HOW TO MASTER A SONG in 7 Simple Steps!
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- MASTER A SONG in 7 simple steps, in your bedroom. FULLER, FATTER, LOUDER & MORE CLEAR!
►► Download my 30 Essential Mixing Tips here [FREE]...bit.ly/2vvqzTD
Master your songs to sound good enough for radio release and club / festival play, on your computer, in your home. In this video, I show you the 7 step process I use to master tracks that have had Grammy nominations, and topped the charts on Beatport, Trackitdown and Juno.
Mastering is the final, essential stage in music production, and is considered a dark art by some. You might not get the quality that a 20 year veteran can in a mastering studio, but with these tips (and some practise) you can definitely get your music sounding good enough for radio release and club / festival play.
In this video, I’m mastering a house track (“Franky Wah - To the Floor”, forthcoming on Applique Music), but the fundamentals can be applied to ANY genre of modern music; EDM, rock, rap, pop, etc.
3 things to consider:
1. You'll get the maximum benefit from this video with good quality monitors or headphones.
2. Nothing can substitute a great mix BEFORE the mastering stage. Click on this link for help with that: bit.ly/2zppCQq
3. Every track you master requires different treatment, but the mastering chain is usually similar. See below:
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THE MASTERING CHAIN:
1. 2:13 Set-up - Load the high quality, stereo .WAV or .AIFF file of your song to be mastered into a track in your DAW. Load in a comparison (or "ghost song") into a second track, of the same genre, with similar musical elements, that sounds how you want your finished master to sound. Match the levels with a VU metre so they sound of similar loudness (I use the Klanghelm VUMT metre), and bump it around 0 with a -18DB calibration (klanghelm.com/.... Also, add a spectrum analyser onto each track so you can compare frequencies (SPAN by Voxengo is free - www.voxengo.com.... Reference your ghost track every step of the way. Add the following plugins ON YOUR PRE-MASTER TRACK - NOT THE MASTER BUSS!! If you do, they will affect the ghost track, too, which makes it completely useless for reference.
2. 5:13 Reductive EQ - Take out the unnecessary frequencies, especially in the sub bass areas. Mid-side EQ is especially useful for taking out bass on the side channels. Depending on the quality of your mix, you might need some high Q value, surgical reduction on certain frequencies. Reference the spectrum analysers between the two tracks, but don't be TOO fussy about matching them...just broad strokes as each track is different.
3. 6:43 Additive EQ - Sweeten the top end (IF REQUIRED) with a gentle high shelf curve. You might do this before compression or after. Reference the spectrum analysers between the two tracks. You might apply a very steep roll-off curve nearing 20kHz to get rid of some unnecessary very high frequencies.
4. 9:17 Compression - Glue, multiband or parallel, depending on what's needed.
5. 10:40 Stereo widening - Add width if and where required (usually more in the mid to top end...never below 130Hz. Use a vector scope and correlation metre. Less important to match the ghost track here.
6. Harmonic Excitement - Adds some extra energy and excitement if required.
7. 12:33 Loudness. A couple of limiters in series, doing less work than one pushed to the max can render better, less distorted results. Reference the RMS levers (perceived loudness) of the ghost track using a K-12 metre (Nice work, Bob Katz!), and try and get similar with yours. Notch the final output to be just below 0dB (e.g. -0.1dB) to allow for artefacts when converting to MP3 and the like.
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Remember, you can do all of this on your DAW, in your own home.
Hope this helps! If you have any questions, drop them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer.
Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share!
Cheers, and happy producing,
Will
www.edmtips.com
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#mastering
I feel youre the only guy out there who is not holding back information. Your channel is absolute gold. Just bought your music theory course; ready to take my productions to the next level. Thank you so much for all this knowledge.
Awesome, man! You're very welcome :)
Insightful, you have no fluff in your video. You make a good video glad I found you!
Welcome on board :)
u are the real one !
😎
Great video. Short and efficient. Thank you Sir!
