Welcome to Sage Audio. Today we’re covering the top 9 mastering tips
But first, if you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at SageAudio.com
to receive a free mastered sample of it.
Know Everything about Your Plugins
This first one seems a bit obvious, but we often don’t know a lot of the changes
our plugins are making to a signal - the more we know what they’re doing, the more control we have
over our processing. For example, many emulators change the frequency response.
Even compressor plugins may alter the amplitude of our frequencies. It helps to know what behind
the scenes processing is happening to avoid redundant, conflicting or unwanted processing.
Let’s take a listen to some emulator plugins that affect the frequency response,
even when their settings are all at 0.
Match the Vocals’ Loudness
If you’re working on multiple tracks at once, like when mastering an EP or album, use clip gain
to match their loudnesses, based on the vocal’s loudness. Even though this doesn’t match their
LUFS, the vocal is often the forefront of the song and determines a listeners perceived loudness.
So even if the surrounding instrumentation doesn’t match, or the songs vary in style - match the
level of the vocal before mastering since it’s a great way to establish consistency.
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Utilize Various Compression Types
Various compressor types have very different characteristics with which you can achieve
different things - for example, a tube compressor has a slower attack
and release resulting long compression and a subsequently smoother sound. So if I wanted
my master to have a full sound I could use a tube compressor for my parallel compression.
Or say I want a very clean sound - I could use a digital compressor like the Pro-C 2
and select the mastering option - this creates virtually
no distortion so it’s great for a clean sounding master.
Oversampling is Important
I always talk about this topic, but I want to show it - first, I’m going to use a sine wave,
which is at 18000Hz. Then I’m going to reduce the sampling rate of my signal from 44.1,
to 22.05, to 11.025 and so on using a down-sampler.
Notice that as I reduce the sampling rate, the sine wave is reflected down the frequency
spectrum. When I lower the sampling rate, I lower the highest frequency a signal can occupy,
causing reflections and harmonics - know as aliasing distortion.
So in short use a compressor with oversampling to avoid this when mastering.
Don’t Ignore De-essing
One of the bigger mistakes you can make when mastering is to avoid de-essing - granted,
de-essing is typically used on vocals, but it has a place when mastering. If the track
has too much vocal sibilance, I’ll use a de-esser with oversampling to compress it.
Often, I’ll listen intently to the song to find specific points where
de-essing is needed, then for those sections only, I’ll automate the de-esser in. This way de-essing
only occurs when needed, and won’t affect unrelated sections.
Align Phase Before Processing
Before you begin mastering a track, realign the phase of the signal using Izotope RX. Use the
Phase module and select Suggest to measure the phase rotation of the audio file - then click
render to fix any misalignment; if we click Suggest again, we can see the new value.
This doesn’t change the amplitude of your track, nor does it alter anything about the
signal from a sonic perspective, but it will help your metering more accurately measure
signal peaks. As a result, your track will be less susceptible to clipping distortion.
Experiment with M/S Routing
Most engineers master a stereo file as a left and right signal, but try this if you want to
experiment; I’ll duplicate the master, then insert the MSED plugin by Voxengo
on both - mute the side on one and the mid on the other. Now my master is mid and side.
These two signals are identical to the original file, and they let me process my mid and side
signals separately. This will give you a lot more control over your stereo image,
and the overall timbre of your master.
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Know the Hz Response of Your Monitoring
Most monitors aren’t exactly flat; for example Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro Headphones
have some pretty drastic shifts in the high frequency range, making it
difficult to accurately determine how these frequencies will translate to other speakers.
Although this can’t be fixed entirely, it definitely helps to keep this in mind.
If I’m using headphones that I know boostr the high frequencies,
I’ll have to compensate accordingly.
If Compressing, Try RMS Detection
When compressing, we’ve gotten pretty used to top down or peak detected compression; however,
RMS or root-mean-square detection is a great way to achieve more natural sounding compression.
Instead of detect the signal from the peaks, it measures the average loudness,
and compresses when that level crosses the threshold.
Our ears do something very similar in that they compress loud sounds after they’ve
been loud for an extended period of time - not exactly at the peak of the soundwave.
If you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at SageAudio.com
to receive a free mastered sample of it.
Also, join and become a member for exclusive advanced videos,
future plugin presets, samples, MIDI packs, and more. Thank you so much for watching