You talked about fade 4.41 into the video. But what if your song already fade/fiter out at the end do I still make a fade at the end or it is alright I didn't do it?
@@inthemix thanks for the answer. I have never used that method with fade because sometimes I think it sounds wird when I make a fade in the beginning, but maybe it is because I over done it. BTW it is nice to get a new view on mastering I have always used ozone8 master assisten and nothing els, so it is nice to know there are so many things to do in the master process.
Great video as always. Interesting info on the dithering i only really dither when i need a 16bit file from say a 24bit file. But never stopped to think whether the distribution houses are dithering when they convert into a multitude of bitrates. Although most distribution places i've used still require 16bit so i've dithered down to 16bit from 24bit anyway. Great tune that, still love it even though i've probably heard it like a thousand times! ;-)
I really do appreciate these kinds of tutorials. It's so difficult to compete with the acclaimed artists' masters on the common streaming platforms in loudness and clarity. This is just one step closer in the right direction.
@@craigcrummett9484 he says he wanna get the mix right. Imagine ME, tryna have tthe perfect mix to sound like Carpenter Brut... really tons of brainstorming, and little to no conclusion -_-
You are doing a great job Michael, I'm producing from last year and I started watching your Videos, and I'm really thankful to you, I learned alot from your Videos, Specially Mastering Part, and I love the way you how simply you explain about a Plugin or a Process. You are giving Master Classes for free. I also watched Paid Production Classes by the Pro but they are not able to Clarify the details, I'm not saying that they are not good in Production, but Knowing Something and explaining it both are different things. Teaching someone and clear their doubts is an Art.... Keep Going bro... Wish you the best.....
Hey there, Mike! Just wanna say I've learned a lot from you and it has essentially made me a better producer with more logical decisions. I don't think a compliment will cut it, but you're an amazingly talented person with lots of reliable knowledge for us rookies out here. Thank you. 🙏
Youlean Pro has helped me tremendously. I now have full confidence that my mixes sound consistent from song to song and I am in full control of how much streaming sites will turn my mix down because I know exactly what my integrated loudness is. I do not work for them or get any compensation from them. It's just a great plugin that every engineer should have on the mix bus.
You are the best... word's best channel for producers❤️❤️ big fan... I really appreciate amd you respect you ... you have been so helpful for me... Love from India ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I really liked you mentioned the TDR plugins, they not only have free versions but all of them are made with mastering in mind too. Btw people, for those looking for a free limiter and dither I can give you two options: Kilohearts Limiter and Airwindows Ditherbox (the last one isn't available for Pro Tools). I recommend putting Ditherbox at the end of the plugin chain, and setting it to TPDF 16 (or TPDF 24 if you're gonna export at 24 bits), and when you export the master, deactivate the dither from your DAW.
Love u , still i dont understand everything in my first view , i still learned a lot and hope im getting nearly as good as u in maybe 2-3 years :) Watched nearly every tutorial u made and learned so much , one of the best channel out there to have some good technical tutorial about techniques :D Im german btw , so its not as easy to understand everything
All your videos are so good, they explain all the topics so well and its so easy to understand the things that would otherwise overwhelm me. Thank you for making such good content.
Your channel came highly recommended to me by Mick Schultz. I just used all these tips to master a few recent demos and they sound SOOO much better! Thank you so much for putting in the time to make this, will def recommend to my peeps :)
This video is fantastic man! So carefully and well explained. Easy to understand even if you don't know all the nitty gritty details of compression and limiting. I just want to let you know how much I appreciate these videos you make. I've had so many good mixes sound terrible in the end because of my horrible mastering jobs lol. This will help me a lot!
Brilliant tutorial. Everything is explained so well and in a way that makes sense. I've watched alot, and i mean alottttt of videos on mastering as I'm very much a novice at this stage. This one has really helped me understand what i need to achieve in order to get a track sounding right for the digital platforms. I use Logic which has a stock loudness meter but I'm inclined to get the free one as it seems to have better features. Especially drag and drop to analyze the end result. Thanks for the brilliant tips & advice 🙌
Whoever you are who can't sleep tonight, is tired or sad, believe that there will be tomorrow that will light up your beautiful days. You just need to endure a little more, a little more, and a little more ... Thank you for being patient, thank you for being able to survive. And as you read this, promise yourself that you will be able to get through your toughest days in the future. Promise to keep smiling, no matter how you are ... You deserve to be happy :)
Very good video. I had no Idea you could drop your track onto the Youlean meter and instantly analyze the entire track. very good update with a good teaching method. Two thumbs up!!!
You really timed all the elements of your video... and your description is SO PERFECT MFG, thank you so much Your videos are so cool, really specific, but not annoying at all.. Keep doing what you do, please !
I have not read books but there are lots of amazing websites and people who share information. Chatting with producers, mixing engineers and such really goes a long way!
