1- Cuestion, most of this plugins works in more than 24 BITS, so, in spite of being working in a 16 bits file, isn´t it necessesary to apply dithering process at the end of the chain, or in the bounce settings?
2- Has logic the posibility to insert in the master track a plug. in post-fader to do the dither?
thank u

Sorry, It forgets to me to congratulate you for your articles.

Hi Marcus… If your file was originally recorded / bounced your pre-master at 16 bits, you should work in 16 bits in your final mastering project. You will gain nothing from up-sampling to 24 bits in this situation as technically you would have to dither it or up-sample, then re-dither down to 16 bits for the final pass… and ideally we should only dither once in any production. It is true however that mastering plugs (and any processors) work better in 24 bit so try to bounce, or ideally record, in 24 bits initially.

Also Logic has no native dithering plug-in, although there are third part options from companies like waves and izotope etc. Logic simply deals with the dithering process in the export window, so really just a different way of doing the same thing. Cubase offers a dithering plug-in from Apogee, so if you really prefer this method you could try mastering using Cubase instead?

hope this helps.

Very nice set of quick tips here.

If i could add anything, one tip i read in computer music’s techno special was: instead of setting one limiter at high values, they used two limiters in a row set with lower volume boosts. the reasoning is that by chaining two together it helps get around the distortion that one by itself would cause if you raise the levels too much.

DJs tend to like loud masters cause it helps tuck the tracks into a set. and listeners like loud masters because every other engineer on their iPod has ruined dynamics in music(lol)!

stereo imaging – i dont play with it too much but if you freak out on it, make sure you check your mix in mono after to make sure you didn’t destroy it. that’s a type of “backwards compatibility” i guess?

thanks mo

Hmmmm… This article has serious pitfalls.

1. it in no way explains why we “master” music.

2. There is way too much compression. Sounds overdriven and clipping. If you need to compress so much maybe you need to go back and listen to your mix.

When you create your pre-master you should be aiming to use all of the available headroom, but have absolutely no clipping occurring. Unused headroom is the same as unused resolution / bit depth. Why work in 24bit if you arent going to use them all at this point in your process.

Listen to your mixing at 80 – 85db SPL . One early mix engineer I assisted taught me that “everything sounds good loud. Try making it sound good when its quiet is a true test of mixing skills and when you turn that quiet mix up loud you will truly be impressed.

In the article the author claims. “Of course, clipping isn’t as critical as it used to be in analogue systems, but it remains good working practice to avoid huge overloads if at all possible. ”
Of course, you are 100% wrong. In the analog world there was head room above zero dBu and often times was used to the advantage of recording engineers for a desired “Tape Compression” effect. In the digital world there is nothing above zero and clipping will never sound good. Unless you using it as an effect (beck)

Before following this mastering process try to understand how and when to use compression.
Number one thing to keep in mind… compression ratios are exponential.
So if in one pass you compress at 3:1 and in the next pass you compress at 2:1 your total compression ratio is 3 to the power of 2 (or 3×3=9) 9:1 is pretty stiff ratio’s and if you need that much compression you might need to fix it in the mix stage instead of mastering, now spanking it with a brick wall really sums it up to include nearly zero dynamic range.

Realize one thing… that loud isnt loud until you have quiet to reference from. Some passages in music and movies and occasionally television are designed to have intensely quiet portions that lead up to a big powerful explosion or crescendo or dynamic item that just dosent sound so big when everything else is compressed , already clipping or just below zero.

Great starting points to understand what dynamic range is and why you should embrace it are these two links.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

If you are always listening music at 11, then eventually 11 isnt loud enough.

@Marcus
@Mo

I just wanted to clear a few things up. If your recorded material and premaster are at 16 bit, it will benefit you to convert your premaster to 24 bits before you master/process it. Dither should only we applied when shortening word lengths (ie. 24 down to 16 bit), but you do not need to add dither when increasing word lengths. If your premaster is at 16 bits, it is okay to convert it to 24 bit for the mastering process. This way, all calculations and DSP you apply to your track are in the 24 bit domain, higher resolution, than working with a 16 bit file. Then when you are finished and want to export your master for CD, you can apply dither and export to 16 bits.

