In an era where digital technology has made home recording affordable to everyone, it is common for musicians to self-produce rather than go to a dedicated recording studio.
Coupled with the opportunities afforded by digital distribution for self-release, hundreds of thousands of records are released every year without ever having been touched by a professional working in a traditional studio.
Naturally, the affordability of the means of production is a fantastic thing that gives anyone who ants to the chance to do what they like, rather then being constricted by financial factors.
However, as with so much of the online revolution, often quality suffers.
A large part of that is the knowledge gap.
Learning to effectively use music technology takes years of study and practice, something which a great deal of self-producing musicians simply do not do.
And why should they? After all, they're musicians, not sound engineers.
One of the biggest knowledge gaps is a lack of understanding concerning audio mastering.
Many are entirely unaware of its existence, and many more have only the vaguest understanding of it.
I once spoke to a musician who told me mastering just meant 'putting some reverb on it and turning it up'.
A third group knows what is involved in music mastering and attempts it themselves with varying degrees of success.
But mastering truly is one of those rare creative processes that really is best left to the professionals.
Yes, if you really know your stuff you can do it yourself, but even if you do, it's hard to match the objectivity of a third party.
If you've recorded and mixed the track yourself, it's almost impossible to hear it with the unbiased ears required for mastering.
As a professional mastering engineer and practising musician myself, I can attest to that.
But it is an essential process.
Mastering is the thing that raises your demo to a record.
It gives that professional sheen, and makes sure that it sounds comparable to other commercial recordings.
Not to put your recording through the process is to immediately label you as an amateur or hobbyist rather than a professional.
If you want your music taken seriously, mastering is absolutely essential, and best done by a professional.
Beyond the simple benchmark hitting, it also shapes the overall sound of your track, and often involves 'sweetening' processing to make the sound that much nicer, define the character and 'glue' the mix together.
It's not just about 'putting some reverb on it and turning it up', it's about bringing out the character of the music, and ultimately, making it sound better.