Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science

This is a terrific book if you know what you're getting. Want to know what top mastering pros worry about? This book will tell you. Want to know what the mixdown engineer should worry about and what should be done when mastering? That's here. Want to know what jitter is, what signal levels are appropriate for various purposes, this book will tell you why as well as how. Want to know how a professional builds and tunes his or her multi-hundred thousand dollar studio, that's here too. This book will not directly tell you how to build a $1500 studio, how to pick a cheap microphone like an SM58, or how to do a quick and dirty job of mastering your home recordings. So why would anyone other than a pro read this book? Even if you're an advanced amateur, you might want to know things like: why you shouldn't use too much compression in your recordings, why your MP3s shouldn't max out on peak level, what jitter is and how you'd know the difference between a good and a mediocre A/D converter. This book is very readable, but it does go into some fairly serious technical analysis of signal processing. If math scares you, then there are some sections you'll want to skim. Overall, one of the best books on audio I've read (and I am very much an amateur, albeit with a background in physics and in software). I read it from cover to cover, thoroughly enjoyed it, and learned a ton. No, I won't be able to afford most of the equipment that he discusses, but I've learned a lot about the capabilities and limitations of the cheaper signal chains that I do get to use.

Definitely a necessity for anyone in the music recording industry, artist or engineer. The day I ordered it I read a bunch of forums about how this is the De Facto literature on Mastering for the beginner/non-professional and is still a necessity for the professional as your, pretty much only, reference material. After I bought it Went to a music producers studio and the book was lying on the ground so I told him I just bought, and he said, "Nice, you are going to need it, lots of invaluable info in there". However, if you don't have a school or $20k at your disposal it is going to be difficult to practice without the artists at your disposal or the ridiculously expensive mastering gear necessary. Go watch some YouTube videos on mastering before "Diving In". It turns out most mastering technique is, "It all depends". Well, it depends on the artist, the genre, the recording, the artist preference, your equipment, and when it comes down to it, simply, Does it sound good?"

I read both this book and the Bobby Ownsinski book on mastering because both got such mixed reviews. While the Bobby Ownsinski book is pretty much useless because it contains little to no practical info, this book delivers! I agree with some reviewers that you will need some basic knowledge of mixing and mastering to understand Bob Katz (i have no idea why anyone would want to learn mastering yet have no clue about producing music), but if you want ACTUAL, useful information/tips/tricks on how to master than this is book you want. If you make electronic music than you should already be familiar enough with compressors, EQs, etc to follow this. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in getting better masters and learning more about the industry side of it. This isn't the end all be all, and you won't be a pro just by reading this, but it is DEFINITELY helpful. The only thing I didn't like was that they had interviews with pros on 5.1 sound (which was cool,) but not for anything else. I really liked these interviews and I think it would've been quite helpful to get the pros take on many of the other sections of the book; 5.1 is something I'm not going to be working with any time too and imagine the same is true for others just getting into mastering.

This is the first time I've ever written a review for a product, ever. But Bob Katz's booking on audio is absolutely necessary for anyone interested in the field of audio. It should be mentioned that it is a technically heavy book, with plenty of audio related jargon. So some intermediate knowledge will definitely benefit you for reading it. Personally I've been recording and mixing for the last five or so years, accumulating education from trial and error and online before buying "Mastering Audio". When I did however, it's as if the wool had finally been pulled off from over my eyes. This book is the authority I've been looking for. Now the emphasis is on mastering, but personally I think this book serves the whole spectrum of folks involved with audio. Not only is it a solid window into the often ambiguous world of mastering, but I think it serves engineers at any level of the process – including recording, mixing. It's clear footing of the available processes to you if you want to do your own mastering. And it makes you understand how to submit a quality mix. The chapters on calibrating your VU to DBFS, the K-System, Sample Rates, Bit Rates, Dither, and everything else are invaluable. The only caveat I do have is this is not a book with tips or tricks to achieve great masters. There is no sample session of a song to be mastered that Bob walks you through. If you're for a checklist of operations to use on your own mixes, you're going to be a bit disappointed. If you ever wondered what the heck goes on in realm of mastering, and want to further round out your audio education, this is worth every penny.

