Essentials of mastering Blues & Rock:
A while ago we have been mastering Mark Kelly’s album „I Am Who I Am“ which after its release got very popular and won the Swiss Music Award. The album is a mixture between Indie Rock and Blues music.
We got asked what are the essentials of mastering Blues & Rock music, what makes a good master and what are the most important key parts to look for while working on these genres.
We will take Mark’s album as a kind of example: The album it self is very special because of its unique style combing different music genres, its arrangement and off course Mark’s unique sounding voice.
The recordings and delivered mixes were sometimes rough sounding but thats whats so special about the project as this infact combines very well with Marks rough voice.
The main task during our stem mastering services was to maintain the feeling and to create an even more vintage sound. At the same time certain frequencies needed to be cleaned in order to make space for other instruments. The project wasn’t supposed to sound too clean but also it shouldn’t sound muddy also it was planned to master it for vinyl.
When i first listened to the mixes i noticed some „errors“ which on other records would have been edited out. For example sometimes you can hear a door slam or a chair creaking. I asked Mark if i should edit it out before mastering the songs, but he told me to leave it in the record as its part of the whole concept.
Most important while mastering Blues & Rock music are the guitars & vocals as well as the right relationship between the instruments. The bass needs to be well balanced to the guitars and the remaining instruments. Its important to keep the master dynamic and not too overcompressed. The vocals need to be well audible and should be properly de-essed to keep them naturally sounding.
As a mastering engineer it it important to have an understading for music and to be able to imagine how the producer and artists intended the album to sound like. This requries long time experience. More about our edm mastering services:
Blues & Rock Music References:
As a good resource for Blues and Independent music we can recommend to check out Wikipedias article about Blues Music.
Conclusion: Mastering Blues & Rock music requires a lot of experience as a mastering engineer. Always think about how the artists intended the record to sound like and work accordingly.
