The difference in sound after mastering in garageband
Channel: varvorines
Date: 11/07/2012

Think of the unmastered version as a photograph taken with a fish-eye lens. Everything only near the center is large, loud and takes up the too much volume of the page whilst every thing near the outer edge is small, faint and almost hard to see.

Mastering your song correctly turns this distorted photo to a more evened normal picture. Like photos, you only have so much area to work with. 

With sound, its almost like having a glass and pouring in sound with each track, with each raising of certain EQ bands. You can only fill the glass before it overflows. If you have too much bass in instruments like piano or some synthesizers, you are leaving your self little room for more important sounds or tones that may need to be added. Sometimes I have to eliminate some instruments altogether to make room in that glass for corrected volumes or EQ tones.

If you have one spike in sound louder than the rest of the sound wave peaks, your overall song will sound very weak and lifeless. A limiter will reduce these peaks. In the vocals is an excellent example of too much limiter effect. The sound waves sound distressed. Much like when a stereo is tuned up way too loud and the speakers sound like they are going to blow out. 

When all tracks are in a good volume ratio to each other (nothing too high or too low), all instrumentation can be heard well without having to turn up a guitar piano or vocals. 

: )