Audio Mastering Tutorial Volume I - III
Audio Mastering is the ideal mastering compendium for every audio engineer, producer, media technician or even ambitious home studio enthusiast who masters with a PC workstation, or wants to begin producing their own masters. It provides one of the most complete works on digital audio basics and professional mastering techniques available today.

This comprehensive compendium of digital mastering knowledge on three DVD-ROMs contains a huge range of strategies, tips and hints on using computers to create the best sounding masters possible. Audio Mastering provides support for and extends existing knowledge for engineers looking for a way of extending existing knowledge. Audio Mastering includes full English, German, French and Spanish versions.

With more than 180 minutes of video on Volume I, and more than 160 minutes of video on each Volume II and Volume III Audio Mastering offers comprehensive knowledge about digital techniques and skilled handling of digital audio data using WaveLab to attain the best possible results in professional mastering.

Fundamentals such as PCM, jitter and dithering are covered extensively, as well as other areas such as such as workflow optimization and data preparation for creating master media. Audio Mastering also offers invaluable strategies for creative sound processing, with real-world applications and practical examples that support learning.

Contents

Vol. I (Chapter I: Basics)

• What is mastering?
• Defining the goals of mastering
• CD mastering of stereo tracks
• CD mastering from groups
• Time management
• Studio acoustics & room acoustics testing and calibration
• Choice of speakers & speaker layout
• Equipment requirement for mastering
• Cabling
• Operation system settings
• Audio interfaces
• Frontend & backend
• Our sense of hearing
• The Fletcher-Munson curve
• Listening strategies
• Ear training
• Frequency distribution
• Metering for mastering

 
Vol. II (cont. chapter I: Basics)

• Loudness and peak levels
• What are interleaved sample overs?
• Headroom for encoding
• Normalization
• Judging loudness
• Reference values for loudness
• PCM – the principle of digital audio
• Basics of bit resolution
• What is truncation?
• Sample rate basics
• Sample rate conversion (SRC)
• All about dithering
• What is jitter?
• AES/EBU & S/P-DIF
• Wordclock and houseclock
• What is DC offset?
• ISRC / EAN
• Redbook & DAO/TAO

(Chapter II: Workflow)

• Optimal workflow
• Phase 1: Preparation
• Batch processing
  

Vol. III (cont. chapter II: Workflow)

• Phase 2: Creative sound processing
• Optimizing the best-sounding track
• Using the leveler for A/B comparisons
• Saving master section settings
• PQ editing
• Editing CD text & EAN / ISRC
• Final master montage
• Phase 3: Follow up
• Verification master
• Error elimination
• Choice of master medium / DDP versus CD-R/CD-ROM
• Audio CD report

(Chapter III: Creative Sound Processing)

• Basic strategies
• Order of processing steps
• Working with EQs
• Fletcher-Munson curve and EQing
• Important filter types
• Compressors
• Typical examples and strategies
• Practical editing examples with master section