You are right about only dithering once though. Dithering should be a one time final process in the mastering chain.

no matter what the source file is, the plugins are processing at 24b or 32b float, so you should always be dithering if you are mixing down to 16b.

@ Stephen…

My apologies your quite right there is no need to dither when moving to a higher sample rate (late night post from me there , only a conversion is needed. however a lot of DAWs will do this automatically if your project is set to 24 bit recording and therefore your mastering plug-ins will be working at 24 bit.

i would still suggest working/recording at 24 bit to gain the full advantages of this higher resolution, rather than simply up sampling. This of course if personal preference as the standard amongst many seems to be 24bit/44.1khz this is most likely not of great importance.

the critical point here being, that dithering should be a one time process and preferably after your mastering processors are applied.

Hi Mo,

many compliments for your good write, it’s very interesting.
I use a different technic, i use to master my tracks while i’m mixing them using a buss compressor and a limiter (usually waves L2) on master buss.
what do you think about?

@ Lys… yep the technique shown here is arguably more of a traditional method… its perfectly acceptable to compose with your mastering processors active, i know a lot of producer personally that do this for their releases.

the only obstacle you may come up against when using your technique is that when asked for a dry mix by a mastering engineer or label the mix can sound completely different when the mastering plugs are removed. This can result in a lot of work getting things into shape.

this actually happened on one of my recent singles and the producer/remixer in question had to spend a long time getting things right for the label.

but you can definitely get a great sound working in this way, no doubt.

Hi!
Thanx for the tute and thanx for the comments here. It’s very precious for me. I have a question. I make music enirely inside my computer using only VSTs. Is it possible to prepare the mix and then begin with the mastering right on the track? It’s quite easy to turn off the mastering chain when I need to change anything in the mix backwards. Is there any reason to bounce the track before the mastering process? Thanx for the reply
Stepaan

@ Stepaan… Its mainly a technique for maintaining good workflow but an upside of this route is that you preserve CPU headroom whilst working on your mix.

You will also have an untreated 24 bit version of your track if you ever need it for submission to a label etc or wish to remaster your track.

but of course as with many areas in mastering this is personal preference and you should employ the method you feel most comfortable with. This article is really just a quick guide and briefly covers one possible method for achieving a demo quality product… hope this helps

Good Tut.

However I would always want to master any piece of anything outside the box.
Personally being ITB the whole way through really sounds shrill in my professional opinion. Using outboard would be the way to go for real mastering. To get the rich depth of sound its important to use stuff that’s not computer based. Real tube or solid state compressors or at minimum a real compressor like a (avalon 747) across the stereo bus brings everything together nicely.

@ Christopher
You’re certainly right, but not everyone owns high end analog outboard gear (and I guess you’re not talking cheap stuff here only to have something analog in it). Everybody’s free to replace any element of the chain with some outboard piece.

Compliments, however, for the whole AUDIOTUTS site and to you guys who share their stuff here. Much appreciated!

Hi, could you give me an advice to especially master deep house. i used this tutorial and like it, don’t know how to compress so that the colour and the sound doesn’t change much. deep house is much about mixing, my problem is that i.e. the hihat gets to loud and to cutting and the smoothness of my synth is lost or getting harder? would appreciate any advice.

I’ve got to agree with Kyle – you’re recommending three stages of compression on the master, and it shows in your mastered track. The compression is clearly audible, and the dynamics aren’t present at all. Your unmastered track is actually a lot more pleasant/less fatiguing to listen to. The fact that you used such broad EQing combined with multiband compression on the master also indicates a lot of issues you should clear up in the mix before dealing with the mastering phase. And the bit about clipping no longer being critical….absolutely untrue. A lot of engineers have taken advantage of the pleasant artifacts that can result from pushing past zero in the analog world. In digital, there’s absolutely no room for clipping, and any spikes above zero have a decidedly unpleasant effect. Educate yourself a bit more before trying to educate others about audio production – articles like these aren’t helpful in raising the bar for audio production, they’re part of the problem.

