Mastering Audio by Bob Katz, Book Review
This Book Condenses Decades of Experience of Sound Mastering
Apr 20, 2009
Bob Katz strikes a good mix between the technical and the artistic side of mastering audio to get the best sound. He is clearly someone who is passionate about music and passionate about sound, which makes Mastering Audio - the Art and the Science an engaging read.
The author first takes the reader through the basics, from the artist's conception of the album, recording the tracks and mixing them. His dedication to quality sound is remarkable - it is surprising to find someone who can hear the noise floor of CD's 16-bit medium, so he describes what makes a great digital audio workstation and what to listen for when making the artistic tradeoffs in mixing like adding small amounts of compression or equalisation to individual mix tracks
Mastering audio is the final process before the sound of an album is committed. It demands attention to detail and a reference playback system that can reveal the nuances in an accurate way. However, the expertise contained in Mastering Audio also applies to the mixing process that usually precedes mastering. The home studio owner can learn just as much from this book as a mastering engineer, and Katz demystifies the technical specmanship that often confuses a band looking for their first digital audio workstation (DAW).
The second part of the book outlines the mastering process, and what the limitations and opportunities are. Some aspects of the sound have to be got right at the beginning, but the mastering process weaves the parts into a whole. The author describes the vast range of tools at his disposal, but also exhorts readers to remember that often less is more, particularly when if comes to using noise reduction and compressors.
The third part deals with the arcane - interfacing studio equipment, the value of recording and processing at high sampling rates until downsampling at the very end.
Resist the Loudness Wars
It is in the mastering stage that the horrors of the loudness war are being perpetrated on many modern CD mixes, and this sort of mastering is given short shrift in chapter 15 - How to make Better Recordings in the 21st Century, and the topic comes up again at the end of the book where Education Education Education is a lament at the futility and arrogance of everybody wanting their album to be the loudest on the block.
In the desire to maximise loudness, a lot of current mastering strips the dynamics from the music, the counterplay of soft against loud.
All in all Bob Katz's Mastering Audio - the Art and the Science is an excellent handbook on mixing and mastering audio. This extract from Roger Nichols' foreword is a succinct summary -
"the first piece of equipment you should buy is Bob Katz's Mastering Audio"
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