So I understand how headroom is important, but does it matter how you get there? Example: When I make mixes my master track is usually pretty loud and might go in the red sometimes, but there is no distortion or negative artifacts created by this and the mix sounds fine. To get headroom, I just bring the master fader down so I'm only peaking at -3 to -6 dB. Is that an okay approach to get headroom? Or does everything in the mix need to be turned down individually?
you can put the track you're mastering on Track 1 with your mastering chain( that will be your new master) then all the reference tracks can go on separate channels.. the reasoning is so your mastering chain doesn't effect the reference tracks and can quickly compare by soloing each channel etc...
This sounds like a good idea, but the other tracks on the mixer all go through the master anyway! Unless you set them to direct outs on each mixer channel. Be careful of that!
@@inthemix it wont matter if they go through the actual FL Master as you DONT put anything on that ...just use Track 1 as your new MASTER and put only the track you're working on with all your mastering chain on that channel. You don't need to assign the other reference tracks to new channels as they will just go through the actual FL MASTER that has no processing . Hard to explain but when you see it once you will understand. :)👍
I'm using this remix so that no one can possibly copystrike my video. You won't believe how strict the guidelines are now and random people have been running ads and sticking my channel. So I only use content that I know I own 100% of :)
Mike, it's an amazing tutorial, as always, but I was hoping that you could make a tutorial about LIVE vocal effects in FL Studio, if that's possible, because I couldn't find any decent tutorial and I don't want to purchase Ableton Live.
What's the difference between mastering for Streaming Media and CD? Shouldn't mastering a song be for all platforms? (asking this because, for example, Ozone 8 has this feature where it asks you where you'll be using the song)
You'd hope it would be the same but let me try to explain a little more... CD - No volume normalisation and songs have to be 16Bit quality. This means more care must be taken to level out each song on a CD/Album to ensure playback it smooth. A CD doesn't have to change to a different Codec when playing back so you don't need to leave much headroom for encoding to mp3 and you can set your true peak limiting to -0.1 if you want to! Online streaming - Most if not all platforms use loudness normalisation and songs can be uploaded in 24Bit quality. This means you don't -need- to level each song to exactly the same loudness and you can give or take a few dB depending on the material in the song (This is great because some songs sound better when they are more dynamic!) As the Song must be transcoded to a compressed format online, you must leave more headroom (-1.0 to -2.0 dBTP) to avoid bad distortion and audio artefacts. Vinyl Records - If you master super loud with a lot of low-frequency energy, a master to vinyl will sound awful! So careful attention must be given to the audio balance, transient response and pressing/cutting process to ensure the master sounds faithful to the studio version. I really hope that helps :)
Thanks for the video but It's also a little difficult as many of the distributes I've dealt with will only allow you to upload 1 version which will be posted on every platform. Would cost $100s to go through each song for each service correct?
Bro can you do how to get a perfect delay on songs tutorial , like the calculations, different effects you can do with it? Thanks keep up the great videos, really helping me, I’m soon starting college for sound production and my own studio, you’re helping me a lot
I have a question about gain staging. Majority of plugins were designed to receive a 0vu level or approx -18 full scale signal. Or somthing like that haha, right. Well my question is why does it seem to not matter when we master a track. Input level is around -5 to -8 pretty much every time. What am I missing? I'm not understanding something
I'm learning more about the skill and art of mastering specifically since I'm trying to up my profile as a sound engineer. As my experience is mainly in mixing and production, I only know the very basics about mastering. In earlier years I used to use Wavelab to arrange my tracklist, create markers and export my full album projects, but I'd send that to a mastering engineer for mastering. Lately I've been messing with Ozone in Cubase to master my singles, which has taught me much and works very well. I recently sat in on a MIXING session with a mastering engineer who mainly deals with hip-hop and uses Waveburner which I believe was packaged last with Logic Pro 9.5. He swears by it. I brought up Wavelab as the mastering DAW that I'm familiar with and also brought up Ozone as a great plugin app for mastering in a DAW. To my surprise he seemed quite inflexible when comparing ANYTHING to Waveburner. Throughout the session there are other practices that I picked up which left me bewildered, like how he didn't gainstage or didn't seem to monitor is levels and how the master was peaking at +0.4... many of the things that I'd learn when studying sound and that I've been learning and reading about more recently about mastering specifically from pros online, were not being followed in this session. I soon found out he was proud to have been "self-taught", as he put it. After the mixing session, I later received the final master. When I listened to it, I thought it might be distorting and was a bit to heavily compressed. I checked it with Izotope's Insight and, among other issues that raised my eyebrows, the true peak maxed at +0.7.
