How can I get the best possible results from mastering?

How can I get the best possible results from mastering?

The first thing to recognize is that there is no standard for a “good recording” or mastering job.  Every album is its own unique artistic creation with its own sound.  Some people like an old-school organic sound, some people like a polished modern production.  Some people like guitars loud and up front.  Others like the drums to be louder, etc, etc.  Some people care about making their albums sound “loud” while others want high fidelity and don’t care about that.  

When an artist asks a mastering engineer for a test master they usually do not know exactly what they want, and if they, do, it’s often difficult to describe.  They just “know it when they hear it”.   So the mastering engineer has to use their own best judgment.  This is why it’s common to make multiple test masters for a band during the final mixing phase.  

The first test master that is sent back is often “average”.  It gives the artist a chance to hear what their mix will sound like mastered but it’s usually not perfect on the first try.  

After the first test master comes back, if the band is not satisfied with the sound they should try to describe to the mastering engineer, as accurately as possible, what they want changed.  In most cases, the changes that the artist is looking for will need to come from the mix engineer but sometimes the mastering engineer can fix it up. 

If the mastering engineer can’t fix these issues, the artist can give the test master back to the mix engineer and they can discuss what changes need to be made in the mix.  Then they can provide a new mix to the mastering engineer for an updated test master. 

Of course when re-mastering an album that was recorded many years ago, all improvements will be left up to the mastering engineer.

It’s very common that the recording/mix engineer cannot make the mix sound quite as good as the band would like it to sound.  This is just reality and there are many reasons for it. Some reasons are based on the band’s playing and their gear choices.  Other reasons are due to the mix engineer’s experience or personal style.  Often this happens when a band went into the recording studio without a producer or a clear plan.

Sometimes the artist then goes to the mastering engineer to try to “fix” what they don’t like about the mix.  This is possible to a small degree, but the improvements possible in mastering are much smaller than in mixing so its best to get the mix as good as it can get before sending it out for mastering. 

Its also a good idea to show albums you like from other bands to your mix engineer early on in the process.

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To get the best possible results from mastering do the following:

• Work with the mixing engineer to get the mix as good as you can possibly get it. If he has been making his own “pre-masters” that you have been listening to, thats great. Work with him until you are as happy with this pre-master as possible and then ask him to make an un-mastered version for the outside mastering engineer to work with.

• Then tell your mixing engineer to: “Fully bypass all master fader plug-ins such as EQ, compression and limiting and mix down a 24 or 32 bit WAV file at the original project sample rate.” 

If you follow this process you will be happy with the mastering because usually the mastering engineer will make a better master than your mix engineer’s pre-master.  Also, when you send your mix to the mastering engineer, include your mix engineer’s pre-master so he can try to beat it.  

More advice:  If the outside mastering engineer’s version is better than your mix engineer’s pre-master but you are still not satisfied with the results, ask the mix engineer to make important adjustments and then ask for another test master and that will probably satisfy you.  If this is not possible, ask the mastering engineer to make adjustments. If you are still not happy, my best advice for you is to trust the mastering engineer because he is more experienced and he will probably give you a master that is close to the best your album can sound.  This is assuming you are working with an engineer who is an actual mastering engineer with many years experience.  You now have to accept the results.  

Most of the time, artists get very anxious as their album production nears completion and they tend to over-analyze the sound.  They tend to over amplify small issues and get caught up in small things that don’t matter that much.  My advice is that after the mastering process is complete, do not listen to your album for at least 6 months and then go back to it.  All those little things will have disappeared and you will be much happier with the results than you were in the days of production.   Also, every album production is a learning experience and few artists are completely happy with everything about their own albums.  But hopefully they learn a lot each time and every new album is an improvement.  

Know this: Your fans do not hear music the way artists and engineers do.  Fans care about the vibe and the songs themselves.  As long as your production is clean enough so that it sounds acceptable on most stereo systems, your fans will enjoy your music.  Most music fans are not audiophiles who will care if the snare drum is a little too quiet.  They definitely will not care if your album is 1 or 2 db louder or quieter than another band’s album.  That’s not what music fans listen for.  Yes, as artists and engineers we should try to make our albums the best they can be, but after we have done that, in most cases, our work will be fully appreciated by our fans. 

How Loud Should My Album Be?

Before I explain how loudness works in mastering, let me first say that when I master an album, I always make sure that the average loudness of the mastering is competitive with other releases in the same genre, but I try not to over compress or limit tracks so the music retains the right amount of punch and sounds good when cranked up loud as well as being clear and high fidelity in headphones. If you have a preference in this regard, just let me know. And if you have heard recently that digital-only releases should be mastered at -14 LUFS for streaming services, see the second to last paragraph of this article.

