AYA (Alexander Stoffa) Is a mastering engineer from Seoul/Hawaii who specializes in Electronic/pop music mastering. Clients include Warner Brothers, Atlantic Records, and a host of musicians in the electronic/pop world such as Hex Cougar, Electric Mantis, The Magician, MOGUAI, Vindata, ShipWrek, LoudLuxury, and more.
Segmented masters treat each portion of a song (Intro, Build, Chorus, Drop, Breakdown, etc.) differently, tailoring it to the rest of the song as a whole. Mastering in stems allows for increased control on my end, which allows me to maintain dynamic range, a huge factor in the era of music attenuation. Platforms such as Spotify and iTunes attenuate songs based on overall loudness (LUFS), measured cumulatively. The classic approach to this issue is working to lower the LUFS through the entirety of the song, but with segmented mastering, your song can maintain an overall low LUFS whilst still being mastered to maintain full loudness on the parts that require it (Drops, chorus, etc.). This is possible due to the low in LUFS, high in dynamics portion(s) of your song (intro, breakdown, build) that will leave room for a more pronounced drop/refrain/chorus.
Here’s Dan Worrall’s take on stem mastering and what it means for your music.
Or check out Wyste’s (White Sea Studios) take on stem mastering!
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
