In short:

• Remove any heavy limiting from your master bus (you can send a limited version as a reference)

• Ensure you are not clipping the master channel

• Render at the sample rate you have recorded and mixed in

• Export in 32 Floating Point .wav if possible

• Ensure there are no clicks, phase issues, clipped audio or render errors in your export

• Name your file with your artist name, track number and track name

• Upload your files to my wetransfer page or any other upload site along with your references

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to get in touch with me.

I can work from any kind of uncompressed audio file (Wav, Aiff, FLAC etc) at all standard sample rates and bit-depths. If you have specific requests for sample rates and bit-depths, please include those in your email; otherwise, I’ll maintain the sample rate and bit-depth of the original files.

If you are not sure about what sample rate to use I recommend sticking to the one you used when recording and mixing the track. Generally, anything at or above 44.1k should suffice. These days the majority of digital aggregators will accept files up to 24bit 96k.

If no uncompressed files are available, I can also work from lossy formats (Mp3, AAC, etc), but this is a big compromise in terms of quality. If you are working from archival material such as tape or vinyl, please get in touch with me on how we can best digitize your material.

After you submit your email with all the relevant information, I will listen to your music and send you a quote for your project via email. I’m happy to work with anyone at any budget, keep in mind that prices are not negotiable, but we can always work together to find solutions that we are both happy with.

After you accept the quote, you can pay through a Bank transfer (preferred) or via credit card. You will receive an invoice, for which I will need the following information:

• Your Name

• Full Address

• Zip code, City

• Country

• VAT ID (If applicable to you)

I will start working on your project once I have received the payment. In the meantime, we can discuss the specific challenges and goals of your project together.

Mix consultation and reasonable revisions are included in the service, and partial payment until project completion is possible on large orders.

DDP Masters for CD manufacturing and additional Vinyl Pre-masters add a small extra fee.

If you are a musician, label or sound artist looking for audio engineering for your project, then Mastering is the right service for you! Mastering is the final step in the audio engineering chain, it is necessary for your music to be mastered if you want it to be published to the public.

If you are designing a product, experience or installation, then creative consulting is made for you. I will help you level up the way you engage with sound and help you use sound as a core part of your identity. I will help you design a soundscape for your product or experience, help your media team optime their audio workflow and help you showcase your experience through the medium of sound. Creative consulting covers a wide range of services, so I suggest you book a call with me to figure out how I can help you with your project.

If your project lies in between these services, or you have any other questions, feel free to contact me.

Audio Consulting is highly dependent on your specific needs, goals and budget.

In general, we will start by looking at your business together and seeing where sound is or can become an asset for you. We then build a plan together on how to integrate, optimize or design sound workflows for your specific project. We set a budget, deadlines, MVPs, goals and workflows together and then we get to the fun bit!

From here I will be working either with you or your media team, depending on the needs of your project to turn your aspirations for how sound can empower your project into reality.

Mastering is the process of finalizing a piece of audio for release to the public. The mastering process is necessary to hit the technical and aesthetic targets necessary for a successful release.

More than that, it is an opportunity to have a second pair of well-trained ears listen to your music in a room designed for listening. As a mastering engineer, I obsess over minute details that are often overlooked in the production and mixing process, and many of my clients value me as an impartial third party they can trust with their sound.

If you are an amateur musician and are not interested in releasing your music, mastering is probably not a service that will be very useful to you, beyond the educational aspect of having a professional work on your music.

But, if you want your music to sound better, be heard by people in a variety of listening conditions and be enjoyable to listen to for years to come, Mastering is the tool for you.

In stem mastering, you allow the mastering engineer to work from separate stems instead of the final stereo mix. This gives the engineer more flexibility when fixing issues relating to tonal balance, frequency masking and stereo field.

Four separate stems, with one dedicated to Drums, a second to Bass, a third to Vocals or the main synth, and a fourth to Pads, effects and other miscellaneous elements suits most needs. If you are not sure how to divide up your stems, I can help you with that.

I recommend stem mastering to anyone who is having difficulty with their mix but doesn’t want or need to invest in mixing services. If you feel that your mix is 90% there, but you are not completely happy with it, stem mastering can be a good choice for you.

If you have more complex issues with your mix or do not know how to mix your track properly I would recommend mixing services instead.

If you are happy with your mix, you do not need stem mastering.

Loudness is a complicated topic, and there are many opinions on it throughout the audio community. I do not subscribe to any fixed loudness level when mastering; every piece of music is different, and they all require different loudness targets to sound their best.

These days the majority of streaming platforms change the volume of your music so that everyone is around the same loudness level. This way, if you are listening to a playlist, you don’t have to continuously adjust the volume to compensate for fluctuating loudness levels. Because of loudness normalization, increasing loudness can sometimes cause your music to sound quieter compared to other songs on streaming platforms, this is because to achieve loudness, you need to sacrifice dynamic range.

That said, a lower dynamic range is often key to achieving a specific sound. Loud Industrial Techno sounds great when played in a club, and compression is very much part of that sound. On the other hand, moving from soft and quiet passages to loud crescendos is very important to maintain the emotional impact of orchestral music.

I will master to what I think is ideal for your music to keep the balance between dynamic range and loudness. If you want to go either louder or more dynamic with your masters, feel free to communicate that - there is nothing wrong with wanting your track to hit like a brick wall on the dance floor, just as there is nothing wrong with prioritizing dynamics and movement over loudness.

I’m here for you!

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them in your email. Mastering and Mixing can be tricky topics as there is a lot of misinformation around them. I’m here to help you navigate this complicated technical landscape.

I’m always happy to help out a fellow creator, if you have any questions about the mastering process, how audio consulting can help as an artist or professional or any question about audio, in general, I am here for you!

Feel free to get in touch with me in the form below, or at info@vareschimastering.com