Good points there...

However, my opinion is that if you're going to go to a professional studio for mastering, you should use no pre-mastering stage. That is, no global effects or processors over your mix.

It's far more likely that there will be more musical EQs, warmer compressors, gentler limiters, more atmospheric reverbs, etc. in the studio. You don't want to have to pay for someone to attempt to undo the work you've done.

If you must bring in a processed version, bring along a dry one as well, so if needs be, you can swap over to it.

And remember that the most important thing you're paying for is the decades of experience a good engineer will have. No amount of mails on a forum like this will give you that! ;)

For our most recent project, we took our tracks to the studio for a one-hour session to throw up any issues that could be fixed before the mastering stage proper. This way we got some blinding advice from a guy with tons of experience in our field... As well as ensuring we're not wasting our time when we're paying hundreds for whole days...

A good engineer will love this approach, as it means he's more likely to have a good result for his portfolio.

I'm guessing most of the rest of you want to master stuff at home to quickly get it up to a 'playable' standard so you can whack it on a big system,or slip it in a mix. In this case, the most important thing to look for is 'apparent' volume as opposed to level. Compressors and limiters will allow sound to appear louder for the same VU or PPM level. As DJs usually use this to guage relative levels of tracks, yours must be in line, or t'll sound flat and dead compared to the tracks around it.

Constantly a/b your master with a released piece that you know well, making sure they read the same level on a VU meter. Fiddle with the compressor and limiter in your mastering set-up until they sound on a level, volume-wise.

If you don't know how these units work, READ UP ON IT. I recommend 'Creative Recording 1: Effects and Processors' by Paul White.

As you get more confident, you'll add things like high-end excitement, multi-band compression and stereo expansion into the mix. Remember that you should find out how they work first, or you could be doing damage to the music.

And no mastering is going to fix a crappy mixdown. EQ each part of your track well to get good separation of layers, and you'll have far more to work with when it comes to multi-band compression and EQing.

Phew!

Tequila