Volume I

“What is mastering”
Defining the goals of mastering
CD mastering of stereo tracks
CD mastering from groups
Time management
Studio acoustics & room acoustics testing and calibration
Choice of speakers & speaker layout
Equipment requirement for mastering
Cabling
Operation system settings
Audio interfaces
Frontend & backend
Our sense of hearing
The Fletcher-Munson curve
Listening strategies
Ear training
Frequency distribution
Metering for mastering

Volume II

Loudness and peak levels
What are interleaved sample-overs?
Headroom for encoding
Normalization
Judging loudness
Reference values for loudness
PCM – the principle of digital audio
Basics of bit resolution
What is truncation?
Sample rate basics
Sample rate conversion (SRC)
All about dithering
What is jitter?
AES/EBU & S/P-DIF
Wordclock and houseclock
What is DC offset?
ISRC / EAN
Redbook & DAO/TAO
Optimal workflow
Phase 1: Preparation
Batch processing

Volume III

Phase 2: Creative sound processing
Optimizing the best-sounding track
Using the leveler for A/B comparisons
Saving master section settings
PQ editing
Editing CD text & EAN / ISRC
Final master montage
Phase 3: Follow up
Verification master
Error elimination
Choice of master medium / DDP versus CD-R/CD-ROM
Audio CD report
Creative Processing: Basic strategies
Order of processing steps
Working with EQs
Fletcher-Munson curve and EQing
Important filter types
Compressors
Typical examples and strategies
Practical editing examples with master section