Mastering is probably the most overlooked step in production, yet sometimes the most important. Mastering can be easy and repetitive once you have perfected the skill. Mastering should (in my opinion) always be done by someone other than the mixing engineer. A fresh pair of ears can hear the song in a different light and maybe catch some thing the mixer may have overlooked.In the following tutorial I’ll show you how to master your songs and get a perfectly loud track that is acceptable to the human population before you send off the demo or post your mix to the internet. Let’s face it. No one want to listen to something thats really quiet. We want it loud and in our faces! With that said, this tutorial is by no mean a way to get a super high quality master. This tutorial is meant for the time you need a quick master before uploading your music to the internet or sending a mixtape off to labels.
Some key things to remember before the mastering stage:
- Make sure you gain staged your mix correctly, you should have a good amount of head room on your master output. The mix should be sitting between -6dB and -12dB at it’s loudest moments). Never peak higher than -3dB.
- If you were to take a mix that peaks around -6dB, you’d find the song is quiet in comparison to other finished music. To fix this, let’s get to mastering!