How To Master Your Song At Home.
Mastering.
Most people see mastering to as making a song just louder.
It’s SIMPLE. It’s not easy, mind you. It takes good ears and a lot
of practice. But it’s SIMPLE.
In this article you are going to learn why you should master your songs and how to master your songs at home.
What is Mastering?
Audio Mastering is the final step of the mixing process. It’s
what happens to a song before it gets released to the world.
Mastering a song is simple using tools like compressors,EQ,saturation and limiting to Achieve these things;
1*Making the song louder,not just in volume,but in perceived volume.
2*make it sound better.
3*to make the track translatable in different speakers.
The point is making it sound like other professional songs in the market,streaming platforms.So that when its being heard,it doest sound out of place.
Mastering is all about getting a second opinion.
If you have been mixing a song, you no longer have objectivity.
You’ve heard every second of that mix over and over again.
Realizing where the problem areas are is ten times more
difficult for you!
Mastering is a very special step with its own difficulties, so
certain began to specialize in these techniques.
These mastering engineers were able to get better results than
anyone else.
But here’s the REAL reason mastering engineers exist:
To give you a set of fresh ears.
Think of it like getting a second opinion after you’ve gone to the
doctor.
These pros have a new room.
A new set of .
And ultimately, a new opinion.
Because mastering engineers have not heard your music before,
they can catch the mistakes you’ve made over hours and hours
of mixing. They can make your song sound even better than it
did before.
Learning how to master a song is important, because it changes
how you mix. Ultimately, you want to mix with the master in
mind. If need be, you wouldn’t want to not have to master the
song at all.
But hiring a professional gives you what hours of practice
cannot: objectivity. That’s why I recommend hiring one to work
on your mixes.
If cost or time is an issue for you, though, then I’d recommend
trying an automated mastering service like or .
These are just algorithms that can analyze your song and
optimize it to sound like a standard released track, so they’re
not perfect.
How to Master Music.
now you know what audio mastering is,now let know how to do it.
Step 1: Optimize Your Listening Space
Mastering is a subtle art. Extremely small moves can change
how your entire mix sounds.
Because of this, you want to make sure your listening space is as
accurate as possible.
Let’s think of it this way. If you were to master your song
PERFECTLY – with perfect balance, loudness, and excitement –
but your room is poorly tuned, it doesn’t matter!
Your song might sound amazing in your space, but it will fall
apart everywhere else.
If, for instance, your room has extra bass build up, then your
low end will seem louder than it actually is. So if you get your
low end to balance perfectly in your room, what’s it going to
sound like everywhere else?
Thin. Lifeless.
Am sure you don't want that.
Now, there’s a few things you can do to fix this. First of all, you
can properly treat your mixing room with acoustic panels. I
cover how to do this in my
If you don’t want to spend the time or money to treat your room,
you can also just take the room out of the equation by using
headphones.
I recommend the It’s also worth using a
headphone compensation software like
and . These help to balance your headphones and
make it sound like you are in a real room, and less like you are
in a vacuum.
Step 2: Finish Your Mix (to Sound Mastered).
This is self-explanatory. Make sure you finish the mix first!
Mastering is the last step of the mixing process for a reason.
Make sure you’re not trying to do both at the same time.
One important thing to do is to mix your song to sound
mastered. While this doesn’t mean to literally attempt to master
your song while mixing, i
, it does mean you want to adequately
prepare your mix for the master.
You want it to sound balanced in most systems, dynamically
consistent, and exciting.
Rather than expecting the mastering engineer to make your mix
sound more “stereo”, do it yourself with panning.
Rather than expecting the mastering engineer to make your mix
more energetic, do it yourself with saturation.
Of course, you don’t want to overdo anything. You still want the
mix to sound as professional as possible. But the rule of thumb
is this:
You want the mastering engineer to have to do very little!
Step 3: Check the Levels.
Before you bounce (export) your mix, you want to make sure that
nothing is clipping. Digital distortion can often be quiet when
you are mixing, but during the mastering stage all of the little
imperfections in your mixes become very obvious.
