PLEASE EXAMINE THE CRITERIA FOR ALL 3 POSSIBILITIES SHOWN BELOW TO DETERMINE WHICH SERVICE IS BEST SUITED FOR YOUR PROJECT

1. If your project fits any of the following criteria, you may need General Mixing Work, which is more involved than Fine-Tuning/Touch-up mixing.

• Need to have additional parts recorded in studio and added to your project
• Need current recorded parts in your project to be edited or replaced with alternatives or "studio-quality" versions
• Have all your parts recorded, but no effects applied, no EQ work done, no volume leveling done and would like a studio engineer to do that work for you

If it sounds like your project fits this criteria, then you may need to have some general mixing and possibly recording work done to help you finish your project. Visit our Recording/Mixing page to find out more out about our general recording and mixing services. For this type of service there are many different things to consider, so be sure to contact us by phone or email to discuss your project and see if we can assist you with your needs or if working through a local facility would be your best option.

2. If your project fits all or most of the following criteria, you may simply need Audio Mastering to complete the project.

• You feel like it's "almost there", but can't quite figure out how to finish it to get it exactly as you want it to sound
• It sounds good as-is, but just needs that little extra "professional feel" to it
• Everything is good as-is, but it doesn't sound quite loud and/or full enough as it is currently

If this describes your project, then it's quite possible you don't need any mixing work done at all. You may be ready for audio mastering to complete your project. Visit our Audio Mastering page to find out more about our mastering services. You should also take advantage of our Free Mastering Sample to help you hear for yourself if our audio mastering services is all you need to get you that final sound you're looking for.

3. If your project seems to fit the following criteria better than the criteria for either of the above options, you may be in need of Fine-Tuning/Touch-Up Mixing plus Audio Mastering to fully complete the project.

• You feel like it's "getting close", but there are a few issues you can't quite seem to get to turn out in the mix the way you want them
• It sounds okay, roughly speaking, but when you and others listen to it critically you get comments such as "I can't understand your lyrics", "how come the guitar is so loud", or "why does the beat sound so boomy and muddy"
• The sound is as good as you can get it in the mix so you thought it might be ready for Audio Mastering, but after trying our Free Mastering Sample it became clear that there were some mix issues that needed to be addressed that you don't feel you can adequately take care of yourself

If any of these criteria seem to describe your project better than the criteria for the other options listed above, then you are probably very close to being ready for Audio Mastering, but may potentially attain better results if you add Touch-Up Mixing work to your Audio Mastering Service.

Due to the wide variety of Digital Audio Workstations and portable recording systems, as well as the thousands of plug-ins and outboard effects devices that are currently available, it is nearly impossible for us to simply have you send us your project and audio files and complete your mixes from them alone. It therefore requires some preparation work on your part to assemble the audio files in a way that we can utilize for touch-up mixing purposes. In summary, you will need to bounce-down/export all of your audio tracks with your current EQ, volume level, stereo panning, and effects applied and create stereo files for them in easily identifiable groups that we can then import and manipulate for fine-tuning purposes. We have put together a general set of instructions to assist you in this process. The instructions are neither exhaustive nor are they meant to force you to stick to a certain set of rules. Rather they are guidelines to help you do the preparation work in an organized and complete fashion so that we can quickly and easily reconstruct your project mixes in our system and spend your allotted mixing time getting right to work on the sound quality of the tracks themselves.
CLICK HERE to download the instructions for preparing your audio files for Touch-Up Mixing. Information on pricing and instructions on ordering Audio Mastering are also included as Touch-Up Mixing is intended to be included with Audio Mastering as a complete service package (i.e. we do not offer Touch-Up Mixing as a standalone service). When you purchase a Touch-Up Mixing + Audio Mastering package, you will receive your original media (unless you submitted material via the internet), a Gold Master CD, and track log sheet just as if you purchased Audio Mastering alone. The difference is simply in the level of control that you provide our engineers to work with your material. We DO NOT recommend touch-up mixing on most mastering projects, only those that meet the criteria listed above. Many projects are ready for Audio Mastering without needing any additional mixing work by our engineers. For those projects that do seem to need some additional mixing work, often times you may find after receiving a free mastering sample from us that you know exactly how to adjust the mix yourself to make it ready for Audio Mastering. In either case you are always welcome to call or email us to discuss the specifics of your project and we will be more than happy to help you determine what would be the best course of action to fit your goals.