Don't automatically assume that you have to take your tape to a specialist studio for mastering — if you have a DAT machine, a hard disk editing system and one of the new digital 8-tracks, you can do a lot of the work at home. Craig Anderton shows you how.

Mastering has typically been the weak link in the project studio. Sure, you can mix down to DAT — but how about assembling those mixes into a smooth, well-integrated recording, adding P and Q codes, and transferring over to a format like Sony 1630? Although it's still difficult to do everything without going to a real mastering facility, you can nonetheless do several of the most important parts of the mastering process in today's project studio. This lets you deliver a polished, professional-sounding master to your CD or cassette duplicator.

Once again, hard disk and 8-track digital tape technology has come to the rescue. If you mix to DAT and have something like an Alesis ADAT or Tascam DA88, you already have a great premastering machine and may not know it. If you also have a hard disk recording/processing system (like Sound Tools, for example), you're even further ahead. But first, let's talk a bit about why mastering is so important.

MASTERING BASICS

Proper mastering can make a marginal recording acceptable, or a good recording great. Often the difference between what comes out of a modest project studio and what comes out of a multi-million dollar facility is not in the recording, but in the mastering. Good mastering engineers are rare, because they need to make flawless aesthetic decisions as well as have total command over signal processing technology.

Here are some of the procedures used during the mastering process that you can do in a project studio:

• Balance levels between different cuts, or even within different sections of the same cut.

• Apply overall EQ to add 'sheen', or to compensate for problems (for example, remove bass caused by bad monitors that led to a bass-heavy mix).

• Make a tune more 'radio-ready' by adding compression or limiting to allow a higher average signal level.

• Crossfade between cuts.

• Add processing, such as a hint of reverb, to tunes that seem too dry.

• Create fade outs and fade ins.

• De-noise noisy sections, either through gain-riding, software programs, or single-ended noise reduction systems.

MASTERING THE HARD (DISK) WAY

Quite a few people use hard disk digital audio systems for mastering. The basic idea is to bounce your tracks over to the hard disk system (digitally, if you have a DAT with digital I/O), then apply digital EQ, limiting, gain changes, and so on. You can then assemble a playlist to try out different song orders, and when everything is as desired, transfer the results back to DAT for your final master tape. However, there are some limitations involved with using only hard disk systems:

• You sacrifice real-time control, which is very important with mastering. For example, to process a piece of music, you usually have to set up the parameters, then wait while the computer crunches its numbers to do the processing. It's cumbersome with budget hard disk systems to do something like increase the treble a few dB over several measures, then pull it back a bit later.

• There are device-specific limitations. For example, with Sound Tools crossfades are done in RAM — and you know how digital audio gobbles up memory.

• It isn't a totally digital world (at least not yet).

I have a bunch of nifty analogue processors, from the obsolete-but-fun EXR Projector to the new Aphex model 104, that are ideal for mastering and there's no equivalent function in any hard disk system I've seen.

THE TAPE TEST

Adding a digital multitrack to the equation can overcome these limitations; the only trade-off is a theoretical loss of quality if you bounce using the analogue inputs (of course, if you can bounce digitally, this isn't an issue). In practice, though, the difference in quality may not be noticeable. There may even be a subjective improvement. To find out if your system is up to the task, try this experiment:

1. Mix some tracks to DAT.
2. Bounce the DAT over to two tracks of your digital deck.
3. Bounce the digital deck tracks back to DAT.
4. Compare the original DAT sound with the one that was bounced to the digital deck and back. If the bounced version sounds OK to you, you're ready to master.

START OPERATING

The following summarises how I master with a Tascam DA30 DAT, Sound Tools, and one Alesis ADAT. You shouldn't have any trouble modifying this procedure to fit your specific setup; it's the principles that are important.

1. Record mixes of all your tunes to DAT.

2. Bounce the DAT mixes digitally to Sound Tools (or your own hard disk recording system), then use it for what it does best: normalisation to make sure you're using the maximum available headroom, peak limiting to let you get a bit higher average level, and overall EQ changes. (Sometimes these interact; for example, you might normalise the tune, limit the peaks to open up more headroom, then normalise again. Or, cutting some of the bass might lower some peaks, allowing for renormalisation.)

3. Bounce the processed tune digitally back to DAT, but don't go over your original mix, so you have the original as backup.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 until all the tunes are done.

5. Next, figure out the optimum order for the tunes. Do this by recording them all into Sound Tools and trying out several play lists until you get the right order.

6. Now it's time to assemble. Patch your DAT outs to your multitrack's tracks 1 and 2 (now's your big chance to include any analogue processing, if appropriate), and record the first tune into your ADAT or DA88.

7. Record the next tune on tracks 3 and 4. Notice how easy it is to do crossfades with this technique; just start recording the second tune sometime before the first tune ends.

8. Record the third tune into tracks 1 and 2, and keep alternating tunes between tracks 1/2 and 3/4 until all the tunes are in your digital deck.

9. Note that you still have four tracks left over. You can use these to insert additional effects or transitions (great for dance mixes), or add time code for reasons we'll get into next.

10. Now mix the ADAT/DA88 tracks back down to DAT to end up with a final 2-track DAT master. If you need to make any volume tweaks, you can do so manually or by syncing automation to time code recorded on a tape track or generated by the JL Cooper Datasync or Alesis BRC (in the case of the ADAT) or the SY88 sync board (in the case of the DA88).

11. If needed, you can now bounce the DAT back to your hard disk editor to create additional masters for different purposes. For example, if the piece is going to be duplicated on cassette as well as CD, I often add just a tiny bit more compression and 'exciter' treble enhancement to compensate for losses in the duplicating process.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE...

Three of the best reasons to master at your own studio are the same reasons for recording there: you can learn a lot without spending too much, you have more control over the final product, and you can do things over and over again until you get the sound just the way you want it. And with today's mastering tools, you have extra creative options that simply didn't exist a few years ago. Try using your digital multitrack for mastering — you'll see what I mean.