You're welcome, glad it was helpful! 🙌🏻
This is what I needed exactly...So professional and meaningful. I can't emphasize the impact this tutorial has given to my mastering process. Thankyou Will. I really am a great fan of the way that you teach. Its so simple and lucid ; easy to grasp. Not to mention , love that amazing track 'Take Control' .
Thank you...I really appreciate that! :D
The honour is mine :)) Haha
may all your basslines be in wide stereo from now on
Simple and awesome! keep doing the best tutorials about music production on youtube. Thanks again!
Thanks! Will do :)
Exactly what I needed to tackle my frustration when comparing to professional tracks ;-) Thanks so much and keep ‘m coming mate!
Thanks, will do!
hell yeah - i love all your lecturings - so nice
Happy to hear that!
Another great video! Even 4 years back your content was great!
Thanks for watching and for the kind words of support :)
tnx 4 tips, obviously U r doing great job...
You're welcome. Thanks for the support!
About the monoing sub 130hz and how it relates to the scene was a neat little piece of information - thanks for sharing! Thanks for another good video! :)
You’re welcome! Thanks for watching and for the kind words of support :)
Best Producer trainer on RUclips
This is amazing!! Thank you so much for this info
Loving all the videos you've made on this channel, definitely one of the best if not the best youtube channel for music production ;)
Looking forward to seeing more content!! Also your website is lit, and very informative. Have a nice day :)
Thank you, and you're very welcome! Getting this comment made my day :)
Great will - good starter for me
Thanks a lot can't want to try these. Any chance of a tutorial on mastering ambient techno?
awesome stuff Will !
Thanks!
In the meter I can see it going into the red doesn't that mean it's clipping?
Hi Will. Thanks for another great tutorial.
Is Reaper a better alternative to Ableton when it comes to mixing and mastering? What do you think?
I haven't used it, TBH! I expect they are equally capable
i don't get it, i always heard never let the needle go into the red. And your track starts off that way, the compare track is maxed out the whole time, and in the end, your track will be too. I wonder how the compare would be between what you've done to your track in this video, and your track 'before', but with only the final volume step.
That's a good idea; comparing the before and after with the final volume step, and I always compare every stage like for like by tweaking the gain after each plugin so I'm only comparing the colouration and not fooling my ears (as louder generally sounds better to our ears - it's deceiving). Yes, a lot of music nowadays (in particular, dance music) is - as you put it - "maxed out", but it's important to be able to have your tracks stand out in terms of loudness against the other music it's played against in clubs / festivals. However, the auto-attenuation applied by streaming services renders some of this obsolete, but that's a larger topic for another time ;)
Great info. Will if you were to invest in just one single non stock plugin for the mastering chain - would it be the limiter? And which one?
Great question! If I had to buy one, it would be the Ozone Mastering Suite: www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/50-Mastering-/5718-Ozone-9-Standard/?a_aid=5da5c418295ae
If a limiter on its own, the FabFilter Pro-L 2: pluginboutique.com/products/3955/?a_aid=5da5c418295ae
Good stuff.
Cheers :)
I really appreciate all of your videos and just stumbled upon this one, and realize what a huge difference it can make. But unfortunately all off the plugins you used are a couple hundred dollars each which kind of discourages my journey
A little bit of an exaggeration, I find... I use a lot of stock plugins in my videos, so choose those ones and follow along!
already a great track, did you release this??
Plz about mixing a song❤❤❤❤❤
Funny you should say that :) Check this out: www.edmtips.com/products/mixing-edm/
10:12 I'm pretty sure cutting the bass with HPF in parallel chain flips the phase putting it out of phase, so you should probably never do that.
It depends on the audio...parallel compression is a common tool but sometimes can cause phase issues. You just have to, quite literally, play it by ear.
Are there any good substitutes for the Sonnox plugins like Fab filter or waves?
