Mastering Mastering!

Yes! Here’s a share from the land of Goldilox (goldilocks paradox) where I work…which is play…I guess “work” still, one definition being “physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something”. “Work” word origin essentially “to do, take effect”…I like that simplicity. Last week I jumped into the work of learning the final frontier of music production - putting the special shiny sauce on digital audio “works” - called MASTERING. No coincidence I am attempting to “master” my daily life, having found gold in “effortless mastery” approach to piano and vocal performance. When I dove in, I found immediately that the objective tools I was putting in the musician/recording artist/producer toolbox were so much more than another socket wrench set from Home Depot. All of the “not knowing what I don’t know” of the last years learning recording and production skills fading, and incredibly decisiveness, efficiency and effectiveness delivered to my “work”. So, this week’s podcast is a sample of an already released track, in three versions - three different MASTERs. My goal to see what you hear, in sonic differences. Not the tech details, just how the music hits you - terms like “clear/muddy”, “warm/bright”, or “the drum sounded better on B” etc. If you listen to A, B, and C masters of “What A Wonderful World”, and comment below, thanks in advance for joining the experiment. Thank you also from my fellow mastering student who submitted 2 of the tracks as “practice” - the community of souls in the program I joined is another gift…unlocking more gold in this world of paradox, sharing more truth and beauty in discovering “mastery” together. PS, soon to come is substack chat - interactive threads for this community through the app…sounds just right to me! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebast.substack.com/subscribe