Aria Mastering Review – AI Analog Mastering, Is It Great? 

Your song is mixed, ready to master and you’re wondering whether to use an AI mastering service or a real engineer. An AI service can provide an affordable alternative to what can be an expensive process of getting your song to that banger quality you’re after.

AI Mastering services are becoming more and more common on the internet, each offering different prices and types of mastering, all with varying levels of quality. With the huge amount of choice out there that is only increasing, what stands out at the moment? 

Aria Mastering is trying to carve out its own space in this rising market, with the first of its kind, real-time analog mastering service. In this review, we’ll put it to the test on four tracks in different genres. Let’s find out if Aria Mastering can produce some great results!

Aria Mastering Review

A side note on AI mastering versus a real mastering engineer: 

AI mastering is not better than a real, human mastering engineer for numerous reasons. The advantage of being able to work with and talk to your mastering engineer can give you a far more personalised approach, with results that will have lots of character and consideration for your music. 

With a human engineer, you can get numerous revisions usually, customise your master with far greater detail and if you find one you like, you can develop a productive and fun working relationship with them throughout many projects.

Years of experience, expertise and style are what you get when you pay for a real engineer, and AI services do not replace or better that. Be mindful, however, of paying for cheap engineers, as usually the less you pay, the worse your result will be. 

Cheaper is not always better! Now, let’s see how Aria Mastering stacks up.

What Is Aria Mastering?

Aria Mastering is a real-time AI/automated analog mastering service, developed by industry professionals. It was created to provide a cost-effective, fast and great-quality service without compromising quality for these factors. 

Colin Leonard, a GRAMMY award-winning mastering engineer who has worked with huge names such as Beyonce, Lil Wayne and Jay Z, built the mastering equipment that Aria Mastering uses on your track.

It’s not just the gear either, it uses approaches and techniques Leonard uses daily on platinum-selling tracks. 

Your unmastered track goes from the website to the computer in the very studio where the AI/automated mastering system and analog gear will master your track. Producing a finished result within minutes. 

How Much Does It Cost?

This all sounds great, but how much does it cost? Aria Mastering offers three monthly subscriptions, with an individual master costing $19. 

The first monthly package is the artist subscription. This model offers 10 songs mastered a month, for $49 with the option to add 48kHz and MFiT for $10 each to this subscription. 

The second option is for 25 songs mastered a month, for $99 with the same additional options as the first subscription.

Finally, the third package is the professional subscription which offers a huge number of 100 tracks mastered a month, for $249 with the two optional extras that the other subscriptions have. 

All of the tracks come as either 16 or 24-bit WAV files, with the already mentioned extras of 48kHz and MFiT for an extra price. MP3s and other desired file types are also available for a small extra fee. 

The individual master is very reasonably priced, costing less than a professional engineer who would charge at least double per track. The subscription services are all on a 3-month minimum basis before a cancellation can be made, with a no refund policy. 

Previews of tracks are offered before purchasing to avoid potential unhappiness with the finished product. The subscriptions all renew automatically, and it’s important to keep in mind that you don’t accrue mastering credits that carry over into the next month. 

The amount of masters the subscriptions offer for the price is at an incredibly reduced rate compared to the individual price and could offer great value to someone who needs to master songs regularly, but maybe not to someone who isn’t creating a huge number of mixes or tracks that often. 

Compared to other AI Mastering services we’ve reviewed recently, the subscriptions are quite expensive but offer a lot of value if you’re going to use the service regularly. 

How To Use Aria Mastering 

Once you have an account, either paying for an individual master or subscription, you go to the home screen and click to begin mastering.

You are taken to an upload file screen, where you upload your finished mix and begin the process. Whilst you wait for the upload, you can put the project title and artist name. 

Once it has been uploaded, you then have five mix options to choose to categorise your mix style. Moderate, loud (default level), louder, loud/safe, then extra dynamic.

As shown in the picture below, these all suit different tracks and mix styles and will affect how the master works for the track. 

There is an advanced mode available which allows you to tweak different mastering settings with knobs.

You can change the mix type, boost the high or low frequencies in the master, add more width to the final result and then finally increase or decrease the output of the track once it has been mastered. 

For instrumentals and other versions of the track, you can upload and edit these with an alt-versions editor which is pretty helpful. Once you have everything decided and uploaded, you can hear a preview for free or go straight into the final paid master. 

It’s worth noting that if you aren’t happy with the result, you can change the mix type up to five times to get a different sound with your track. 

Now we’ve given a brief explanation of how to use Aria Mastering, let’s check out the results we got from it ourselves! 

Rock Song Example

All of the tracks we used to test out LANDR are from the Cambridge MT website. We started with the hard rock song ‘Flames’ by The Black Crown, and we used ‘Goliath’ by Karnivool as a reference, as they have quite a similar sound production and mix-wise. 

Side note:

The unmastered tracks have been brought up in volume so you can tell the difference between the unmastered and mastered versions without having to turn up your volume!

Starting off, we decided to preview mix types B and C, as both could have worked quite well with this track. The mix was already quite well panned and didn’t feel like it needed any extreme adjustments in the low or high frequencies, so we left any further customisation turned off. 

With neither one sounding much different, if any different at all, we picked mix type C and waited for the finished master. The master took around 7 minutes, a lot longer than most services which usually take between 2-3. 

