deepsounds mastering

About

"deepsounds mastering" is a Rethymno-based sound studio, that offers high quality digital audio mastering. It is designed to meet the industry-standard, an acoustically transparent monitoring environment for sonic reproduction of sound.

It is owned and has been run by engineer and music producer Nikos Fragomanolakis since 2014. Nikos graduated from the School of Audio Engineering (SAE) in Athens, Greece. He also received his BS degree in ‘Applied Informatics & Multimedia’ from the Technological Educational Institute of Crete. He has been involved in audio mastering and production for many years and has collaborated with various artists and labels.

The deep research in the field of audio processing and his sharp sense of hearing, along with his cooperative and friendly attitude, helped him to rapidly evolve in the music business.

What is Mastering? Before & After

The basic idea behind the mastering process, is not so complex. Mastering is the art of giving a track the best sound possible. Mastering is not a magic process that will transform a bad mixdown to a reference master. In contrast, a perfect mixdown may not need any further processing at all. It all depends on the raw material that was previously used on the mixing process (recording techniques, samples etc).

Nowadays many people produce music in acoustically untreated environments (e.g bedrooms) or mix on headphones, this final step of quality control and polish, is crucial before sending music to the crowd and market.

Refinement of a track has to do with the overall tonal balance, dynamic range management, stereo imaging and last but not least the loudness. The main goal is making the material sound better, not making it sound just louder. This is why mastering is an art of compromise.

Main Concepts Of Mastering

The artistic concept is to bring the beautiful elements of a track to life and ‘highlight’ them, in order to ’shadow’ the unwanted ones and maintain an aesthetic equilibrium, according to the musical genre. The technical concept is to perform the above as transparently and as neutrally as possible, to enhance the sound quality using the right tools.

So the mastering engineer needs skills and critical ability to act responsibly and carefully without changing the essence of the track.