Mastering is the final step in the process of preparing to release your music into the world!
When you get your track mastered, you can feel assured that your mix will translate correctly, i.e. sound the way that it's supposed to sound across a wide range of playback spaces, from car stereos to phone speakers, earphones, giant sound systems in clubs and arenas, and everything in between.

You may also notice improvements in:

• Clarity
• Stereo Image
• High End Polish
• Low End Weight
• Transient Response
• Adherence to Genre Standards
• Texture
• Detail
• Space
• Presence
• Loudness
• Overall Impact

Your mix should indeed already sound great even before mastering!
That said, every song you hear in the world has been mastered, usually by a dedicated mastering engineer.
The masterer's main job is to evaluate your song from a fresh perspective .
Your mastering engineer will, using their years of experience, make necessary final touches to the sound of your music, and may fix problems that have become difficult to hear after you or your engineer have spent a lot of time close to the song during the production and mixing processes.

Mastering takes place after the mix is already finished, so the individual tracks or stems are not necessary.
All we need to master your track is a bounce of the final mix in the quality it was originally recorded at.
The export of your mix for mastering should not have any limiting applied to the master channel, and should have some amount of 'headroom'; i.e. it should not be peaking in the master channel's volume meter. Usually to achieve this, you can just turn the master fader down a few dB before exporting to give it some breathing room.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions about preparing your track for master, happy to walk you through it!

We are always happy to work with you to get you what you want. If for whatever reason you would like updates or revisions to your master, just ask your engineer.

Thank you for asking! Prefered credit is simply:

Mastered by Rich G at the Ghosthouse

Awesome! We're ready to work with you! Please contact us using the below form and we will get back to you ASAP.