Good information, I never can get this right. Thanks

So i have an apple and it has garage band
We used Acid pro 6 and a small mixer to record the the guitar
and we used garage band for the vocals
I still don’t know how you would even start to mix it to make everything sound good
or sound better it sounds good but it doesnt sound proffesional at all
and i don’t think there is a mixer on garage band.

Brent: You should probably look at getting an Mbox, some decent microphones and some room treatment (egg cartons, anyone?) at a minimum. I wouldn’t go as far as saying this will enable you to sound professional, but it’ll sure pick up the quality. Also, 50% of a professional sound comes from skill and know-how – study up on micing, recording and mixing techniques, while your audio equipment savings account accrues interest.

@ Joel

Egg cartons/egg foam are terrible room treatment. They WILL reduce high end energy that would usually take the form of reflections but do NOTHING to control low end frequencies, still leaving you with the same standing waves and nodes that were there before treatment. Depending on the listening position in a room treated this way, the low end would probably not translate outside the room and be either bass heavy (node in the listening position, causing the mixer to have add too much low end) or bass light (standing wave in the listening position, causing the mixer to back off low end). The only way even out a room is with a combination of high end absorption/diffusion (acoustic treatments on wall/ceiling surface areas that would normally reflect high end audio toward the listening position) and bass traps (usually large-ish blocks of covered insulation at corners like wall/ceiling and wall/floor, often on the floor behind your monitors, and sometimes at the back of the room. In well-designed studios they are often built into the walls and ceilings so they are not in the way/more aesthetically pleasing).

And I’m not just trying to snipe or be a know-it-all, because if people are “mastering” in a poorly treated room, they are EQ’ing in response to a combination of the music and the sound of the room. If their listening position has a big node at 100 Hz, they are going to push that during “mastering” and end up with a muddy mix. This is especially important if you are “mastering” in the same room you mixed in, because you will be reacting the same way to the sound of the room twice… if wall reflections are causing 3KHz to be quieter in the listening position, the mixer will compensate for this when mixing and possibly AGAIN when “mastering”, possibly making the mix harsh.

Point is, people should be careful when doing their own “mastering”. Too many recordings these days, even “professional” releases, have been victims of overly loud “mastering” inducing distortion or strange EQ’s due to “mastering” in poorly treated rooms.

The techniques described in this article are the basic steps to mastering, but beginners should know that louder is not necessarily better and to really learn to listen to what best fits the music.

AC, I do agree, and I thought I had made the comment in a fairly sarcastic way in response to all those people who actually recommend egg cartons—perhaps I should make it more obvious next time. That said, rooms in an ordinary home are often so bad that egg cartons are a marginal improvement. Me, I just prefer to go into a studio somebody else has built—a good acoustic treatment costs in arms and legs!

Ah yes, internet sarcasm, I get it now! We really need some sarcasm html tags…

I’m going to solve all your room problems….. Make multiple burns/copies and check them on every system you can get your hands on, and then when it sounds good across the whole field then you have it, your final master that’s already been tested through many different environments. Could be costly as far as burning all those CDs but the rewards make it well worth it. So, in all actuality your room you mix/master in means absolutely squat. Just my 2 cents…;)

Oh and also, don’t be afraid to ask for a 2nd opinion on your masters/mixes. Too many people now days think that they have the best blah, blah, blah… What we really need is more people open to constructive criticism and keeping our ego’s in check. However, take into consideration when someone’s opinion could be very wrong. I guess all and all, just be careful to whose constructive criticism you take and open to it as well.

Bus Compression should only be used across the mix bus if you are mixing though it. Otherwise it will unnecessarily squash your music and mess up your mix. Not a good idea to strap on a compressor if you haven’t mixed through it first.