The “loudness war” is over now due to the way streaming services treat average volume, which I discuss below, so it’s not necessary to make one’s album loud just for the sake of it. It’s more important to make it balanced, punchy and clear. Metal albums, for example, will always be mastered somewhat “loud” while folk and world music albums will not be treated in the same way.

When artists and engineers speak about the “loudness” of a song or an album, they are referring to the “perceived” or “average” loudness when compared to other albums. In other words, if you quickly switch between 5 different albums on your CD or music player, you will find that there is a difference in perceived loudness between those albums even if you don’t adjust the volume of your stereo. That’s because each album was mixed and mastered totally differently and this is normal.

The reason why mastering affects the loudness of a mix is because of the use of compression which limits the dynamic range of music and this gives the impression that the music is louder because the peaks are pushed down, allowing the average level to rise. The more these peaks are compressed, the higher the average loudness becomes.

There are very good practical reasons for limiting the dynamic range of music with compression (and limiting) during mastering and it is part of the way modern music sounds, but the loudness war was very damaging to music and had no practical purpose.

What was the loudness war? As recording and mastering technology progressed over the years, it became easier to compress music to make it “louder”. By the early 2000’s record labels started pushing mastering engineers to make their releases louder. The entire situation was always silly because no music fan spends their time switching between CDs to discover which one is louder. If a listener wants the music louder, they just turn up the volume knob! Making an album louder “out of the box” is not a selling point for music fans. They don’t prefer music that has been mastered louder. But the labels pushed this for a while and then artists picked up on the fashion and for about 15 years, pop, hip-hop, rock and metal bands wanted their albums mastered “loud!”

The problem with this is that after a certain point, the music starts to distort and becomes tiring on the ears. Modern mastering technology allows us to make albums loud without “obvious” distortion, but when we listen closely to a loud album all the way through on good speakers or headphones, we realize that it’s not as clean as it should be and its fatiguing to the ears. Often older albums are re-mastered by record labels and sometimes they master them too loud and the fans notice this. They often prefer the older versions that are not mastered as loud.

Then in the late 2010’s when streaming services like Spotify and iTunes became the most popular way to listen to music, things changed. These platforms apply an algorithm that lowers the volume of loud tracks and raises the volume of quieter tracks so that the listener doesn’t have to adjust their volume as tracks from different artists are played back to back, similarly to the way radio stations process music with an Orban Optimod processor. Because of this, many albums mastered today are actually turned down on streaming platforms. If you want to see how much a mastered track will be turned up or down on a streaming platform, upload a track on the Loudness Penalty website to find out.

Although this trend is dying, still some artists request loud masters and some mastering and mixing engineers still think people want this and they send out test masters that are far too loud (dynamics crushed). If you are evaluating test masters of your music created by multiple mastering engineers, try not to be flattered if one master is louder than another. Adjust the volume control so that they are each at the same level and then listen for fidelity. Try to listen in different stereos, at different volume levels and see which one has the attitude and tonal balance that suits you. Try to compare on headphones and listen for clarity.

Finally, there is a new rumor going around that mastering engineers should deliver masters set to -14 LUFS so that streaming services do not have to adjust the volume. This is not correct and is explained well in this article by Ozone. As is known by all seasoned mastering engineers, masters should be produced at the average level (LUFS) that suits the music best and the peak level (DBFS) should be set to -0.1—.1 to avoid digital “overs”. For metal music which is less dynamic than other styles, an average level of -6 to -8 LUFS is common. We master for archival purposes and let each playback service do what it does.

My advice is that if you are requesting a test master from a mastering engineer, tell them that you want your master to be relatively loud but that you prefer clarity and quality over max loudness. As for myself, I always deliver a master that is competitive in the genre it belongs to and the artist never has to worry about this subject or bring it up unless they want to. I got your back! :-)

Mixing down for mastering

Mixing down for mastering 

If you’re a mixing engineer reading this, I’d like to go over a few ideas to help make your mixes perfect for the mastering process. Many engineers know what I am about to say but newer engineers may not.

First is to start your mixes with your channel faders low.  A 24 track mix might start with all faders down at -12 to -15 or in that range. The higher the number of active tracks, the lower the faders need to be when we start a mix. Also, if the original tracks were recorded very loud, it maybe necessary to reduce the actual wav file inside the audio editor window to avoid peaking any channel plug ins. 

Once you add all your channel plug ins, make all adjustments and finish your mix, you should be able to set your master fader to 0 and watch the peak volume of the mix hit somewhere between -10 and -2.  This is without any master fader plug-ins applied, only channel plug-ins are being used. Your master fader level really doesn’t matter that much as long as its not hitting zero, ever. If your master fader’s peak meter is going above 0 with the master fader set to 0, you will need to pull down all the channel faders.

