A typical mixing course lasts one day of 6 hours in my studio in Eindhoven and will cost 200€.

A typical mastering course lasts one day of 8 hours in my studio in Eindhoven and will cost 280€.

The content of the courses is agreed on with the student before it starts but it’s not set in stone.

The goal is to teach you to become better at creating your mixes and to see what is done afterwards with them before they are put out there. You can book additional days if you like to.

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.

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.

The studio is more than decent equipped to create a song 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.

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.

Since online and DIY mastering are quite the hot topics nowadays it’s helping when you are able to get some basic knowledge about it. Many of these people think with using the latest websites or plugins they can master themselves but they often lack the deeper understanding in what they are doing. If you don’t trust someone else to handle your music for you it can make sense. But you might consider brushing up your own skills before you realize you’re the weakest link when it’s too late.

For basic mastering duties all you need is a (mastering) EQ for subtle EQ tweaks, a (mastering) compressor to slightly glue your mix and a (mastering) limiter for adjusting your end gain of the track. Using anything more is a sign on the wall that your mix is flawed and you really should ask yourself if your mix holds up or that you may need some help with that.