This experience left me with a lot of questions. Are my ears deceiving me or does what Insight reflected confirming what I was hearing? Am I being to nerdy about gainstaging and clipping the master bus or are these "rules" that are not as flexible as those applied during the creative and pre-production process? Are the fundamental principles of sound engineering no longer applicable or do we actually need them now more than ever in an era of ever-changing technologies and applications which are now accessible to anyone who can train themselves to be a self-taught professional? Throughout my career the most pervasive idea I've heard, and that I hear more and more now, is that "there are no rules". But as I gain more experience I realise that this is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy by those who don't fully appreciate the complexity of the skills and knowledge required to excel in the discipline of creating, producing, mixing and/or mastering. Add to that the plethora of plugins and the questionable advice from an endless supply of self-proclaimed online gurus promising an ever easier way of getting your mix to sound just as good as the pros or a way of creating and producing music without even needing to know the theory behind it, and you have a situation where people don't feel they really need to learn the basics at all because the technology seems to it all for you anyway. I've rambled quite a bit. I know I likely won't get a response because this is so long and I'm not famous, but I hope I do. I will post a comment with some more specific technical questions, but it would be great to hear what other people think about my rant. Thanks for reading if you got this far.
R3bbit interesting, I hate how everyone says edm has to be -6db. I master around the point I feel comfortable with and it still sounds as loud as other songs!
@@imd5363 keep researching and practicing. I used to have zero knowledge, after 1 year I have 3 songs on spotify and apple music, and I gained such a vast knowledge. All in 1 YEAR! And its not that I'm super smart or have a lot of free time , just passion
Great video. Question: shouldn’t all the below 20hz sounds be already deleted during the mixing stage? Like if I’m made sure 20hz is deleted in every track in the mixing stage, would it still be necessary to do so in mastering?
Hello Michael, thanks for you amazing channel, i learned lots here, but mastering for online distribution still killing me, i cant find any right specs for mastering with the lufs and etc, can you an specific video for online distribution mastering for electronic music? thank you! Cheers from Brazil
I could try but I might not be the best person to do it. I don't have a huge experience with it. Owning the copyright and such is very simple, you basically have to create and publish the song. But enforcing the copyright is challenging, it requires a legal team working for you to enforce it
If you are a beginner You should go for Music Distribution websites, like Distrokid, it's a paid service but some of them have free plans like Soundrop and Routenote. Hope this will help you....
Hey Mike, excellent tutorial as always!! Fi is possible, can you make a tutorial explaining how to setup a surround 5.1 or 3D track in fl sudio??? Thanks and congrats to yout channel!!
Heyyy, Can i have a question please? Before Mastering, we should export the whole mix, include instruments, drums, basses, SFX, and Vocal into a WAV, Is that right? Hope you answer, thanks a lot
Very helpful! Though I have a question about highpassing the compressor. I'm wondering why you would want the compressor to be compressing the whole song based on the input from only the highs. It seems like a cleaner solution might be to split the signal and only compress the highs. That seems like it would both prevent the lows from crushing everything via compression while preserving their original Dynamics? Though maybe compressing the whole song allows for the highs to shine through relative to the lows?
Thank you for this video! I really love you channel because your videos are so minimalistic and straight forward! I also really love your thumbnails! Keep up the awesome work! ♥️🔥👍
Isn't limiting already done by a compressor? (compression "squishes" the song into defined boundaries, right?) Why does limiting need to be a step of its own? (beginner) ps. I'm starting to learn that a really WIDE audio sounds more sexy than really LOUD audio.
Great content, but I still see a lack of missing information there. For example, what about the mid-side EQ ? Or the true about most of successful releases where the LUFS goes up to -9/-8/-7 ? I know Spotify asks you for -12 -13 full scale but there certain parameters that goes out in the real industry. What about automation? I think tracks needs to be more dynamical instead of being flatten with compression and saturation. The natural perspective is lost today. I think there is more to be covered in this tutorials. I really got some help form this but I still believe there has to be more things explained that are missing.
Wonderful video yet again, Michael! Thank you for all the work you put in to share the knowledge :) A question about RMS; what would be an ideal or an ok RMS level on a song before it's going to be mastered? Some say -25 to -20ish is fine and others say -19, -14 etc. Some say it doesnt really matter as long as it's not super low. Whats your take on the subject? Thanks :)
I think it doesn't really matter as long as it's not super low. I think it's good for morale when the levels are a little higher, sometimes it can feel easier to get a good tone that way! Mostly placebo effect but I'd say get the levels up or around -19,-14 as you say and check that you are not clipping. If you use mix bus compression before mastering, you might well be able to push your RMS higher with no ill effects :)
@@inthemix Alright, thanks for your input, mate! When my mix is done i usually have an RMS around -22 or -21. I was a bit worried that that would be too low. But that's an ok level after all?
Honestly listening back I am not happy with what RUclips is doing to the audio in this video. It might be due to some loudness normalisation but the audio examples are not sounding the same as the raw files on my PC.
