How I audio mastered Ryan Anthony's 'Barely see the beach vol.3' album
Well, there was no magic bullet! - Great sounding room, excellent monitoring and a lil bit of experience.
I mastered this album like any other piece of music I'm asked to work on. A damm good listen is the first thing I'll do. I already knew the tracks would sound epic because Ryan is a phenomenal producer, performer and songwriter. And if there is a secret to this art of mastering, then this is the key, having an amazing product. So, a great song, great musicality, awesome production/recording skills and a solid mix. That's all!
So mastering this album was relatively easy and straightforward. There were no balance issues or eq problems. I just needed to get the level up, tighten somewhat, give the songs a little more width and some Clive K sparkle.
I always run tracks through my analogue chain first. I love how the Neve 8816 sounds and I use the width knob on this unit to adjust the stereo image. I then try out my compressors to hear how they sound. This is where the tightening comes in. Finally, I'll use the API5500 for eq tweaks. Once printed back into the DAW I will use a number of plugins, maybe to compress more, but to generally get the level up. The only problem I can recall, some songs were really heavy on the low end, so getting the level up to match the other songs was a challenge.
Check out whole album here - https://music.apple.com/us/album/barely-see-the-beach-3/1555354636
All the best Clive Knightley
Mixing-Online.co.uk
