Professional Analog Mastering.
Professional Analog Mastering.
225K+ subscribers
This step gets skipped all the time - I’m guilty of skipping it myself sometimes. But if you pick a monitoring level before you begin a project, it’s incredibly beneficial.
What you do is either buy an SPL meter, which you can get for about $10 online, or, download an SPL meter on your phone, and hold it from your listening position.
Aim for between 80-85 SPL - at this level, you can listen for up to 8 hours without damaging your hearing.
Additionally, you’ll perceive the frequency response as relatively flat compared to other loudness levels.
Lastly, higher air pressures tend to distort the sound by pushing air molecules in ways that naturally sound distorted - or in ways that don’t result in a sine wave.
So, if you pick an SPL before you begin mastering, you can guarantee your monitoring stays consistent, and you won’t damage your hearing.
Once you have a monitoring level set, introduce phase rotation if you have the RX platform.
It doesn’t change the sound; it should even null if you compare it to the original.
However, it ensures that the polarity is equally represented in both the positive and negative sides of the waveform.
In other words, it keeps the track from causing a processor to misread its level.
Similar to setting an SPL, this gives you consistency; you know your processors will behave the way they’re designed to when you’re mastering, and like setting an SPL, it takes about 30 seconds to do.
Using a HP side-image filter has become a pretty common practice. It’s a quick and effective way to center low frequencies, in turn ensuring that the lows stay driving and are mono-compatible.
However, where to set the HP filter is somewhat up for debate. I’ve heard up to 130Hz. I’ve heard no higher than 80Hz. I’ve heard to not use one at all.
But I suggest setting it somewhere between the fundamental and the 2nd order harmonic, usually as high as the fundamental goes if that doesn’t go to high.
Granted, this moves around whenever a note changes, but you’ll be able to find a general area.
This accomplishes a couple of things - first, we can ensure that the fundamental stays mono. Second, we know that the low mids retain some width, which is needed to keep the master impressive and full.
Don’t add this type of filter for classical or jazz, but for everything else, start between the fundamental and 2nd harmonic, and use your ears to determine the best center frequency.
Let’s take a listen to a track without a side-image HP. Then, one with a HP too low, then too high, before listening to it centered in the range I recommended.
Watch the video to learn more >
Compression is often avoided when mastering for the sake of retaining peaks. This makes sense - too much compression and the impact of a track will be lost.
But if you compress thoughtfully you can drastically reduce the need for limiting later on, in turn, retaining the peaks in the long run.
The best way to accomplish this is with RMS or root mean square compression, which measures the loudness instead of the peak level.
If a longer attack is used, and only 1dB to 2dB of compression at most is introduced, we can retain the peaks and reduce the dynamic range in an almost inaudible way.
However, when it comes time to introduce limiting, we’ll have a denser track that can be pushed higher in amplitude, without as much peak attenuation as would have otherwise been needed.
Let’s listen to subtle RMS compression - notice how difficult it is to hear, and yet the dynamic range is controlled.
I’ll use this u-he compression, but Kotelnikov by Tokyo Dawn Labs is a great free compressor with RMS detection.
Watch the video to learn more >
Limiting is useful but once it’s audible it has an unpleasant sound. It uses lookahead to turn down peaks, resulting in less distortion than a clipper or compressor, but really deadens transients once attenuation is greater than 3dB, and of course, gets worse from there.
It’s usually the go-to for newer engineers, which means it's often overused.
Fortunately, upward processing can, and often is combined with limiting to create a much better final sound.
Vintage Warmer 2 by PSP, Inflator by Sonnox, Omnipressor by Eventide, and others are great options if you want to combine maximization with limiting to create a louder sound without the need for aggressive peak attenuation.
You can also use parallel compression for a similar effect, which has been a popular mastering technique for a while - combined with a linear phase EQ, you can amplify ranges that sound too empty or as if masking is taking a toll.
It’s simple but sounds significantly better than aggressive limiting alone. Let’s take a listen to 2 tracks. One is limited aggressively to reach -8 LUFS, and the same track is maximized and then limited to reach the same LUFS.
Let me know which one you think sounds better in the comments.
Watch the video to learn more >
If you’re mastering and you’re adding notch filters or narrow band filters, either you’re overthinking it, or the mix needs to be adjusted.
Not only is this form of processing destructive due to the severity of the filters, but it also goes against a cardinal rule in mastering - that is, to augment what’s there.
That doesn’t mean subtractive EQ doesn’t have a place, but the filters should be gradual and subtle. Mastering isn’t for fixing a mix, it’s for augmenting it, and if you’re adding narrow bells, or plugins like Soothe 2 on your master, then I’ highly recommend reconsidering that decision.
Alternatively, use tone shapers, or simple EQs. There’s a good reason why Pultecs are popular - they’re so gradual that each filter spans multiple octaves - and yet they’re used in mastering because that’s what’s most beneficial.
Does the bass relate well to the mids, the mids to the highs, the highs to the air, and so on?
These are better questions to consider when mastering than, is this exact frequency harsh or too aggressive.
Let’s listen to a track tone shaped and compare it to one in which I used multiple narrow filters in a way I’ve observed happening during mastering sessions.
Watch the video to learn more >
I won’t tell you how loud to make masters - that’s of course your decision and depends heavily on the genre; however, there is one consistent loudness I’d recommend adhering to when mastering a larger project.
If you’re working on an EP or an album and you want it to have a consistent sound across the tracks, focus on the perceived loudness of the vocal.
The overall LUFS of the tracks matters less than the vocal’s level.When people listen to it track to track, or maybe skip around to their favorites, they’ll focus on the vocal. If 2 tracks are the same LUFS, but one has a quieter sounding vocal than the other, that track will be perceived as quieter.
With that in mind, before you start mastering a larger project, adjust the tracks with clip gain to create a consistent level for the vocals from track to track.