Hello there Crafty fans!! 

Today was spent the mastering studio doing, well, mastering.  Many of you are probably asking yourself, "Could Chuck Norris create a rock so big that even HE couldn't lift it?"  Others are probably asking, "What the hell is mastering?"

Well my friends, put your learnin' caps on, 'cause you're about to find out!

Mastering as a general term applies to a few things.  But let me explain a bit first about the recording process.  There are three basic steps to recording an album.

1. Tracking
2. Mixing
3. Mastering

Tracking is basically just getting it all recorded.  Layin' her all down so's that you can fuck wit it.  Mixing is, well, a bunch of shit. Basically it deal's with getting volumes between instruments set, adding some effects, and bringing up the mid's in my left earphone. 
Both of these processes require what I like to call "microvision", or focusing on the minutia of everything.  How the drums sound, mic placement, guitar tone, ass cheese diversion, and the level of rocktitudinalism being sent to aux 3, all of this is focused on.  Intensely.

Now mastering.....ha ha. Mastering my friends, that's a WHOLE 'nother fuckin' enchilada. Mastering requires MACROvision.  Viewing the album as a cohesive whole.  Now, there are parts of mastering I can explain.  The part of mastering I understood, was simple shit.  Like, how long should we pause between songs?  What order should they go in? How much brutalitarianism should we add to the breakdown?  All these things are part of the process.
And then there's a bit of magic that happens, performed by a sorcerer known as a "mastering engineer".  The sorcerer is a conjurer.  He uses a combination of witchcraft, voodoo, and scientology.  The first thing to happen was the bats. Literally, huge fucking bats came out and flew around the room, shitting EVERYWHERE.  It was a guano fest.  Hancock fell to the ground in some sort of fit, chanting in tongues. He kept shouting,  "habbbadee bobbadee olumanala teeeeeen".  Fourteen midgets weilding axes started chopping shit up. Rabid dogs were tearing apart the furniture.  The loudest noises I've ever heard were all around me.  Fire was everywhere.  Lights flashed. We were all screaming, "OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!"    Then!

silence.......

There was a calm that came over the room.  And all of a sudden, the album sounded better.  I can't explain it any better than that.  Don't believe me?  ASK THE OTHER FUCKIN' BASTARDS!  Why would I lie about a thing like this.

Have a good one!
-Levi