Do I need to "Master" my CD?

[TVD]

I'm suprised that no one has mentioned this:

Mastering is not about the plugins or hardware you use. You could have a million dollars worth of plugins and equipment and still not be able to master an album properly.

Mastering, in regards to the sonic treatment of your product, is about the room. The room that you hear your final mix in. Dedicated mastering studios are acoustically tuned to as near a flat response as possible. The outcome of this is being able to hear problems, distortions, etc. that you could never hear anywhere else. It is only at this point that an engineer can make the appropriate decisions as to what needs to be done to finalize the product. Furthermore, a good mastering room and all of it's gear and plugins is absolutely useless without a good engineer.

Anyway, I just wanted to clarify this. I know there's lots of 'mastering' software out there, but really that software will only get you so far on your own. If you want your final product to sound professional, take it to a pro mastering studio.

-Blake

I will consider it after I can find $2000+ to pay that engineer to do a better master CD than I can.

[Cordelia]

A little OT, but I think fishbowl has a good point. Just finished watching "Tom Dowd, The Language Of Music". All of those amazing early Ray Charles records were recorded in a tiny Atlantic office space. Stacked the secretary's desks against the wall at night. Maybe we're too retentive these days. Maybe, Storm, if you feel it's done, you are done.