So what sample rate and bit rate eg. (24/44.1khz) should the pre master file be before mastering? And also what should the final file be? (The last mastered file)
I typically try to start with the highest resolution possible or the same as my export. So I would ask an artist to send over the file as a 24 or 32 bit wav file at 44.1 or 88.2k. I export at 44.1 as that is the standard for digital audio, although this seems to be moving up to 96k over the next decade...
I did make one last year but a few things have changed and it needed a refresh and the second one I made was a detailed video about limiting and loudness. I link that in the description because I don't cover it in this video. Thanks for watching!
If you have UAD gear, you can't go wrong with Manley Massive Passive & Shadow Hills Mastering Comp, but I haven't found anything close outside of Magix Samplitude Pro X.
I have a tutorial for mastering using only stock FL Studio plugin on my channel. I think it uses only stick and maybe one or two free plugins but I cannot quite recall from memory. It should be simple to search for I hope :)
If you're using the default Fruity Limiter for Compression purposes, what would you recommend for the knee % and dB reduction? I take around a dB off the top and usually run with 20% knee, but I'd like to hear your opinion.
I actually have a question. I don't know if its my mixes or my room? but anytime I'm in the process of mixing or even mastering most things oddly sound perfect and than after export i hear parts that sound a lot quieter or more subtle in general. like vocals take a dip after export, bass starts over powering the mastered WAV file and the high end is dropped a lot as well.
Do you have any tips someone who's mix sounds good to them on their monitors and headphones, but sounds bad in the car? The quality of the song just doesn't sound professional by any means when played in my car, but I like the way it sounds in my home studio.
If you haven't got any mastered tracks of your own to use as a reference, how would you go about finding one? Would audio from youtube be a reliable source?
Overview of all steps - 1:05
Fades - 3:30
EQ - 5:00
Compression - 10:30
Limiting - 15:50
Thnx for all video helps alot if u think same hit like🙂👏
You talked about fade 4.41 into the video. But what if your song already fade/fiter out at the end do I still make a fade at the end or it is alright I didn't do it?
@@eljeysmusic it could be okay but I always like to make even the smallest of fades just to be sure!
@@inthemix thanks for the answer. I have never used that method with fade because sometimes I think it sounds wird when I make a fade in the beginning, but maybe it is because I over done it. BTW it is nice to get a new view on mastering I have always used ozone8 master assisten and nothing els, so it is nice to know there are so many things to do in the master process.
Great video as always. Interesting info on the dithering i only really dither when i need a 16bit file from say a 24bit file. But never stopped to think whether the distribution houses are dithering when they convert into a multitude of bitrates. Although most distribution places i've used still require 16bit so i've dithered down to 16bit from 24bit anyway. Great tune that, still love it even though i've probably heard it like a thousand times! ;-)
I'm sure you get a lot of this, but I love your channel. Friendly, concise tutorials that are easy understand. Thanks for spreading the love, brother
Thank you so much, I really appreciate the kind words :)
I am a music creator just because of @inthemix. He is phenomenal.
the Best channel on RUclips ♥️
A good RUclips channel*
Dam true
@@theoriginalcoolkid *a not so cool kid
@@ReplicateReality That's why you need tutorials for shit me and my friends do in 10 minutes ngl
1:30am and yes I am going to get back on my laptop and finish my recent project because of this video
this is great, but have you heard of soundgoodizer?
Soundgoodizer is great, but have you heard of OTT?
@@inthemix OTT is great, but have you heard of 78 soundgoodizers on the master slot?
@@HCXVII 78 soundgoodizers sound great, but have your heard of Fruity Blood Overdrive?
Fruity Blood Overdrive is great, but have you heard of Fruity Balance?
Appltron fruity balance is great but have you heard of 13 Eqo
I really do appreciate these kinds of tutorials. It's so difficult to compete with the acclaimed artists' masters on the common streaming platforms in loudness and clarity. This is just one step closer in the right direction.
I've literally watched this video 20x. I WILL GET THE MIX RIGHT EVEN IF IT KILLS ME.
did you get it right bro?
@@RidleySorrey i'm wondering as well
1 year and we still don't know
@@TachyBunker it killed them.
@@craigcrummett9484 he says he wanna get the mix right. Imagine ME, tryna have tthe perfect mix to sound like Carpenter Brut... really tons of brainstorming, and little to no conclusion -_-
best channel for music production.period.
I just made a remix and needed some tutorials for mastering my track. Thank you so much.
You are doing a great job Michael, I'm producing from last year and I started watching your Videos, and I'm really thankful to you, I learned alot from your Videos, Specially Mastering Part, and I love the way you how simply you explain about a Plugin or a Process. You are giving Master Classes for free. I also watched Paid Production Classes by the Pro but they are not able to Clarify the details, I'm not saying that they are not good in Production, but Knowing Something and explaining it both are different things. Teaching someone and clear their doubts is an Art.... Keep Going bro... Wish you the best.....
You the man, for real. Best guides on RUclips together with Internet Money. Really showing who makes the big bucks on RUclips.
