Collected Mastering Tips 2

– Often in Mastering, a Sound or Range that is in Need of Reduction is More Exposed in the Side Signal Relative to the Rest of the Mix

– HD6 Mix Headphones have the Tendency to Output a Dominant Bass, Room is Not that Open as on Other Headphones, Nevertheless a Relative Broad Stereo Panorama, Present Mids, Balanced Highs (30kHz), Bass Goes Very Low (8Hz), Detailed Attack & Sustain Contour, Heavy Left or Right Panned Instruments Sound Away from the Mid,

– when you Use a Harmonic Exciter in the Mastering, it is a Good Idea to Look at a Spectrum Analyzer and See if there are Any Dips and this is Where you Could Add Harmonics

– Remember that a Limiter is Not Necessarily here to Make Things Louder, it is Primarily a Tool that Avoids the Signal Go Above a Certain Level and Handle Sample Peaks and True Peaks (thus Usually you Only Increase the Gain / Threshold in Case of Low Level Material)

• Often Good Limiting Sounds Better and Cleaner than Getting Loudness with Saturation or Compression

– Never Set the Output Ceiling of a Limiter to 0dBFS, Set it so it has Headroom and Avoid ISP when Converting to Lossy Format (e.g. Apple Recommends a Ceiling of -2 dB to -3 dB Before 0dBFS)

• it is Always Better to First Sample Down (i.e. Do the Sample Rate Conversion First) and then Dither to 16bit, Because the Sample Rate Conversion will be More Accurate on the Higher Bit Depth

– Remember that Auditioning Stereo Mixes in Mono is Very important and this Should be Done in 2 Ways, 1 Way is Routing the Mix to a Dedicated Mono Speaker (i.e. Summing to True Mono and More Precise Way), and the Other Way is Summing to Mono in the Box via a Dedicated Tool or Switch which is More of a “Phantom” Mono Image as Still 2 Speakers Contribute to the Signal and Reflect the Low End Slightly Over Inflated, also the Signal Seems to Float Between the 2 Speakers which is a Less Precise Reception of the True Mono Signal

–  when Adjusting Final Limiter to Suite the Streaming Target, Do Use a Limiter with “Auto Gain” Mode to Hear Exactly What is Going On, i.e. a Limiter that Allows to A/B at Equal Loudness

–  to Check What Integrated LUFS Your Track is, e.g. Load it into RX, Open the “Waveform Statistics” and Let it Calculate the “Integrated BS.1170-2/3/4 Loudness”

– Reverb on Master can Add Final Shine, i.e. Only Around 4-5% on Master Buss (or then Final Master), Use Crossover Facilities to Get Only Higher Frequencies for Reverb Without Mud

• To Preserve the Transients when Using Limiter in Mastering, Use a Long Attack (Slow), Short Release (Fast Release), i.e. Let Through the Original Transients Before Limiting

– Limiter with Long Attack and Short Release = Help Preserve Transients at the Risk of  More Distortion, Limiter with Short Attack and Long Release = More Smooth Result

– Again, Even when a Track has 4 LU More than -14dB the Streaming Target the Streaming Service will Simply Turn it Down by 4 LU, if you are e.g. 4 LU Lower then the Streaming Service will Turn it Up but Eventually with Additional Limiting which can Cause the Track to Distort (thus be Louder than Quieter)

• If Your Track is Thin, Add a Low Shelf Boost by 2.5dB Up to 440Hz

• Try Boost Sides in the Low Mids, e.g. Around 250Hz

– If you Use Tape in Mastering, Be Sure to use Either 499 or GP9 Tape Formulas for Best Quality

– when Using Reverb in Mastering, Go for an Ambience One, Use a Distant Setting (i.e. Far Away) / with Modulation / No Pre Delay / 

• No Speakers can Re-Produce Stuff Below 20Hz, so Stuff Below 20Hz can be Considered as Junk

– Lows in the Side are Important Down to 100Hz, i.e. Set Cut Off for Lows in Side between 80Hz to 120Hz

– Non Linear Process is Quasi a Process Where the Input Signal Makes a Difference, Such as Compression / Saturation / Distortion / Limiting (i.e. Input Does Not Equal Output)

• Aliasing Occurs Often when you Add Compression / Saturation / Distortion / Limiting on Top of Each Other, i.e. Even if the First One is Oversampled and Doesn’t Not Fall Below 20kHz Any Further will Build on Top of the First and can Cause Aliasing at One Point, the Cure is Band Limiting which is Quasi Oversampling the Process Inside a Plugin or Use Ultrasonic Filter at the End of a Chain

• Intermodulation = Difference between a Perfect 5th Interval and a Power Chord, i.e. when Multiple Different Partials are Distorted Together They All Start to Modulate One Another Creating Sum and Difference Partials as Well as the Extra Harmonics, i.e. On Single Simple Sounds this is No Problems but on Complex Combined Sounds and Full Mix of Course this Causes Noise and is also the Reason Saturation Over a Full Mix Needs Care (or it Creates Just Noise)