Also, Logic’s Multimeter is your friend and the Goniometer will give you a better idea of stereo width, something with Logic’s spreader leaves to guesswork. Just a few tips, but otherwise a useful article for beginners.

Multiband compression is also something that has to be used very sparingly if your after a clean ad dynamic mix…

@ deepy

Email me with some samples of your music ( ca AT codeaffinity dot co dot uk ) and I’ll give you some tips on mastering deep house. Too tricky to give general comments as each piece has it’s own way to solve it..

Thanks for this. Comes in handy, no doubt!

I just ‘mastered’ my first single yesterday (you can check it out here http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6881767 /shameless plug) and from that experience, and from recording for about a year and a half, I can say that I disagree with a lot of this information.

First off, as others poitned out, you cannot digitally clip. Analog overdrive can sound good, but not digital. Ewww. My question is what made you actually think/believe this?

Secondly, yeah, a lot of compression. Slow attack and slow release? While mastering the song yesterday, I tried that, but I got a terrible pumping sound (you can actually hear the compressor turning on and off) it was pretty bad. And multi-band compressors? In most cases, they sound terrible. If you need to be surgical like that, fix it in the mix.

I do agree with the hi-pass filter, VERY useful at all stages of the recording process. However, not sure what you meant by the stereo widening plug. The mixing engineer should have set the panning levels to what is wanted. And I would always EQ before Compressing, here you do the opposite.

This is useful for kinda understanding where to start with mastering, as there’s very little documentation on the Internet (everything seems to say hiring a Mastering Engineer), but I had to heavily modify it, take a lot of it out (as it was unnecessary for my already good mix) and switch stuff around.

As with any mastering tutorial, you should ALWAYS address the Loudness Wars.

@seafroggys dude stick to the drums, ok?

I clicked seafroggys link.

It’s ridiculous.

As i read all the comments on this page i see comments pointing out wrong and right ways to do things , First off every mix engineer has his or her own way to do things so in allot of ways there is no right or wrong way as long as the music is clean and easy on the ears,Here is one thing however that is wrong here,Did anyone stop to thing about the signal path going into the mic and the pre amps being used,First off the most important thing here is this, A Good Recording starts with a good inbound signal path,Analog or Digital the fact remains the same,The cleaner and more controlled the sound coming into the mic ,The less monkeying one has to do with equalization and compression and limiting, And that takes us back to the basics every time, Like painting a car ,Prep is everything Gentlemen so lets not loose site of that!, So in essence we can sit here and argue right and wrong all night,But it all boils down to proper prep and common sense.RE: proper mic, room, air pressure,input levels, temperature etc etc,it all maters what the state of the situation is before the red button is pushed,

I have been working with analog and digital setups for years now and through trial and error have come to the realization that more than half the time one doesn’t need half of the cool tools that the daw has to offer for the digital domain,They are fun though but! ,The whole idea here is natural un colored clear real sound ,There is way too much emphasis put on effects especially compression, Sure compression works good but it also colors whatever it is used on , When you ad compression it can drastically changes the frequency pattern thus making you go back allot of the times to re EQ your piece to get rid of the high or low frequencies created from compression, As it fattens up the signal it also tends to change the sound pressure thus changing the sound of the environment it sits in,It’s like taking the same song and hearing it in a room with different characteristics ,Old analog setups such as 16 bit Adats and tape machines benefited greatly from compression as in the analog days it was at times tricky to control levels as the input signal was always loud no matter what one did,Another overlooked issue is educating musicians coming into the studio on recording practices as they don’t always know these little technical issues and challenges when coming into the studio to record,It all helps and makes a big difference in the studio and can save you time and them money,
It is up to the musician to exercise control over there mic distance and there instrument,Especially in the studio, For those that don’t understand what i mean when i say controlled here is An example, I will play the drums or guitar soft not hard thus controlling the signal input level being recorded,the harder i play the louder the input signal, the lower i play the quieter the input signal ,The bottom line is this,Work on getting the cleanest input sound possible and worry about the Eq end of things later,As for clipping, I agree with Mo a little clipping wont hurt ,Allot of the time it doesn’t hurt sound anyways and sometimes makes it better,It can also be Eq’ed out of the track when mixing if it is not to bad, It has to be pretty extreme to make it sound bad ,As digital signals are much more dampened than analog ,In my experience it is best to Record everything dry,Eq’s all set at unity, after your done your tracking Get your levels adjusted to where everything sounds clear and even ,Then one by one solo the tracks out on there own and ad Eq if needed or ad your desired effects,Then once your done getting the mix levels where they need to be Eq the master to tweak the entire mix,Just remember don’t over Eq each track on its own as it will and can ad more color than necessary ,Most times You will know when too much is added because when it comes time to Eq the master output channel there will seem to be no happy medium when trying to eq thus making you go back and re Eq each individual track.In closing just remember to take your time and do your prep and your tracks will sound polished as soon as the hit the hard drive leaving very little left for you to master.

