A catalogue should sound like a catalogue.
When every release on a roster goes to whoever the band happened to find, the catalogue stops having a sound. One record is scooped and brittle, the next is flat and loud, and a listener who liked the first one has no reason to trust the third.
The labels whose names mean something to people got there partly because their records sound like they came from the same place. That’s not an accident and it isn’t only A&R. It’s the last stage of the chain being consistent.
A house sound, not a house template
One room mastering a roster means the same ears, the same monitoring, and the same judgment on every release. Levels sit in a consistent place across the catalogue. Tonal balance is coherent from record to record. A compilation, a label sampler, or a Bandcamp page plays as a body of work rather than a pile of unrelated files.
What it doesn’t mean is stamping every band with the same curve. A doom record and a hardcore seven-inch shouldn’t come out matching, and if they do, the mastering engineer is running a preset. Consistency is in the decisions, not the settings.
An analog signal path handles that well, because the hardware behaves differently depending on what you feed it. Each record ends up with its own version of the same character rather than the same processing applied to different records.
Hear it against your own back catalogue
Send a full track from a release you’ve already put out. You’ll get the entire track back mastered here, free, and you can put it directly against the version you released.
Not an excerpt and not a demo reel. A record you already know intimately, that you’ve heard a hundred times, mastered by someone else. That comparison tells you more in four minutes than any amount of copy on this page.
It’s yours to keep and reference. It isn’t cleared for re-release — that would need a paid engagement and your rights in order.
Hear it both ways
Every example below is one track twice — the mix as it arrived, and the master that left this room. Both are matched to the same integrated loudness (LUFS) for comparison.
Use headphones or speakers you know. Press play, then switch between Mix and Master while it runs — both versions are playing in sync.
All examples mastered on the chain described above.
Loudness matching here is for listening, not for delivery. Delivery targets are set per record.
No audio? Check that your phone isn’t in silent mode.
More before-and-afters → · Credits →
Embargoed releases stay embargoed
Unreleased material is treated as confidential and that’s a contract term, not a courtesy. Mix files, masters, track titles, artwork, and release plans are not distributed, shared, or publicly disclosed. Nothing goes on a portfolio, a social account, or into a conversation before you’ve announced it.
Files stay on systems under my control and aren’t handed to third parties without your consent, beyond what’s needed to actually send and receive the audio. And every promotional use — naming a release, showing artwork, running a before-and-after — is something you can decline in writing before work begins, permanently, on any record or all of them.
If your announce date depends on nobody hearing a note early, that holds here.
Getting a roster onboard
Nobody should move an entire catalogue on a first conversation, and I’m not going to pitch that.
- The comparison. One back-catalogue track, free, against a master you already released.
- One live release. Put a real record through — ideally one that’s genuinely difficult, not the easiest thing on the schedule. You’ll learn more from a hard one.
- Then the calendar. If it works, we look at the next few releases together and set terms against volume.
Each band is still a band. I’ll work with them and their mix engineer directly on their own record, with your requirements as the frame — running order, release date, whether it’s going to vinyl, what the catalogue expects. The label sets the standard; the record still gets treated as its own record.
If a mix arriving from one of your bands has a problem that will cap the result, you hear about it from me early rather than discovering it on a test press. That’s part of what a label is buying.
Scheduling against a release calendar
Send me the calendar rather than the records. If I know in February that there are three releases landing between May and August, those slots get held and the work gets planned around them — instead of three separate scrambles when each band finally finishes mixing.
Vinyl timelines especially. Plant lead times have not gotten shorter, and a mastering stage that starts late is the cheapest possible place to lose four weeks. Tell me the lacquer date and the mastering works backward from it.
Most records leave here inside two weeks in the ordinary course. Booked calendar slots are firmer than that, because the time is already reserved.
Rates and account billing
Published rates start at $110 for a single, and single releases can simply be booked at standard rates with no arrangement at all.
Multi-release and catalogue commitments are quoted as a block, against the number of releases and the horizon they sit in. A label placing six records across a year is a different proposition from a label placing one, and it gets priced like one.
Account billing
Labels running recurring work don’t have to pay per project before delivery. An account can be set up instead, agreed in writing before the first release goes through it, providing for:
- Purchase order references on invoices, if your accounting needs them.
- Consolidated invoicing across a period rather than a separate transaction per record.
- Payment terms up to net 30 from invoice date.
- Masters released before payment, so a release date never waits on an invoice cycle.
Rights in each master vest on payment in full of the invoice covering it — normal, and the same as it works anywhere. Without an account, payment comes before final masters are released.
The credit is an asset. Use it.
Releases carry “Mastered by Smithingrecords” in the metadata and credits. That isn’t a favor being asked — it’s how a catalogue accumulates a signature. A consistent mastering credit across a roster is a signal to bands considering your label, to press, and to anyone who works backward from a record they liked.
The rooms whose names you recognize got recognized because labels put the credit on the record. That works for both of us, and it’s the reason the credit is standard here rather than optional.
Practical detail
- The artist owns the masters on payment in full. No rights retained here, no points, nothing to buy out on a reissue.
- DDP image with PQ sheet included at no extra charge where a release is going to CD. What’s needed to build it →
- Vinyl at no extra charge — the standard master goes to your cutting engineer as-is. Dedicated vinyl pre-masters are quoted separately. Technical detail →
- Sequenced releases need titles, running order, UPC, ISRCs, and spacing. The full list →
- Input specs: 24-bit WAV or AIFF at session rate, around −6 dB headroom, no limiter on the mix bus. Forward this to your bands →
- Not an archive. Delivery links run 30 days; project files may be deleted after 90. Your label keeps its own masters, as it should.
- Refunds: deposits are non-refundable once work begins and fees are non-refundable once final masters are delivered. If I cancel or fail to deliver, you’re refunded for undelivered work.
Everything in full: Terms of Service.
Start with one track
Or email me and send the calendar: thaine@smithingrecords.com
