Before an engineer begins to touch a song to apply the mastering process, he/she must put on a fresh pair of ears. They must be in good spirits and alert ready to give a song a good listen. This is to analyze the overall state or quality of the audio to see what the song needs.

 

If the song is to be mastered to compete with pretty much everything out there in the industry of music, it must be treated as such.

 

The sound goes through a sort of check up if you want to look at it that way to say the song is sick in the areas of quality. This is not to take away from rather a song is good or bad. When requested to master a song, an artist is obviously passionate about their music an believes in the work they want to get ready for the public.

 

So once all the critical listening an diagnosing has been completed the engineer will usually start with some EQ which is used moderately, cutting highs & lows where necessary. Gain levels are not to be touched at this point yet. This early process is simply to bring balance with what can clearly be heard by adjusting the amount of bass & treble is in the mixdown. Then the process progresses with the use of other sound processing equipment.