As for the comment of remove everything under 30Hz , If you do your prep properly and use good gear and cables there won’t be allot of sub sonic rumble to get rid of leaving way more headroom giving you better equalization possibilities.In my experience most of the sub sonic rumble comes from gear being noisy due to bad setup ,cables and or mic’s, just plain bad signal sources, so when buying gear try to try it before you buy it.

thank you. It’s great for some beginner like me.

Seems like one important aspect of mastering might be missing? That is simple (and subtle) riding of the levels. This can reduce the need for over-compression, and is very important when mastering an album of tracks as opposed to a single track. Just a thought…

Hey Mo, I just want to say thanks for posting this guide. I’ve been producing for a while, but I was constantly racking my brain trying to figure out how to get “that sound” if you will.

I experimented last night with my vst plug-ins and was really amazed and humbled. Here I was piling on the track by increasing the volume, etc. but then low and behold, I discovered it’s about what you take AWAY, or bring down that makes the track special lol.

I couldnt friggen believe it. You just saved me a lot of loot to be used for a class on this stuff. I really appreciate it.

BOB KATZ and his cell phone is the solution!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJo5_qt6mY

Now serious, read the book and don’t waste your time with craps

Pointin out 1 important concept…The title of the tut says “blah blah blaah in 15 or less”…So definitely you oughta know this aint a proffesional audio mastering technique,you wanna go pro,u obviously wouldnt take “15 or less”!Google it and u’d find most mastering pros take 1 to 2 whole days,even more..Hec!..it could take a whole month!…I think some of you have overcommented on this post,maybe due to knowing too much,I dont know…Yo Mo thanx fo the tut,for “mastering a track in 15 mins or less”..this “basically” aint bad..About the multiband compressor and the other effects plug-ins…if it likes you,it likes you,if it doesnt make it like you…I emphasize an already nice premaster mix track for this method…dont complicate it,its only if you wana do ya thang in “15 mins or less”!…Holla.

Thanks for the info… definately helpful info for me at least. Just a quick question… In step 2 you show a screen shot of the level meters, about how high on average should the lights reach?? I’m really new to using Logic and DAW’s in general and I haven’t figured out just how hard I should hit the virtual “Tape” when recording my initial tracks.

hey you have a turturial for magix music maker ?
it will be nice if you can share it here
can you e-mail me that stuff ? on desi-ji@hotmail.de
i will be thankfully

Good pitfalls! but those are great for logic only! but u can still use other processor to do that! but its good though!!!

WOW interesting reading great TUT … now for my 2 cents … what ever happened to the real art of mastering ….creating an audio wave that has all the required dynamics, yet being as “LOUD” as required for the feel of the song, and yet still be able to be cut in vinal. way back when, if you maxed everything like alot of “mastered tracks” are done today with DAW’s you would be lucky to fit 2 or 3 tracks on a LP side. The Target for Mastering was to get approx 33 minutes of audio per album side, with all the Dynamics. Over compression would make it sound louder, but at a loss of track time on that side.