Listening to the master, immediately apparent is the compression and equalisation, which have glued together the mix to a great standard and enhanced it by quite a noticeable amount.

There’s a noticeable yet pleasant air to the sound now, but it doesn’t sound tinny and the low end is still present. Annoyingly, there is not an option to volume match the mix and the master, so you’ll have to use your volume control accordingly!

The master is noticeably wider and quite a lot louder than the mix. We would personally say that this master could be pushed in volume perhaps too hard for some tastes, and because there isn’t a revision available without paying for another master this could be a problem if you didn’t want to pay extra to fine-tune it. 

For an allegedly analog mastering service, the “warm” feel of analog isn’t particularly audible, and the pushed and compressed sound of this master isn’t what we would personally want from a track like this.

With revisions available, we decided to go for mix type B to see if it would push the compression a bit less. 

With this change, this master was better than the first. The magical analog sound was still not present, but the positives of the first master remained whilst the compression and volume weren’t pushed quite as hard, resulting in a more pleasant listen. 

The quality of the master is surprisingly good, and a solid start to this review. But we wouldn’t say this master is the best result we can get and does not compare to the results you would get from a real engineer. Let’s move on to our RnB mastering example. 

RnB Song Example

For this master, we used ‘Bankroll’ by Tytillidie x Xollllinnnn, with ‘Don’t Tell ‘Em’ by Jeremih as the reference. The vocal balance is quite similar in both tracks, with a noticeable yet smooth high end that is typical for the RnB/Pop genre.  

We opted for mix type B in the end on this one and waited around 5 minutes for it to master. It seems that in general mix type B is preferable to C, as on this track again the loudness and compression were a bit too extreme for our ears. 

The balance on this master was impressive, the bass and sub of the track was brought out in the master without being too much or amateurish.

The air added on both the masters so far is very smooth, adding presence to the highs without making them uncomfortable. 

The loudness achieved without compromising dynamics or creating distortion is considerable, easily getting the masters to sound as loud as the reference tracks.

On both masters so far, the vocals feel very present without feeling separate from the instrumentation. 

Feeling quite happy with this result, we decided to not go for a revision and moved on to our dubstep track for mastering. 

Dubstep Song Example

For our third example, we used ‘Centauri B’ by Brennon Causey, with ‘Tears’ by Skrillex as our reference track.

The latest Skrillex album is a showcase of a truly great EDM/Dubstep mix and master, with incredibly precise low end, smooth mids and highs and loud but balanced bangers, it’s a no-brainer for a reference. 

Using mix type B for this one initially, we were pleased with the precise and controlled low-end, snappier drums and a good width on the master.

However, comparing it to the reference track, we felt that it was lacking in volume and compression overall. So, we thought we’d try mix type C again after reading online that some people had had some success using this setting on EDM tracks. 

This change did work for us, it made the track louder and increased the presence of the sub-bass, without making it feel too limited and compressed. 

While the results have been good so far, they haven’t been exceptional and of course, don’t come close to a real engineer. It’s easily one of the best AI mastering services out there though, even if it is expensive. 

Let’s move on to the final example! 

Pop Song Example

Our final master example will be ‘Never Let You Go’ by Brian C Cai Fei Hong, and our reference track will be ‘Closer’ by The Chainsmokers. With similar instrumentation and a bright, controlled, EDM-influenced pop sound this seemed to make sense as a reference choice. 

It seems to be a running theme in our AI Mastering reviews that this song gets the best results. The mids and highs in particular on this master feel very smooth and balanced, with the vocals taking the focus but with the arrangement glued around it. 

The loudness was hugely increased and compared well to the reference track and other tracks within the genre.

Even though the mix already felt quite wide, the master added that immersive feeling that mastering can bring to the stereo field. We didn’t want a revision on this one, so we were happy to call it quits with mix type B. 

Overall, Aria Mastering can give you good quality masters as we’ve heard with these four tracks.

However, they are nowhere near the special, personalised standard that you could achieve with a real engineer. Especially considering that Aria Mastering is one of the more expensive services out there. 

What Are Other People Saying About Aria Mastering?

There isn’t a Trustpilot page for Aria Mastering, so we’ve searched for some reviews and testimonials for this service to get an idea of how people feel about it.

On the Aria website, there are some glowing testimonials from industry professionals, calling it the best AI mastering service out there. It’s worth noting that most of them work with Colin Leonard though! 

Looking at forums such as Reddit and Gearspace notes while the mastering is sufficient and at a decent level, it doesn’t bring the analog magic and high standard that it claims to bring to your track. The same sentiment is shared on YouTube reviews of the service as well. 

Is Aria Mastering Worth It? 

Aria Mastering is pretty good. But like other AI Mastering services, however, it is not great. The masters are decent, but nothing truly special and certainly not like anything you would be getting with a good, real mastering engineer. 

The customization on offer with Aria Mastering is helpful but limited to around five options in each area, which again, compared to what you would have in real life falls quite short. The answer to this question in the end is maybe. 

Aria Mastering being worth it depends on your budget and situation. If you are mixing lots of tracks and want a cheap and decent way to master them, Aria could be a good option.

For an artist working on several tracks that make up an EP or two a year, a service such as LANDR would be better. It’s cheaper, gives you far more value for your money, and ultimately produces results with similar quality. 

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