After reading (no, devouring) Mastering Audio I had mostly good feelings and it is difficult for me to describe why it wasn't great. Bob Katz is absolutely spot on about the state of mastering in the past decade and that over compressing audio has ruined music. It is without a doubt required reading on the subject. But being that I do not have a state of the art mastering facility (lets be honest, how many of you do?) this book takes a high end view on a subject that has increasingly become a do-it-yourself reality. All in all this is very good book. If I were building a mastering studio it would be essential. If you are mastering your own stuff (for many valid reasons, some being: making sure it turns out right, cost effectiveness, furthering your own creativity) this book may leave you guessing or often times searching the internet for acronym definitions. This could be a good thing, it leaves us to make our own critical decisions based on a foundation. Time will tell if this edition becomes a 5-star classic. Or has it already?

This book is thorough and informative, however I found the practicality of it rather limiting. It seemed overly elitist and almost written on the presumption that you had access to a huge studio and mastering suites. Some of the information was very helpful, and no doubt has aided me in my pursuit of recording and mastering, but considering the sheer amount of content, my critique is that it's simply not accessible enough. I gave it a good try, but ultimately found Bobby Owsinski's releases MUCH more useful. Bob Katz knows his stuff, but the book oozed purism and snobbery.

This excellent book raises so many questions about signals and my equipment, I had to get an oscillator and test my own mixer and learn what my meters really mean, and have so many new ideas that I'll be busy for a long time trying his ideas and using my equipment to the best and much more intelligently than I ever did. I'm so lucky to have found this book. Thanks Bob Katz! I think a lot of the things he does can now be performed with plugins and DAWs like in Pro Tools, but it is interesting to see the originals, and to have ideas of what to look for and what to try in the software versions. Reading it word for word, cover to cover.

Comprehensive and informative. You're walked through almost anything that one should think of when optimal sound quality is paramount. Covers topics I've never even heard mentioned before elsewhere - did you know that rendering creates quantization distortion? I didn't... Well written and simple to understand

Welcome into the sound.

Wer sich in irgend einer Weise mit (digitalem) Audio beschäftigt, sollte dieses Buch lesen - nicht nur Mastering-Profis! Seit neuestem gibt es zwar auch eine deutsche Übersetzung, aber wer des Englischen halbwegs mächtig ist, kommt hier ohne Probleme bestens zurecht! O-Ton ist auf jeden Fall immer besser, selbst als die beste Übersetzung. Bob Katz erklärt komplexe Sachverhalte einfach, nachvollziehbar und leicht verständlich. Er verrät die Geheimnisse der digitalen Signalverarbeitung von der Wandlung Analog => Digital über die Vorgänge beim Bearbeiten innerhalb einer Digitalen Audio Workstation (DAW) wie EQing, Kompression, Limiting, bis zur Rückwandlung Digital => Analog. Er räumt auf mit zahlreichen Mythen und Legenden, die sich um digitales Audio ranken, erklärt Fallstricke und wie man sie vermeidet. Von den Vor- und Nachteilen unterschiedlicher Audioformate, Bittiefen, Sampleraten und Dithering bis zu den negativen Auswirkungen von "Peak-Normalisation" und "Hypercompression" bleibt kein Aspekt unberücksichtigt. Auf jeder Seite entdeckt man manchmal kleine, manchmal große Tipps und Tricks, wie man seine eigenen Arbeiten deutlich verbessern kann. Auch wenn sich ein Kapitel ausschließlich High-End (= teurem!) Mastering-Equipment widmet, wird schnell klar, dass guter Sound und echte HiFi-Qualität nicht davon abhängen WAS man für die Erstellung einer Aufnahme verwendet, sondern WIE man es verwendet! Und hier können auch manche erfahrene Profis sicher noch einiges Lernen...

Simply, A must have!!!

I needed this book to understand why some recordings sound very badly, what are the main qualities of good recorded sound. Why hypercompression is so widely used by some producers. We organized some experiments to understand what kind of sound quality listener prefers on live concerts. For us surprisingly - preferable sound level was statistically about 85 dBA, no dependence of age, gender, music experience, music style. This book helped me to organize my experiments. Of course it's very good learning material for sound engineers and producers.

A must read, so much in depth analysis of real life problems and tasks. Brilliant reading, strongly recommended to every audio enthusiast.