CD Mastering Before-After Display

John Vestman CD Mastering

This illustrates two songs that have been loaded into Sonic Solutions, the beginnings and endings cleaned up, and put in order for a CD single.

Load-in source
The bigger this blue waveform (either upward or downward), the more signal level. The peaks reach the top of the "digital ceiling".

Edits and level corrections
Each red line indicates an edit. In this case, we were taking down the volume of individual cymbal crashes. A nice result of this was that the vocal sounded louder because the cymbals weren't as distracting.

Final cd output
After processing, notice the "fatter" waveform - this means the sound has more over-all level, and it is fuller, cleaner. Keep in mind, our goal isn't to make this wave "shape" - the goal is to make the music sound better over a variety of speaker systems, have appropriate level, and keep the dynamic impact of the music in tact.

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	This illustrates two songs that have been loaded into Sonic Solutions, the beginnings and endings cleaned up, and put in order for a CD single.
	Load-in source The bigger this blue waveform (either upward or downward), the more signal level. The peaks reach the top of the "digital ceiling".
	Edits and level corrections Each red line indicates an edit. In this case, we were taking down the volume of individual cymbal crashes. A nice result of this was that the vocal sounded louder because the cymbals weren't as distracting.
	Final cd output After processing, notice the "fatter" waveform - this means the sound has more over-all level, and it is fuller, cleaner. Keep in mind, our goal isn't to make this wave "shape" - the goal is to make the music sound better over a variety of speaker systems, have appropriate level, and keep the dynamic impact of the music in tact.