Hey there, Mike! Just wanna say I've learned a lot from you and it has essentially made me a better producer with more logical decisions. I don't think a compliment will cut it, but you're an amazingly talented person with lots of reliable knowledge for us rookies out here. Thank you. 🙏
Mixing engineer: how much low end should we cut on that lead?
Artist: Yes
Mastering engineer: ...
why
I am at this stage of my first EP production. God sent you to help me ease my brain melting troubles.
Youlean Pro has helped me tremendously. I now have full confidence that my mixes sound consistent from song to song and I am in full control of how much streaming sites will turn my mix down because I know exactly what my integrated loudness is. I do not work for them or get any compensation from them. It's just a great plugin that every engineer should have on the mix bus.
You are the best... word's best channel for producers❤️❤️ big fan... I really appreciate amd you respect you ... you have been so helpful for me... Love from India ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I really liked you mentioned the TDR plugins, they not only have free versions but all of them are made with mastering in mind too. Btw people, for those looking for a free limiter and dither I can give you two options: Kilohearts Limiter and Airwindows Ditherbox (the last one isn't available for Pro Tools). I recommend putting Ditherbox at the end of the plugin chain, and setting it to TPDF 16 (or TPDF 24 if you're gonna export at 24 bits), and when you export the master, deactivate the dither from your DAW.
Thank you so much for sharing!
@@inthemix You're welcome ;D
The mix engineer did a great job on this mix from the jump. Makes the mastering process far easier. Awesome and priceless tutorial!
You're absolutely right, can't get a good master without a great mix! When the mix is right the mastering takes care of itself.
Love u , still i dont understand everything in my first view , i still learned a lot and hope im getting nearly as good as u in maybe 2-3 years :) Watched nearly every tutorial u made and learned so much , one of the best channel out there to have some good technical tutorial about techniques :D Im german btw , so its not as easy to understand everything
Just what I needed right now! Thanks, can't wait to dive in. 😊
Same!
Yea
this guy is hero of a lot of artist
Excellent content, as usual. Thank you for never pushing your viewers to make unnecessary purchases.
All your videos are so good, they explain all the topics so well and its so easy to understand the things that would otherwise overwhelm me. Thank you for making such good content.
Your channel came highly recommended to me by Mick Schultz. I just used all these tips to master a few recent demos and they sound SOOO much better! Thank you so much for putting in the time to make this, will def recommend to my peeps :)
This video is fantastic man! So carefully and well explained. Easy to understand even if you don't know all the nitty gritty details of compression and limiting. I just want to let you know how much I appreciate these videos you make. I've had so many good mixes sound terrible in the end because of my horrible mastering jobs lol. This will help me a lot!
It can't be described more simpler than this in 24 fucking minutes.
Brilliant tutorial. Everything is explained so well and in a way that makes sense. I've watched alot, and i mean alottttt of videos on mastering as I'm very much a novice at this stage. This one has really helped me understand what i need to achieve in order to get a track sounding right for the digital platforms. I use Logic which has a stock loudness meter but I'm inclined to get the free one as it seems to have better features. Especially drag and drop to analyze the end result. Thanks for the brilliant tips & advice 🙌
Whoever you are who can't sleep tonight, is tired or sad, believe that there will be tomorrow that will light up your beautiful days.
You just need to endure a little more, a little more, and a little more ...
Thank you for being patient, thank you for being able to survive. And as you read this, promise yourself that you will be able to get through your toughest days in the future.
Promise to keep smiling, no matter how you are ...
You deserve to be happy :)
Thank you!
Very good video. I had no Idea you could drop your track onto the Youlean meter and instantly analyze the entire track. very good update with a good teaching method. Two thumbs up!!!
Your videos are incredibly helpful, the channel is awesome, thank you thank you thank you for making this understandable!
You really timed all the elements of your video... and your description is SO PERFECT MFG, thank you so much
Your videos are so cool, really specific, but not annoying at all.. Keep doing what you do, please !
I really thank you sooo much for making this video ❤️ love u soo much brother
Loving your content mate. Getting into mastering recently and this channel is full of great advice.
Legend mate, been learning a lot from your professional tutorials... keep it up, support coming from Australia.
Thank you for easy tutorial!
I love all your tracks
pretty cool &help full .......really...........merci mon pote
Thank you Thank you Thank you so much, stright to the point, plz keep going on as long as you can.
👏👑👍🎹
Thanks Bro 🧡 . This video really helped me.
wonderful tutorial ! thanks !
Amazing, thank you so mucho for this video.
Can you please please please share, which all books did you read for music production???????
Btw Love your videos a lotttt
I have not read books but there are lots of amazing websites and people who share information.
Chatting with producers, mixing engineers and such really goes a long way!
@@inthemix Hey Mike! Would you like to share the name of some of these websites?
