How to MASTER

RyanTrapstar

New member
I want to learn to master a track by myself! No engineers whats the BEST way to master a track by yourself. I already got the mixing down
 
I always hear the best way to master is by buying equipment designed for mastering. Me I just use Pro Tools stock plugins something like this:



Mastering in Pro Tools (with stock plugins)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Mastering... Honestly if your mix is good. Then mastering should be no more than adding volume to the track most of the time. I know there is a lot of opinions on this. Some people throw a on tons of plugins and others have expensive hardware. I think Skrillex said something like "I only ever use Ozones Maximizer and Imager. Occasionally I'll use the exciter but that's about it" Of course that statement might not be able to be said about more analog recordings.
 
Like Mike Senior says in his incredible mixing book -

"Unless you have an absolute perfect mastering room, you should probably pay to do it."

And that's quite cheap nowadays since you can pay websites like Wavemod and LANDR to instantly master it for like five bucks or so.

Pass on the blunt next time and throw down your $5 to get your song mastered instantly online.

Or better yet, pay a mastering engineer who has a site for their service. Their's will always be better than the former but also costlier.

Don't waste time learning the art of mastering and saving up a lotttttt of $ when it's so cheap to get a quality product so quickly.

Just my 2 cents.
 
If you are mastering your own mix, then all you should add is the limiter. If it doesn't sound right after that, then go back to the mix and make the change there.
 
I never master my beats. I tried it but it usually only brings down my mix.
I don't even put a Limiter on my master. Takes out the life and dynamics of your music.
 
There is no 'one way' to master a track as each track needs to treated differently. Go on you tube, there's a bunch of mastering tutorials on there which should give you some insight into the dark arts of mastering. Don't waste your money on LANDR and other quick fix solutions. It needs to be done properly, by a real person.
 
I think Skrillex said something like "I only ever use Ozones Maximizer and Imager.

oh yeaaaa im also using Ozone Maximizer only on my master !! does it mean im pro??? yeaaa

hah just kidding...i agree with you that the mix of your song is more important than the master (becouse i think also that its only addinga volume and MAYBE a little beautify your sounds)
 
Like some people above said, mastering is something that goes beyond your own little studio. Big artists let their tracks master by a professional engineer with a professional studio, so that their song has a loudness and clearness on most of the systems where it gets playbacked, like car speakers or some cheap speakers.

In a case of a starting producer at home, you should spend a lot of time on mixing, the mastering phase should just be make your track louder and a little bit tweaking here and there.

If after a while you get more popularity and your songs are being played a lot, you should consider mastering by a professional engineer.

If I take myself as example. I can easly spend 10 hours on mixing but I never spend more then 30 min on ''mastering''. If I hear that something doesn't sound right, I go back to the project again and fix it there.

Don't mix mastering up with loudness.
 
Last edited:
Mastering is to some degree a process of balancing the mix to its listening landscape for an optimum overall impact, so that it comes out even better. You can do the mastering well yourself if you feed it a good mix setup. If what you have done in the recording and mixing process is well isolated, you can during mastering make adjustments that won't negatively impact on the sonic integrity. If you have a good set of reference mixes you have a good frame of reference for where your mix needs to be in order to have the potential to impact at the level of hit mixes.

During mastering you focus on certain things more than you do in mixing, you might put various environment filters on it to see how it translates on various configurations at various volumes. Then you discover certain properties of the mix that are not as obvious when you're in the creative mixing process. The dynamics of various frequency bands might be problematic, might need work before it translates well. All of that kind of critical listening, the referencing and optimization you can do yourself you do not need an advanced K-System to do so. What is important really is the musical sensitivity, that you are aware of the various musical dimensions and how your work impacts on them.
 
when u produce mix and master ur own tracks its wise too leave alone ur track for a couple of weeks after its mixed so ur ears are "fresh"
u can only hear something once for the first time!
after that ur ears will slowly adjust too the sound and thats never a good thing when mixing/mastering.
thats why most of the pro's hire a mastering engineer to have a couple of fresh ears listen too the mix
mastering a track shouldn't take so long compared to mixing aswell
maybe max 2 hours and a finishing touch a day later
also take notes of what the track is missing
when the mix is sounding very mono mess around with the mid/side section in ozone or whatever mastering plugin you use.
and always use the maximizer last in the chain of plugins you use.
 
It's more then just making it louder, you have to balance it sonically and add more umph to it. If you have to make dramatic changes to your master then you didn't mix it right
 
The better the mix, the less needs doing in the mastering stage. Always check your mixes in mono. Things can easily get drowned out when switching to mono.

You shouldn't be doing too much. As someone stated earlier, its bet to get someone else to master your own material because by the time it comes to that stage you've heard the track so many times, it sounds dull imo. A fresh set of ears can hear instantly what needs to be done.

My typical master chain will typically go:

Highpass filter (to shape the low end and roll off the real lows)
Compression to take a db or two off of the peaks (only if needed)
Multiband compression (if needed to help the bass gel)
Stereo width (I normally use the S1 from Waves, however I only use this if there isn't much width, i judge this by my ears and aid with meters)
midside eq (again only if needed, can be used as a replacement for the S1 if the track needs width)
Harmonic saturator (to help add depth, color, warmth)
Limiter (I aim to turn my track up till the loudest section RMS is sitting around 0dB in k14, the peaks of my track can fall wherever, as long as they are not clipping which is +14db in K14, however I'd normally aim for the peaks to be a few dB lower than this)

Most of mastering is just metering IMO. Check your phase correlation, stereo width & midside imaging, RMS & True Peaks meters. Learn to the K-System and when to use it. Don't squash your mix to aim for loudness, because you will lose punch. Loudness comes from dynamic range.

I recommend the Fab Filter Limiter, great for mastering in the box. Watch some videos on YouTube.

Mastering is just preparing the track for release and pressing

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask. I've studied Music Technology at college for two years in the UK. I'm going to University in September and would like to share the knowledge I have learnt so far.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's more then just making it louder, you have to balance it sonically and add more umph to it. If you have to make dramatic changes to your master then you didn't mix it right

not so sure about umph: most mastering engineers say the same thing "if I have to make dramatic changes then the mix needs to be redone." To me that means adding umph is not part of the process...

mossmade beatz sums it up nicely: mastering is about preparing a track/project for release: it is about preparing it for the distribution medium and adding important things like isrc's. It may involve subtle (less than +/-2dB boosts/cuts) eqing to correct minor problems, it may include multiband compression, it may include limiting. It may not require anything other than adding contextual data required to allow the distributed version to be tracked
 
The reason is because if you have to make dramatic changes during mastering there will be huge dips in the EQ.
 
I want to learn to master a track by myself! No engineers whats the BEST way to master a track by yourself. I already got the mixing down

Yeah, I want to learn how to heal myself with no doctors, and fix my car with no mechanics, maybe fly my own plain...
What's the best way to do that?

Maybe try mastering for 8 years...
 
Last edited:
Maybe try mastering for 8 years...

Aw well I couldn't resist :D

mastering-music-myths.jpg
 
Back
Top