What kind of gear is used in mastering?
Without saying, the most important piece of gear used in mastering is the Engineer’s ears. Nevertheless, mastering gear has to be of the highest quality in order to maintain audio integrity at all times. Some commonly used processors in the mastering studio would be from such companies as Manley, Sontec, and Crane Song for analog and Weiss, Z-systems, and Waves (L2) for digital. Monitoring is usually done on accurate (re: expensive) full range monitoring systems in acoustically treated rooms. Room acoustics are especially important in mastering studios as mixing rooms are frequently flawed. As far as editing goes, the most commonly used DAWs used are Sonic Solutions and Sadie. Other systems such as Audio Cube, Pryamix, and Sequoia are also becoming more popular. Some cheaper programs such as Wavelab, Sonic Foundry, and Cool Edit Pro can also be used to burn cdr premasters in redbook format. It should also be noted that in upscale mastering facilities pretty much no processing is done o
