contain errors.
Or during creating the mix some equipment went haywire without you noticing it.
Myself I'm allergic to digital clicks and pops and know to get rid of them most of the times. But I prefer not to do that too often because it's time consuming and often avoidable.

Master limiting
If you like to use a mastering limiter on your end bus as a safeguard it's advisable it has to do as little as possible.
Ideally a mix should be fine when it's between -3dB and 0dB and not clipping.
Exceptions are mixes that rely heavily on acoustic instruments and/or classical music. In those cases check the noise ceiling isn't too high so it may need denoising and causing unwanted artifacts.

Reference material
If you haven't used any reference material during creating (which is advisable) your mixes I'd appreciate it when you send them to me along with your mix.
It explains a lot about the sound you're looking for. And as well I'm always very open minded when people are taking the time to explain to me what they are looking for. To that extend it's more efficient to spend time communicating about what needs to be done than having to redo a song and sending it again.
Not that I mind but from my experience you are usually the one that is pressed for time.

Analog hardware
Since I've started to master with plugins only I don't have the typical stance that for mastering you need analog hardware. But after having tried out and working myself with various analog compressors and EQ's I do believe they still are a vital part of the toolbox I couldn't do without. The main reasons for this because there is analog hardware out there that simply cannot be emulated (yet) and has unique characteristics for processing audio. Another thing would be that while you are working with analog hardware you notice that it's designed with that particular function in mind. So the workflow and ease of use contribute greatly to getting good results fast.
The digital counterparts often are designed by techheads that aren't always fully aware of the usability and musical aspects. So often the digital emulations based on existing hardware are quite easy to use in comparison.
The development cycle of analog hardware is rather long so there is not much new stuff coming out so keeping up with developments is fairly easy. Still the last few years there has been an increase in hybrid hardware that uses a mix between analog components and digital techniques which is interesting.

Digital
Working in a hybrid format enables you to work with the best of both worlds. There are most certainly plugins that have a certain appeal that analog hardware has as well. Like phase neutral EQ are very useful in daily life. The analog counterpart would be incredible expensive and never deliver the same quality.
The digital domain has a much shorter development span so the changes that are going there are much faster. This means you actively have to keep up with technical developments and cherry pick from that.
There are a lot of plugins that in my opinion simply don't meet the requirements for mastering at a professional level. Separating the wheat from the chaff takes it time but is rewarding in the end.

Speakers
Any serious masterer will make sure to use decent if not brilliant speakers. If you need to make small adjustments to the audio you need to hear what you are doing. Downside of that is that often the costs will increase exponentially with better quality. Of course those speakers only perform like intended in an environment that is acoustically fit.
Picking out those speakers is about as personal as it gets and taking your time is advisable. I chose the Kii Three because they are well know in audiophile circles as most lineair speakers out there and has one of the best price performance ratings in that price range. Two Scanspeak Maxima subwoofers are used also because I needed to be able to monitor the lower frequencies better as well have a bigger sound pressure for the room they are used in at higher levels. The frequencies go well under what human ears can hear.

Selection
Because specialized analog hardware is rather expensive it's rather rare in the common shops. And even the specialized shops have a limited number of brands and models you can try out.
So finding the units that are interesting in a setup will take time and dedication. The funny thing is that while you are trying out a new piece of equipment with stunning specifications it still may turn out you simply don't like it.

Online
While in the good old days audio would be sent by mail on reals, DAT or CD is pretty much everything now is sent via the internet. Except for the reals of course. I don't have a tape machine so I don't have to bother about that. But I'm still handling mail.

But transferring files via the internet has drawbacks. I will explain some of the worst case scenarios.

E-mail
Fairly easy and to the point. Drawbacks are that the size of e-mails may be limited so sending large audio files will fail. Another one would be that e-mails are easy to copy when it's being transported by a chain of e-mail servers. Also that emails from services like Google and Outlook are being scanned as well meaning that a 3rd party will look into your e-mail.

FTP/SFTP
An oldie but still a goodie is the file transferring with FTP/SFTP. SFTP is the encrypted version of FTP which stands for File Transfer Protocol. For this you need a file server which I have set up. The person who wants to send files then needs a client program to log into that file server. For that you need an account which I have to set up for you. The younger generation often doesn't know how to use FTP so that's a drawback I guess. But it's fairly easy to learn how to use it. Another drawback would be that FTP servers are open to the internet and are constantly being scanned by bots for vulnerabilities.

Public file sharing
Most simple would be using one of those public file sharing sites. But being public it also means that someone else may guess the url and download the files themselves and doing the heck they want to do with that. I've worked with these services for various customers because they preferred it. It's fast and easy.

Private file sharing
Private file sharing to that regard is safer because you have to author users to upload and/or download files. For testing purposes I have made an Dropbox account.

The drawbacks of this are that your account can get hacked. Usually that's a keylogger if your system gets infected. Another one would be that (US) law enforcement has the right to search your files and remove them if they see fit. Or there have been too much copyright infringements in general on that file sharing site that it will be taken down and you lose all your files. Mind you that this even can happen if you paid for that account and to every filesharing site out there, even the Apple iCloud one.

Developments or alternatives
There may pop up new possible alternatives every day. If you prefer one I'm open to try it.

If you would like to have a way to upload files with your browser to me I can look into it. This will need some special programming on my side but it should be possible.