Putting the “Heart into the art”
Mastering is the final link in the chain between the artist and the factory, and Stardelta was set up with one primary goal – to provide you (and ultimately your listeners) with the best master possible, one with absolutely zero compromise in processing quality, within a cost effective pricing structure.
All too often your hard work can be compromised at the last stage by the desire for loud, competitive masters on a realistic budget. This usually takes the form of cheap, digital mastering, using inferior software plug-ins or preset hardware.
It is certainly true that there are now some usable software solutions out there that have opened up a new world of possibilities and processing quality to the recording musician. We feel that, contrary to what many cheap online mastering services would have you believe, it is a myth that they can ever truly be a match for the hardware solution of real tubes, transistors and good old analogue circuitry and, quite frankly, we don’t think ‘usable’ is anywhere near good enough when it comes to your music.
Many modern recordings are often created solely inside the computer, or ‘In The Box’. This brings about its own set of forced compromises within the recording itself that, until played back through a loudspeaker, may never have actually been an analogue waveform. Our mix of valve & solid-state analogue and high end digital hardware has been carefully selected through months of rigorous listening tests and heated debate, to ensure that, whether it’s the most clinically recorded piece of jazz or the most digital of electronica, your music is being passed through simply the finest circuitry that money can buy. This means we can do everything from the most transparent micro adjustment to adding the tastiest of flavours in a way simply not possible with software mastering.
Whilst in the past it has been the Mastering Engineers job to preserve the original recording with as much dynamic range as possible, there is now a well established phenomenon known as ‘the loudness war’, where dynamics are often sacrificed in favour of increased average loudness and perceived volume (not to be confused with actually turning up the volume). Whilst not always appropriate, we believe that, if going to war, it is best to go to battle with the right weapons. We have developed and tested a proven method to get you the loudest master possible with the minimum resulting artifacts (i.e. loss of dynamics and distortion), so whether you want total transparency, or both the loudest and cleanest, we’ve got it covered!
All this allows us to bring a level of quality to your masters that is usually found only in big budget studios, around a price point normally associated with low budget ‘in the box’ mastering.
Maybe it’s time for a change…