So I understand how headroom is important, but does it matter how you get there? Example: When I make mixes my master track is usually pretty loud and might go in the red sometimes, but there is no distortion or negative artifacts created by this and the mix sounds fine. To get headroom, I just bring the master fader down so I'm only peaking at -3 to -6 dB. Is that an okay approach to get headroom? Or does everything in the mix need to be turned down individually?
I mostly post my works on IG. The audio quality drops like by 50%. Please Do a Mastering tutorial for IG.
Sayooj R IG just sucks. Post your work somewhere else my friend.
@@nikkospar4305 I'm kinnda trynna building a fanbase on IG 😅.
Then deal with the shitty quality. @@sayoojr9200
HareKrishna&GodBless❤️🙏
Thank you soo much 💜
Excellent tutorial.
I Just download Youlean & TDR Free downloads!! Thanks👌
That's good to hear, you'll have a lot of fun with the TDR stuff when you get a grip of the interface :)
you can put the track you're mastering on Track 1 with your mastering chain( that will be your new master) then all the reference tracks can go on separate channels.. the reasoning is so your mastering chain doesn't effect the reference tracks and can quickly compare by soloing each channel etc...
This sounds like a good idea, but the other tracks on the mixer all go through the master anyway! Unless you set them to direct outs on each mixer channel. Be careful of that!
@@inthemix it wont matter if they go through the actual FL Master as you DONT put anything on that ...just use Track 1 as your new MASTER and put only the track you're working on with all your mastering chain on that channel. You don't need to assign the other reference tracks to new channels as they will just go through the actual FL MASTER that has no processing . Hard to explain but when you see it once you will understand. :)👍
Thanks for this!
You're the G.O.A.T. fr. :D
I was just wondering about this two days ago, thanks!
Ahhh . You remastering your song that's nice.
I'm using this remix so that no one can possibly copystrike my video. You won't believe how strict the guidelines are now and random people have been running ads and sticking my channel. So I only use content that I know I own 100% of :)
Mike, it's an amazing tutorial, as always, but I was hoping that you could make a tutorial about LIVE vocal effects in FL Studio, if that's possible, because I couldn't find any decent tutorial and I don't want to purchase Ableton Live.
When you say live vocal effects, do you mean for a live performance (On a Stage etc) or do you mean hearing effects back in real time for recording?
I use Ableton Live - there are no “magic” vocal plugins in either Ableton or Max for Live.
Love your tutorials! Thanks for your effort :)
What's the difference between mastering for Streaming Media and CD? Shouldn't mastering a song be for all platforms? (asking this because, for example, Ozone 8 has this feature where it asks you where you'll be using the song)
You'd hope it would be the same but let me try to explain a little more...
CD -
No volume normalisation and songs have to be 16Bit quality.
This means more care must be taken to level out each song on a CD/Album to ensure playback it smooth.
A CD doesn't have to change to a different Codec when playing back so you don't need to leave much headroom for encoding to mp3 and you can set your true peak limiting to -0.1 if you want to!
Online streaming -
Most if not all platforms use loudness normalisation and songs can be uploaded in 24Bit quality.
This means you don't -need- to level each song to exactly the same loudness and you can give or take a few dB depending on the material in the song (This is great because some songs sound better when they are more dynamic!)
As the Song must be transcoded to a compressed format online, you must leave more headroom (-1.0 to -2.0 dBTP) to avoid bad distortion and audio artefacts.
Vinyl Records -
If you master super loud with a lot of low-frequency energy, a master to vinyl will sound awful! So careful attention must be given to the audio balance, transient response and pressing/cutting process to ensure the master sounds faithful to the studio version.
I really hope that helps :)
Thanks for the video but It's also a little difficult as many of the distributes I've dealt with will only allow you to upload 1 version which will be posted on every platform. Would cost $100s to go through each song for each service correct?
Bro can you do how to get a perfect delay on songs tutorial , like the calculations, different effects you can do with it? Thanks keep up the great videos, really helping me, I’m soon starting college for sound production and my own studio, you’re helping me a lot
You are just amazing!!!😍
I have a question about gain staging.
Majority of plugins were designed to receive a 0vu level or approx -18 full scale signal. Or somthing like that haha, right.
Well my question is why does it seem to not matter when we master a track.
Input level is around -5 to -8 pretty much every time.
What am I missing? I'm not understanding something
I'm learning more about the skill and art of mastering specifically since I'm trying to up my profile as a sound engineer. As my experience is mainly in mixing and production, I only know the very basics about mastering. In earlier years I used to use Wavelab to arrange my tracklist, create markers and export my full album projects, but I'd send that to a mastering engineer for mastering. Lately I've been messing with Ozone in Cubase to master my singles, which has taught me much and works very well.