Make sure you have on ALL of your faders. Any
channel, buss, or send needs to stay out of the red.
This is something you'll love to do before mastering,gain staging all your tracks to make sure nothing at all is clipping.
You'll want the loudest part of your track to peaking -4db to -6db of stereo output.
Step 4: Bounce Down Your Stereo Track.
Next step is very simple. Just bounce down your stereo track as
its own file.
Make sure to keep your project settings exactly the same when
exporting. If you recorded in 24 bit, bounce the file at 24 bits. If
you recorded at a resolution of 48kHz, bounce your file at
48kHz. So on and so forth.
A few more things:
Make sure you are bouncing the file in your preferred lossless
format. DO NOT export the song as an MP3! That’ll be done
after the mastering. Export it as a wav or an aiff file.
Also, if your DAW has a “normalize” option when bouncing,
make sure to not use it. Normalizing is essentially a crude way
to make your track louder. We’re going to do that during
mastering ourselves. No need to jump the gun.
Step 5: Take a Break (of at LEAST One Day).
Make sure to give your ears a break!
Mastering is a game of small, subtle changes, so you want your
ears to be fresh before starting.
Even more importantly, you want your mind to be fresh.
If you’ve been working on the mix for hours (or days), then
there’s no way you can be impartial while mastering.
Take a day break at a minimum. Preferably, take several days. A
week. A month, even!
The longer amount of time between you mixing and you
mastering, the more objective you can be (and the better your
masters will be!)
Step 6: Create a New Project and Import Your
References.
Open up a new project and import your mix into it. Then import
your references on a track beneath it.
I’m going to take this opportunity to get on my soapbox and
preach for a second. Reference tracks are one of the biggest
secrets to a successful mix and a successful master.
You need something to compare to while you’re doing your
work. Otherwise you might be making mix moves that sound
great in a vacuum, but fall apart when compared to other mixes
in the real world.
Having professionally mixed music to listen to every so often
while you work will keep you focused and making the best
decisions for the song.
Step 7: Listen for The First Time (and Take
Notes).
Alright, we’re finally going to get started!
First things first: you need to listen to your track.If you gave yourself enough time, it’s been a few days since
you’ve heard your mix. You’re coming at it with fresh ears.
This will be the most honest you will be with yourself. You’ll
hear 80% of the problems in this first listen.
Make sure to keep a notepad by you, or open up a text doc on
your computer. Take notes as you listen. These notes will
become the basis of your moves while mastering.
Does the high end sound too brittle? Too dull?
Does the vocal stick out? Is it buried?
Does the track sound muddy? Does it sound too boring?
Write all this stuff down. You only get one first listen. Make it
count!
Step 8: Make a Full Analysis.
Now it’s time to pull out all the stops
Listen through the track a few times. Write down what you hear.
Listen to your references, then listen to your track. Write down
what you don’t hear (or what you hear too much of).
Listen on your other speakers. Listen in your headphones. Write
down what you hear.
Listen on your iPhone. Listen in your car. Write down what you
hear.
The point of this is to have an accurate image of what your
song CURRENTLY sounds like and what it NEEDS to sound like.
That way you can make intentional mastering decisions, rather
than just using your tools at random.
Now, let’s talk about your references.
There’s a few things you can do (other than use your ears) to
use these to their highest potential.
One important thing to note: make sure you match their volume
to the volume of your mix. Otherwise, your ear is going to hear
differences that just aren’t there.
Loudness affects the way we hear sound. As we turn music up,
our brains interpret that sound as having more bass and more
treble.
So if your reference tracks are too loud or too soft, your masters
won’t be balanced!
Step 9: Control the Dynamics.
Now, you’ve prepped enough. Time to get to work!
The first thing to do is to add some compression. We want to
make sure that the dynamics of the entire track are being
controlled.
You want the song to feel “glued” together.