The origional use for compression was to “shrink” the audio at a calabrated rate, ie 2:1 for recording on tape, thus having an effect of being recorded twice as loud, even durring the quiet passages, bringing the net level of tape noise down …. they used to call it Hiss.

On playback the audio was decompessed resulting in a hotter level with no tape Hiss. The details of how it works is pretty technical, but interesting reading …. Check out the theory of ” DBX ”

As for DAW’s and mastering, I would recommend making your finished mix as clean and tight ….. using the EQ to ” REMOVE ” not add. this will preserve more Dynamics. Resulting in a better end result.

DB’s in a DAW … 0db means 100% max …. any thing above this means “DIGITAL CLIPPING” owch … which results in High levels of DC Voltage going to your clubs speakers … result is usually a blown / burnt speaker voice coil.

DB,s analoge …. Hmmm 0db translates to 1 volt peak to peak audio … increase it to +3db …. 2 volts p-p +6db 4 volts p-p +9db 8 volts p-p …… and it goes on …. as long as your peramps / mixer can handle these voltage levels, then there will be no clipping of the signal, most mixing consoles can handle levels this high with ease. Boards that I use alot can handle upwards of +27db before any clipping starts to take effect.

I work with DAW’s for recording, and editing, bounce to Multi track tape 16 and 24 channel, then mix through the board back to the DAW. this preserves the warmth and dynamics of the audio with out any losses. my finished tracks have the dynamics and i let the Club system do the work of playing it back ” LOUD ” … thats what volume controls are for.

So there is my 2 cents ….. keep being creative in what you mix … and there is no wrong way, as long as it sounds clean & good to you listeners.

seafroggys your song pops and clicks mate.
don`t put crap for sale

yo wats up, how possible will it be to use fl studio 8 to master a track

dayumn thx!
since i found this page, my mixing and mastering skills got better!
greatest tutorial ever!

I am not an expert but I have been producing music without the mastering, all levels are controlled throughout its creation. I may add slight effect to the master but that is about it……..I can catch ambience, rolling basslines, beats all in one without distortion across the whole board and this can be a crazy amount of channels used depending on the mix of samples etc…….

I tend to think of the home user where the final mix allows for the end user to change the graphic…..surely if you mix down to a certain finish other than this then you decrease the amount of control the listener has.

Hi, is it possible to turn up your mix using logics standard plugin limiter. I am happy with my mix and only want to make it louder with the mastering. Unfortunately i dont have the budget to download a matering limiter. What kind of paramiters should i use. Or is there a good free option out there.

Many thanks for this article Mo……

Although it has taught me a lot is it possible you can do a article on preparing your track within Cubase/Nuendo for mastering in Wavelab? And maybe include a mastering chain you can use in Wavelab.

I’m currently working on this track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzllypwofaU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FLCRProductionZ&feature=player_profilepage#t=79 which is the one i’ll be wanting to master myself.

(sorry if your not allowed to post any links to your own work, you can remove the link if this is the case)

Thanks in advance Mo.

Lee

What are the names of the filters used in this method? so i can use find them and try it my self on logic.

Nice Post

I use Ableton Live…

Master and Mixing Technics: best solutions and other Vst’s powerful enough to insert in Ableton so that it has some great quality in master “Best Master Programming” but in Ableton Live essentially – it was great Mo Volans

Thanks for all Tutoriais it’s very useful

The comments and the article itself have built a fascinating compendium of ideas and approach to mastering music. I’ve learnt a lot from both sides, as it were … many thanks to all for contributing ….

I have a recording studio and I am a producer. I basically make dancehall beatz and have few of my artist jump on this tracks. I used clean samples and sounds to make my beat and the vocal is good. I used fl studio, reason, cubase and mortif xs 8 to make my beats. I used mbox for recording. I must confess I want to learn how to mix and master a track. Can someone please help me with the true art of mixing and mastering.

I mix with compression in the master buss listen one of my recording master at http://www.MySpace.com/divinabox