I recently sat in on a MIXING session with a mastering engineer who mainly deals with hip-hop and uses Waveburner which I believe was packaged last with Logic Pro 9.5. He swears by it. I brought up Wavelab as the mastering DAW that I'm familiar with and also brought up Ozone as a great plugin app for mastering in a DAW. To my surprise he seemed quite inflexible when comparing ANYTHING to Waveburner. Throughout the session there are other practices that I picked up which left me bewildered, like how he didn't gainstage or didn't seem to monitor is levels and how the master was peaking at +0.4... many of the things that I'd learn when studying sound and that I've been learning and reading about more recently about mastering specifically from pros online, were not being followed in this session. I soon found out he was proud to have been "self-taught", as he put it. After the mixing session, I later received the final master. When I listened to it, I thought it might be distorting and was a bit to heavily compressed. I checked it with Izotope's Insight and, among other issues that raised my eyebrows, the true peak maxed at +0.7.
This experience left me with a lot of questions. Are my ears deceiving me or does what Insight reflected confirming what I was hearing? Am I being to nerdy about gainstaging and clipping the master bus or are these "rules" that are not as flexible as those applied during the creative and pre-production process? Are the fundamental principles of sound engineering no longer applicable or do we actually need them now more than ever in an era of ever-changing technologies and applications which are now accessible to anyone who can train themselves to be a self-taught professional?
Throughout my career the most pervasive idea I've heard, and that I hear more and more now, is that "there are no rules". But as I gain more experience I realise that this is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy by those who don't fully appreciate the complexity of the skills and knowledge required to excel in the discipline of creating, producing, mixing and/or mastering. Add to that the plethora of plugins and the questionable advice from an endless supply of self-proclaimed online gurus promising an ever easier way of getting your mix to sound just as good as the pros or a way of creating and producing music without even needing to know the theory behind it, and you have a situation where people don't feel they really need to learn the basics at all because the technology seems to it all for you anyway.
I've rambled quite a bit. I know I likely won't get a response because this is so long and I'm not famous, but I hope I do. I will post a comment with some more specific technical questions, but it would be great to hear what other people think about my rant. Thanks for reading if you got this far.
Fun fact: Knife Party (Out of all people) mastered their new Lost Souls EP around -14 LUFS!
R3bbit interesting, I hate how everyone says edm has to be -6db. I master around the point I feel comfortable with and it still sounds as loud as other songs!
I hate the fact that i dont get what you guys r talking about...yet.
@@imd5363 keep researching and practicing. I used to have zero knowledge, after 1 year I have 3 songs on spotify and apple music, and I gained such a vast knowledge. All in 1 YEAR!
And its not that I'm super smart or have a lot of free time , just passion
I wonder if u can make 8d audio using AMBEO orbit?...
A great question would be: Can/would you master using stock plugins?
I tried and it does get louder but i cant seem to get it to come to its full volume.
Why you always gotta know what people need and want, I was sitting there yesterday saying " I need to learn more about mastering " ..
You should make a mixing tutorial, if you haven't done one already.
He has
You shouldn’t be a dumb ass and look at his channel before making stupid comments. 🤦♂️
Stay friendly guys! Yeah I have a few videos covering mixing topics and techniques, search the channel and I hope you find what you're looking for :)
Great video. Question: shouldn’t all the below 20hz sounds be already deleted during the mixing stage? Like if I’m made sure 20hz is deleted in every track in the mixing stage, would it still be necessary to do so in mastering?
I DONT THINK WE CAN BE... I DONT THINK WE CAN BE FROooooo.....
Hello Michael, thanks for you amazing channel, i learned lots here, but mastering for online distribution still killing me, i cant find any right specs for mastering with the lufs and etc, can you an specific video for online distribution mastering for electronic music? thank you! Cheers from Brazil
Can U do a video about music copy rights and licensing etc?
I could try but I might not be the best person to do it. I don't have a huge experience with it. Owning the copyright and such is very simple, you basically have to create and publish the song. But enforcing the copyright is challenging, it requires a legal team working for you to enforce it
If you are a beginner You should go for Music Distribution websites, like Distrokid, it's a paid service but some of them have free plans like Soundrop and Routenote. Hope this will help you....
Hey Mike, excellent tutorial as always!! Fi is possible, can you make a tutorial explaining how to setup a surround 5.1 or 3D track in fl sudio??? Thanks and congrats to yout channel!!
Heyyy, Can i have a question please?
Before Mastering, we should export the whole mix, include instruments, drums, basses, SFX, and Vocal into a WAV, Is that right? Hope you answer, thanks a lot
Very helpful! Though I have a question about highpassing the compressor. I'm wondering why you would want the compressor to be compressing the whole song based on the input from only the highs. It seems like a cleaner solution might be to split the signal and only compress the highs. That seems like it would both prevent the lows from crushing everything via compression while preserving their original Dynamics? Though maybe compressing the whole song allows for the highs to shine through relative to the lows?
Thank you for this video! I really love you channel because your videos are so minimalistic and straight forward! I also really love your thumbnails! Keep up the awesome work! ♥️🔥👍
Thank you!