Fabilter's got a killer limiter...I'm not that familiar with the Waves limiters
FabFilter in my experience has been much better than the Waves limiters. Invisible limiter is also a great one as well
2 limiters?? Not sure? Most streaming platforms normalize their volumes anyway now..... I wouldn't crush my track and loose dynamics just to make it louder... people can always just turn it up if they like. Thanks for the tutorial!
They do indeed! However, if you are still going to have your music compare to other tracks in a DJ / live set, they do need a degree of loudness
Actually two limiters is a pretty common practice for mastering engineers. It takes the pressure off the one limiter. You can find tutorials on this on here
Hey man you can route both tracks into span and have them both display at the same time but in different colours
Hey nice video! I have a question that refers to your 30 Essential Mixing Tips pdf I hope it's ok to ask it here.
On tipp " 11. Use parallel processing to “fatten” the sound " --> you explain that a combination of the fx signal and dry signal is used to fatten the sound, but wouldn't regulating the dry/wet knob of the effect to, let's say 20/80, + volume boost achieve the same effect?
Thanks! It sure would, but the benefit of parallel processing is that you can then process, for example, the compression even more, e.g. adding saturation and eq. If you do that on your channel strip then the dry sound gets affected, too. Hope this helps!
For the step of making the low frequencies (under 130 Hz) to be mono, is there any basic audio effect in Ableton that can do that?
eq eight can do that.
what an awesome video, may I ask you something, my reference track is hitting +2 db (most of the tech house I listen to do), should I get it to +2db too?
Is the master mixer channel getting above 0?
@@SKMPMusic Yes, like hot since 82 tracks are +2db on master, some Chris lake tracks also hit +1db on mastee
should i bounce my final mix in 44.1khz or 48khz ? does it make any difference
To be honest...I've never noticed any difference!
Ümit Ay 48khz is for videos to sync the image with the audio. So music videos, visualizers normally require 48k if you want the audio and video synced. Hope this helped!
44.1khz is pretty standard so it’s the one I’d go with
@Christopher Bradley thanks for the super detailed answer - much appreciated !!
I'm guessing the reference track is an mp3, that's why it looks like it's low passed. So my point is, don't use that low pass filter :)
Really helpful. Can I just check (noob question), are you layering the compressed track on top of the dry track to provide the loudness boost, and the adjust the gain to bring it back to 0dB?
11:38 so the entire track has been widened, then the bass put in mono again, that be right.. A multiband widener is the only way to do this, right?
Multiband widener is the best bet for sure...I just didn't have one when I made this!
Not only is it not the best, multiband is the only way. You're widening the bass and then making it mono again in a mastering tutorial..
Well, it's definitely not the only way; you could do it manually with routing certain frequencies into sub-chains, but it would be a bit of a pain. I'm also not entirely convinced that the plugin I use in this video doesn't only widen certain frequencies as part of it's design, therefore not widening the lower bass frequencies.
two limiters, cuz it's louder innit :)
You know it XD
seems a bit pointless but I think you're doing it for the harmonic distortion rather than loudness
I'm not sure what it is exactly; could be some very slight extra compression, but you're probably right about it adding slight harmonic distortion
I have subscriptions to lynda.com, sonicacademy.com and have gone through the catalogs of music production channels on youtube and I am happy to say yours tops all of them! I am using techniques you described in the mixing and mastering videos and I feel the difference in my music. Please make more videos going in depth into mixing and mastering along with fundamentals of eq compression, distortion etc.
Also, Do you have patreon account I would definitely contribute to keeping this channel going!
thanks
That is brilliant! Such a great comment to receive and I'm really glad you get value from my lessons. I also appreciate the offer of a Patreon contribution, but as I don't have an account, I'll happily take the kind words as contribution :)
You deserve much more subs
Thanks man! Please spread the word :)
The video starts at 2:27 you're welcome! :) There's two minutes and twenty-seven seconds of your precious life back.
Everyone has a general idea what mastering is and what it does, if you don't, you're watching the wrong video. Most of us don't wana to spend 2 and a half minutes waiting for the content to start, we just want the tips.
That's why I put the timestamps in the description
who also checked whatsapp web