Many artists are self taught engineers when it comes to tracking, mixing, and mastering their own projects.  Everyone who records wants to produce a professional sounding "Label Ready" CD.  All too often, many artists make the mistake of trying to do more than perform their art.  They try to be engineers as well.  Now that's not a bad thing.  There's nothing wrong with
artists learning all they can about their craft, and that includes engineering.  However, most artists are professional musicians, not professional engineers.  When artists perform, track, mix, and master their own project, only 25% of the project can be considered a professional production.

There Are Four Basic Elements In Producing A CD That Sounds Professional

1. Performance      2. Tracking      3. Mixing      4. Mastering     
                                           
Think about what happens when an artist tries to accomplish each of the four elements on his/her own.  They give a professional performance and record their own tracks.  Then they mix their project.  After attempting to apply some mastering techniques, they decide their project doesn't sound as professional as they'd like.  So, what's the next step?  They send the project out for professional mastering.  All to often, when they get their mastered CD back, they can't understand why it doesn't sound like the "Rolling Stones Greatest Hits."  Why is this?  It's because only 50% of the basic elements were a professional effort.  The performance and the mastering.  The other 50%, tracking and mixing, are the weak links that prevent the CD from achieving that professional sound.  More often than not, the mastering will be blamed for the inferior sound.  After all, mastering is the last step.  Isn't it supposed to solve all the problems that weren't taken care of during the previous steps of the recording process?  To believe that is to misunderstand what mastering is really all about.

Mastering is about quality control and adding the appropriate amount of polish.  That's it!  Mastering is not remixing, nor is it a
fix it stage designed to correct what went wrong during tracking or mixing.  For a CD to truly rival a commercial release, all four of the above elements must be performed by professionals.  Artists with home studios that send their CDs out to be mastered, will always have to settle for whatever their tracking and mixing talents are able to produce.  The final product may fall a little short when only 50% of the required elements are performed by professionals.  Mastering is always mix dependent.

If you're an artist with a home studio, don't despair.  Never quit trying to learn all you can.  Think about how long you practiced your musical instrument before you became proficient.  It takes time to become an accomplished musician.  It takes time to become a proficient audio engineer as well.  Equipment dealers may sell you the latest digital work station, or a fancy computer with all the latest audio production software.  However, what they can't sell you is the years of engineering experience it takes
to obtain professional results.