Mastering: Rules of the Road

1. Consider the Consumer

This step requires that you first determine to whom or where you want to send your song and any formatting or other delivery requirements are involved.  On the MiJen Publishing website under “Resources”, you will find comparison charts detailing guidelines and information about on-demand music streaming services, online music stores, and music streaming service target volumes and loudness normalization.  You will need to know whether places like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, SoundCloud, or Pandora, to name a few, have the same or different formats, services, or capabilities.  For instance, most of these streaming services have recently embraced loudness measurement target levels (LUFSs) between -13 and -16LUFS, but the Audio Engineering Society has suggested the lower level of -16LUFS.  The fact that there may be variations and differences between the master levels produced by producers and those used by streaming services makes it even more important to understand the mastering and digital content delivery requirements of the consumer.

2. Use Reference Tracks for Comparison to the Type of Music Created

Make it a goal to find lossless wav files that have the quality of sound, spectral frequencies, voicing and instrumentation, widening, dynamics, etc. that is similar to yours.  Some DAWs and post-production software, for example FL Studio 20, Izotope and Waves allows importing one or more music tracks for analysis and comparison when recording, mixing, and mastering your song. You will want to use good reference tracks to verify that what you have created and mastered is as good or competitive with tracks you hear on the radio and other commercial platforms.  If possible, try not to use .AAC or .MP3 files for your reference tracks, due to loss of quality when compared to .WAV files.

3. Don’t Buy Every Plug-in You See or Hear about

Whether you have your own home studio or a professional studio, don’t get in the habit of buying any and all the types of plug-ins available or incessantly advertised and discounted for purchase.  There are many plug-ins available from equalizers to limiters, compressors to exciters, samples to boosters.  This proclivity to buy and stock up on the latest and greatest, and discounted music software and plug-ins is known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS).  It is best to try and work with the tools originally provided by the DAW, before investing your good, hard-earned money to get a better sound that can be achieved with judicious use of equalization, compression, and limiting.

4. Know the Purpose and Use of Mastering Tools

It is valuable to understand the purpose and reason why and how to use the basic tools used in mastering.  Do you know why and understand what conditions you should use equalization, compression, or limiting?  If not learn them, and practice using them in different ways.  Before you start mixing, try to make a track that sounds awesome without EQ, compression, and all of your plug-in toys. When recording try to get the best sound you can without doing any mixing, or the mixing phase, so you will be more in the mode of making a great sound rather than in the mode of fixing a bad recording. 

5. Eliminate the Room

Understand that the sound you can obtain in a home studio vs. a professional recording studio may be entirely different.  This is due to a number of reasons, such as room acoustics and treatment, sound engineering and mastering skill levels, and the type of equipment at your disposal to accomplish the job. Even expert engineers will have issues and difficulty recording in a room that is not well-designed and acoustically sound. Try to do everything you can to take the room itself out of the equation.  This may be done by conducting a room analysis, spectral analyzers, use and placement of microphones (i.e., cardioid), sound monitoring techniques, use of amp simulators, etc.

6. Match the Levels of Original and Reference Tracks

To perform this task:

a. On separate track, paste or import an unprocessed copy of your mix.

b. Route both the unprocessed mix and your master tracks to an auxillary channel.

c. On auxillary channel, use a loudness meter to compare the level of your unprocessed mix with the level of your master.

d. Adjust level of the master to match the level of the unprocessed mix.

e. Be careful not to boost the level of the mix past the 0 dB in order to avoid distorting the sound.

f. As you compare the sound of the master to the sound of the mix, assess whether the level adjustments you have made improve or worsen the mix.

g. Listen for differences in the dynamic range, and either reduce compression or limiting.

h. Perform the same steps, but this replace the unprocessed copy of your mix with the reference track.

i. Use EQ adjustments, in addition to subtle changes of compression and limiting to improve the sound of the master.

7. Determine the Mix Quality By Using Different Listening Environments

To determine whether you have good mix or not, monitor the mix using different sound sources (such as studio monitors, computer and laptop speakers, car speakers, earbuds, low and hi-grade headphones, etc.  Your mix sound sound good with clarity, and acceptable on each of these sources. When monitoring, ensure that you listen using a consistent level that is not too loud, but comfortable to the ears, usually not exceeding 80-85 dB.  Once you have established a comfortable level of loudness, try listening using these same sound sources at a quieter sound level for a loudness comparison.

8. Be Aware of Auditory Fatigue

After several periods of listening, the ears experience fatigue.  You may notice a difference in the sound after ten minutes, a few hours or a day later, and catch a flaw in the mix that you had not noticed before.  If you have someone available, it may be a good practice to have the mix evaluated and listened to by another engineer, or knowledgeable person. In general, assessing the quality of your mix or master is an iterative process of checks and balances, until you feel that your mix and master is competitive on a commercial level.

9. Finalize Your Master

This step depends on the concerns mentioned in Step 1, but also involves the creation of stereo mixes, final rendering and exporting of stems and sound files.  While there are many digital formats required for streaming or online music stores, the majority of them utilize 44.1 kHz, 16-bit, stereo WAV files. The MP3 file format is also popular, but less preferred to the loss of sound quality.  Consider using the triangular dithering method, or the MBIT+ algorithm in Izotope Ozone, if you have it, as opposed to other shapes like rectangular, Gaussian, etc.

10. Prepare Digital Content Delivery

This step is also related to Step 1, but is the actual process of media conversions in the appropriate digital delivery format. Most DAWS provide a means of converting your song tracks or master to one or more of the acceptable digital formats (.WAV, MP3, AIFF, or WMA) used by online streaming services or other entities using or promoting your intellectual property.  In order to have the various types needed for radio broadcast, streaming, promotion and distribution, and the different web browers, I use Adobe Media Encoder to render over nine different digital formats. By doing this, I am ready to send any digital format required for any of my songs.  Adobe Audition CC is another DAW that will provide various digital formats also.  What you use, verify the acceptable digital format requirements required.  As mentioned in Step 9, the majority of streaming or online music stores utilize 44.1 kHz, 16-bit, stereo WAV files. However, some require alternate digital formats, such as .FLAC, .ogg, 3gp, or aac.

General Conclusions

The best advice that I can give you for the mastering process in order to create songs and masters that a competitive and acceptable is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. While this may seem obvious, you must be ready to handle any sound requirements, use mixing and mastering tools with efficiency, know your audience and market, and produce mixes and master that are the best they can be.  We have only touched on some of the basic things you need to know to produce and deliver quality mixes and masters. The Resources section of the MiJen Publishing website https://mijenpublishing.com/mjp_resources1.html provides links to leads, tips, and guidance that can keep your music and career goals on the right track.