When you build your mixes, start with no plug-ins on the master fader.  By the time you get a basic solid mix going, add a clean peak limiter to the master fader.  Start with the limiter cutting off 2 db.  Then as you get your mix closer to being finished, adjust the limiter so that it’s cutting off a bit more such as 3-4 db. You can also apply a clean compressor to the master track before the limiter and use it to knock off a couple more db.  

What you are doing here is emulating mastering. Although the mastering engineer will often use a higher quality compressor and limiter than what you may be using, this method will allow you to build your mix in a way that’s adjusted dynamically to better suit modern mastering. (btw, I do not recommend that mixing engineers apply equalization to the master fader in this procedure, but instead EQ their individual channels to shape the tone of the mix.)

If, for example, you are mixing folk music and do not want a very loud master, you can be conservative in your limiting or don’t use any at all.  If you are mixing extreme metal, you may want to be a bit more aggressive.

But you should not mix down your songs for outside mastering with the compressor or limiter on!

Just before you make your mix downs for the mastering engineer, bypass all plug ins from the master fader and export a 24 (or 32) bit, stereo WAV file at the project sample rate.  Don’t worry that the master levels are now low, they will go up naturally in the mastering process.

Now, when the mastering engineer receives your mix, it will be adjusted to sound right when compressed and limited and there will be no surprises for anyone! If you are happy with your pre-mastered version, send that to the mastering engineer for reference purposes as well.

Happy mixing!

Colin Davis

Should I hire an outside mastering engineer?

Should I hire an outside mastering engineer?

This question is asked by many artists as they approach the end of their album recording process. 

Software technology has recently made it possible for mixing engineers to do their own mastering these days. This might save the artist a bit of money as well. Also, some recording engineers like having complete control over the production of their albums even if there is a compromise made by doing their own mastering.

This said, many engineers do not like performing mastering themselves because they cannot be objective about their own mixes so they want an outside engineer to give them feedback or make adjustments that they might have missed due to their own biases or limitations of their own equipment, skills or listening environment.

There are a number of reasons why mastering in the recording studio may not be the best decision.

– The mastering engineer can listen to the mixes with a fresh, objective set of ears.  He is not emotionally drained by the job of recording and mixing and can perform his job faster, more efficiently and without second guessing his decisions.  This may be one of the most important reasons to send mixes out for mastering.

– Recording and mixing equipment is not always the same as mastering equipment.  Mastering gear is often audiophile hi-fi equipment or very finely crafted gear built for the job of mastering. Mastering software for creating fades, producing DDP images and adding metadata is often more sophisticated than what mixing engineers commonly use.

– The mastering studio is operated by a specialized engineer who knows the art of mastering and is familiar with mastering techniques and mastering technology in general.

– Mixing monitors are not the same kind of speakers that are used for mastering.  Mixing speakers are usually near-field speakers which are small and sit close to the listener.  Mastering speakers are often larger and installed in a far-field position.  Because of this, they have a deeper bass response and more accurate sound stage. Low end problems are more easily noticed with mastering grade monitoring.

– The mastering studio is often a specially built room that is relatively free of excessive “standing waves” which can effect listener perception drastically.

Many mixing engineers would like to send their mixes out for mastering but they have had bad experiences in the past. I have also heard many engineers tell me that their old mastering engineer is not around anymore but they have not had the time or energy to go searching for a new one. Trust is another issue. Mixing engineers have to trust the mastering engineer with their mixes and their clients.

But if we assume that there is an affordable, high end mastering engineer that is available, who specializes in their genre of music, who is highly responsible and trustworthy and who is happy to make free test masters, then the decision becomes a no-brainier!

Colin Davis

imperialmastering@gmail.com 925.305.1616 call/text

25 years of metal music production

25 years of metal music production and mastering

Heavy metal, death metal, black metal, thrash metal, hardcore, symphonic metal, power metal, industrial metal, nu metal, djent, doom metal, stoner metal, folk metal, gothic metal, grindcore, extreme metal of all kinds – as well as every type of rock are my primary focus as a mastering engineer! 

People have come to me for this specialization for 25 years.  They see my name on albums that they love and they naturally want to work with the engineer who made those albums come into existence.  Sometimes I’m listed as producer or mixing engineer but most often I’m named as the mastering engineer.  I truly love mastering.  Through mastering, I can help any album sound better, no matter how it was produced. 

Often I work directly with the mixing engineer to help them make vital last minute decisions.  To me, every album that comes in for mastering is an opportunity to help the artists’ fans fall in love with their music.  Most music listeners do not care about recording quality as much as the artists and engineers do, but they need the production to be good enough so they can enjoy the music to the fullest.  As a mastering engineer my job to make the recording the best it can be and also to insure that there is nothing about the recording that is hindering the listeners’ ability to enjoy the music.  I love what I do - and my job is to help make sure your fans love what you do!

Colin Davis