Here’s how you set up your mixbus compression:
*set the ratio to 3:1
*lower the threshold until you are getting about 10db gain reduction
*set your attack time very slow(100ms)
*set your release time very fast (5ms)
*decrease the attack until you hear the transient of the sound become dull and lifeless,then back it off a little.
You don’t want that much compression at all. 1-2dBs of gain
reduction is plenty. You shouldn’t go any higher than 3dB.
This is getting applied to the entire track, so a little goes a long
way.
Air on the side of caution with your attack time. Too fast, and
you could make the entire song sound dull. Start your attack
around 10ms, and tweak it from there. If it’s a faster song, move
it up a tad. If it’s slower, move it down.
For your release time, use your auto-release function if you have
it. That will most likely produce the most natural sound. If you
don’t have that ability, start your release time around 150ms
and tweak from there.
The game here is subtlety. Small moves make more difference
here than they do in a mix.
Use your ears! If things start sounding too dull or too
aggressive, you’ve gone too far.
Step 10: Fix the Tone.
The next step is to get the tone of your song balanced with your
references.
Your primary tool is going to be EQ . Make sure to use a linear
EQ if your DAW has one. These are EQs that are made primarily
for affecting multiple instruments at once. They’re extra “clean”,
and they’re perfect for mastering in the box.
Go back to your notes. What did you write down that needed to
be fixed? More top end? More low end? Less mud?
Use your linear EQ to shape the tone of the song to solve those
problems.
With mastering, you want to use wide cuts and boosts . During
mixing, narrow cuts tend to be more common. But that goes out
the door when it’s applied to the entire song.
Try not to boost/cut more than 3dB. Your moves while
mastering need to be subtle. Massive changes will change the
very foundation of your mix.
Sometimes a slight High Pass Filter can be good, if you are
feeling too much sub-bass energy in the song. I would caution
against using a Low Pass Filter, however. That could make the
song sound muffled and dull.
Our other main tool for this step is multiband compression.
Let’s say that after you finish your EQing, the verses are
perfectly balanced. But the chorus still has too much low end
thump, and it overpowers the vocals.
If you were to simply cut more of the bass using your EQ, that
would fix the problem in the chorus, but your verses would
suffer.
Enter multiband compression. Basically, it has the ability to
compress only a specific frequency range, rather than
compressing the entire track. When you’re trying to fix tones
that are inconsistent throughout the song, this tool is for you.
A multiband compressor works the same way as a regular
compressor. You still have your threshold, ratio, attack, release,
and makeup gain. Nothing is different.
You just have to set the range of frequencies you want it to act
on.
If I was trying to fix an inconsistent low end for example, I
would set my range for 20Hz-150Hz and shoot for 2-3dBs of
gain reduction. You don’t need too much, because you want it to
just be applied to the inconsistent parts, not the entire song.
A few words of warning regarding multiband compression:you don't want to use make up gain when using multi band compression.
Step 11: Enhance the Mix.
Now that we’ve balanced the song dynamically and tonally, we
can add a few enhancements.
Before we get started: These are OPTIONAL. If you mix doesn’t
call for it, don’t use it. Always a good rule of thumb.
The first enhancement you could use is saturation. This could be
a saturation plugin, a tape emulation, or an exciter. They’re all
variations of the same concept.
Saturation can be used to add a little “color” to the mix. It
makes the mix feel a little fuller, a little more intense, a little
more exciting. It’s great if your mix is still feeling a little thin or
underwhelming.
It can easily do more harm than good, though. Oversaturating
your mix will add distortion and take away some of the nuance
and dynamics of the mix. It can potentially make the mix sound
flatter.
So don’t add it unless you need it. As with all of these: a little
goes a long way!
Another enhancement option is stereo widening. This tool helps
the song to sound wider and more separated than before.
It’s great for when the mix sounds clustered or close together.
Stereo widening can help spread sounds apart, or it can make
the mix sound “larger than life.”
HOWEVER, it can also introduce phase issues into the mix,
which means that every time the song was played in , it
would sound even worse than before.