Isn't limiting already done by a compressor? (compression "squishes" the song into defined boundaries, right?) Why does limiting need to be a step of its own? (beginner)
ps. I'm starting to learn that a really WIDE audio sounds more sexy than really LOUD audio.
Great content, but I still see a lack of missing information there. For example, what about the mid-side EQ ? Or the true about most of successful releases where the LUFS goes up to -9/-8/-7 ? I know Spotify asks you for -12 -13 full scale but there certain parameters that goes out in the real industry. What about automation? I think tracks needs to be more dynamical instead of being flatten with compression and saturation. The natural perspective is lost today. I think there is more to be covered in this tutorials. I really got some help form this but I still believe there has to be more things explained that are missing.
Wonderful video yet again, Michael! Thank you for all the work you put in to share the knowledge :) A question about RMS; what would be an ideal or an ok RMS level on a song before it's going to be mastered? Some say -25 to -20ish is fine and others say -19, -14 etc. Some say it doesnt really matter as long as it's not super low. Whats your take on the subject? Thanks :)
I think it doesn't really matter as long as it's not super low. I think it's good for morale when the levels are a little higher, sometimes it can feel easier to get a good tone that way! Mostly placebo effect but I'd say get the levels up or around -19,-14 as you say and check that you are not clipping. If you use mix bus compression before mastering, you might well be able to push your RMS higher with no ill effects :)
@@inthemix Alright, thanks for your input, mate! When my mix is done i usually have an RMS around -22 or -21. I was a bit worried that that would be too low. But that's an ok level after all?
Can you do a tutorial on vocal mixing with harmony and chorus. :)
dope video (Y)
When you added that VBC FG compressor from slate, you completely destroyed the openness and top end clarity. So sad
Honestly listening back I am not happy with what RUclips is doing to the audio in this video. It might be due to some loudness normalisation but the audio examples are not sounding the same as the raw files on my PC.
@@inthemix oh thats true
Thanks sir
The thing is… I don’t think we can be friends
Guys please help! Should I level or eq first ? Im always confuse
So what sample rate and bit rate eg. (24/44.1khz) should the pre master file be before mastering? And also what should the final file be? (The last mastered file)
I typically try to start with the highest resolution possible or the same as my export. So I would ask an artist to send over the file as a 24 or 32 bit wav file at 44.1 or 88.2k. I export at 44.1 as that is the standard for digital audio, although this seems to be moving up to 96k over the next decade...
Although this is the third time you make a mastering video the always help and keep us refreshed☺️So thank u🙂🙏🏼
I did make one last year but a few things have changed and it needed a refresh and the second one I made was a detailed video about limiting and loudness. I link that in the description because I don't cover it in this video.
Thanks for watching!
Thank you bro so much 😻😻😻
Hello Michael! Could you tell me an alternative to TR5 Master EQ, please? This because I do not have much money xD
If you have UAD gear, you can't go wrong with Manley Massive Passive & Shadow Hills Mastering Comp, but I haven't found anything close outside of Magix Samplitude Pro X.
Awesome one...make a tutorial on mastering with default plugins..
I have a tutorial for mastering using only stock FL Studio plugin on my channel. I think it uses only stick and maybe one or two free plugins but I cannot quite recall from memory. It should be simple to search for I hope :)
It helped. Thank you :)
If you're using the default Fruity Limiter for Compression purposes, what would you recommend for the knee % and dB reduction? I take around a dB off the top and usually run with 20% knee, but I'd like to hear your opinion.
I actually have a question. I don't know if its my mixes or my room? but anytime I'm in the process of mixing or even mastering most things oddly sound perfect and than after export i hear parts that sound a lot quieter or more subtle in general. like vocals take a dip after export, bass starts over powering the mastered WAV file and the high end is dropped a lot as well.
Sir my song sounds different on different devices why this happens and how can i fix it pls tell 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏BIGFAN
Ozone 8, steaming section. Run the automatic shit, then lift up the bass? we all good babys
Hi there, do you have any mastering engineers you can recommend? great videos by the way they have been really helpful 👌🏼👌🏼 Rob
What's your take on online mastering services e.g. landr. etc.... Who do you recommend them to? Do you use them at all? Thanks
Do you have any tips someone who's mix sounds good to them on their monitors and headphones, but sounds bad in the car? The quality of the song just doesn't sound professional by any means when played in my car, but I like the way it sounds in my home studio.
you. are. a. legend. I cannot thank you enough lol :D
Right😂
if you've nver simillar these before Don''t Worry!
The Pleasent thing Only He Says ❤
I'd like to note the free essay in the description breaking everything down. Way above and beyond, thankyou
When exporting the mix down for mastering, do you export 24 bit wav or 32 bit?
If you haven't got any mastered tracks of your own to use as a reference, how would you go about finding one? Would audio from youtube be a reliable source?