So to repeat: So don’t add it unless you need it. A little goes a
long way!
Finally, volume automation can help to increase the impact of
certain sections of the song. For example, you could automate
the volume of the song to where the final chorus sat at 0dB, but
the rest of the song was at -1dB.
Small increases and decreases in volume are fairly obvious in
mastering, so don’t do more than 2dBs of automation. Make
sure to tweak the slope as well. You want the increase to sound
natural, not abrupt.
Step 12: Limit It.
This is one of the most important steps to mastering. Limiting
is the process of making the mix louder – as loud as everything
you hear on the radio.
We mentioned earlier how important volume is to a mix. The
quieter a song is, the duller and thinner it sounds to our ears. So
we want to make sure that our song is the same volume as
others in the genre.
Now, if you were to just turn the volume of a mix up, you would
cause it to clip. You’d be getting more volume, but you wouldn’t
be getting more “perceived volume,” which is when the song
feels louder to the ear than it actually is. You’d also be causing
distortion, which will make the song sound worse!
Limiting your mix brings the volume of the track up while also
creating more perceived volume. It’s the best way to set your
song to industry loudness levels.
A is essentially a simple compressor. But rather than
having a regular ratio (like 2:1 or 3:1), it has what we call a
“brick wall” ratio – ∞:1.
This means that NO amount of sound goes above the set
threshold. 100% of it gets turned down. So no clipping.
Here’s how you set up your limiter:
*add the limiter as the last plugin in your chain.
*set the output ceiling at -0.5dbfs.
**set your attack very slow (100ms)
*set your release very slow (500ms)
*Decrease the attack until you hear the mix start to lose impact,then back off
*decrease the release until you hear the mix start to distort,then back off.You could also use the auto if your compressor has.
*Decrease your input gain until you're getting 2-3db of gain reduction.
We are wanting our track to sit around 0dB, so the first thing to
do is to set your output level (the limiter version of a threshold)
around there. Specifically, you want to set it between -0.3dB and
-0.8 dB. That will make sure that it doesn’t clip in speakers that
have a bit of a gain boost built into their circuits.
After that, you want to turn the gain of the song up until you are
getting 2 – 3dB of gain reduction. If you are using a stock
limiter, don’t go any higher than that, because it can create
some nasty artifacts. If you are using a quality third-party
limiter, you can go a little higher to 4 – 5dBs of gain reduction.
The gain knob is increasing the actual volume, but the brickwall
limiting is increasing the perceived loudness. So your track is
loud, but it feels even louder.
Step 13: Make Your Final Checks.
Congrats! You’re nearly there. Now it’s time to make any final
checks.
Personally, I use Dynameter to check the track still has a high
dynamic range.
Other people like to use a LUFS meter to check the final
loudness level.
If you don’t have any specific plugins for these purposes, skip
this step. At this point in time, you’ve already done everything in
your power to ensure that this is a great master.
Step 14: Bounce It (at 16 bits and 44.1kHz).
This is it. The master is done, and you’re about to release it to
the world!
The final step is to bounce (export) the song in a file that will be
compatible with all types of playback systems.
First things first: Select for the track to be bounced as both a
lossless file and a .mp3 file. You can pick whatever lossless
type you prefer – .wav, .aiff, .caf.
Then you’ll want to make sure the track is bouncing at
resolution of 16 bits and a sample rate of 44.1kHz. These are
the standards for audio.
One very important detail: make sure to dither your track before
you bounce. Without getting into the science, dithering helps to
prevent extra distortion from happening when you are bouncing
your track at a different resolution. Without it, your hard work
would go to waste.
Your DAW will most likely have different dithering options. I
recommend using the pow-r 2 setting.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to only dither your audio file once! You
can cause audible noise if you dither multiple times.
Finally, if there is any “normalizing” function in your DAWs
bounce window, DON’T use it. Normalizing is essentially a crude
way to make your track louder. You don’t need it once you’ve
mastered your song.
Hit that OK button, and you are done mastering!
