THE MOD METHOD with VESPERS MASTERING In this Module What - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

THE MOD METHOD

with VESPERS

MASTERING

• What mastering can do & what it can’t
• Self-mastering vs. third-party mastering
• Picking a mastering engineer
• Mastering workflow
• Audio artifacts & fidelity: Limiters & soft clippers
• Mastering chains in Live & vs. plugins
• Destination specific mastering

In this Module

• Mastering is not magic. It’s the final little bit of polish.
• Most of the work should be done by your mix.
• With a properly done, good, clean mix, mastering should be a

simple and easy as compression, EQ and a limiter.

• The only time you need more than that is when there are

problems with the mix!

What Mastering Can Do & What it Can’t

• You should at least attempt self-mastering
• It’ll make you a better mix engineer by shining the spotlight
• n errors in your mix
• You also need a basic understanding of mastering so you can

reference your mix for A/B comparison with mastered songs

• The quick master

Self-Mastering

• By the time you’re done a mix, you’re (in most cases) way too

close to your song to be objective about a final master.

• A mastering engineer who does this, exclusively, as a career

will almost always be better than a producer who only masters a couple times a month.

• Mastering engineers typically have proper listening

environments.

Third Party Mastering Benefits

• No jack of all trades. Choose an engineer who just does

mastering

• Pick an engineer who specializes in your style of music
• Pick a mastering engineer that will give you feedback on your

mix and will reject mixes that need heavy-handed fixes

• Pick a mastering engineer who will give you several revisions
• Will master to MFiT standards (more on this later)

Picking a Mastering Engineer

• Sum mix to mono
• Listen in headphones (wider sound stage)
• Listen on laptop speakers
• Listen on iPhone EarPods
• Listen in the car
• Listen when Warped in Ableton Live
• Give it a break for 48 hours, then listen again

Final Reference Workflow (before mastering)

• Leave a bar before your song starts for “pre-roll), and several

bars after for all your FX tails to fully decay.

• -6 dBFS headroom.
• Alternate mixes:
• Vocal up mix.
• Sub up mix.
• Snare up mix.

Best Practices When Exporting for Mastering

• Mixing into a mastering chain?
• Benefits
• Highlights problems with your mix, allowing you to correct

them

• Drawbacks
• Can mask drastic level errors
• When and how to use this technique

Mastering Workflow

• Artifacts & distortion
• Limiters vs. soft-clippers

Preserving Audio Fidelity

• Chain for self-mastering
• Spectrum
• Pre-EQ: EQ Eight - Mid-Side
• Glue Compressor (mix gel or parallel)
• Post-EQ: EQ Eight - Mild frequency adjustment
• Limiter
• Spectrum

Device Recommendations for Ableton Live Mastering Chains

• Recommendations:
• FabFilter Pro-Q2, Pro-C, Pro-MB, Pro-L
• iZotope Ozone
• Freeware:
• Voxengo SPAN
• TDL: Kotelnikov, VOS SlickEQ, Nova
• Vladg/sound: Limiter No6

Recommendations for Third-Party Plugins

• You’ll typically create two masters
• One for streaming, compressed formats
• One for download sites

Destination Specific Mastering

• Use loudness normalization
• LUFS & TP
• LUFS measurements for common streaming services:
• Spotify: -12, Youtube: -13, iTunes stream & Souncheck: -16
• In general, use -16 LUFS & TP (true peak) metering: TP -1
• Check out this blog post on Warp Academy: https://

www.warpacademy.com/current-trends-in-mastering/

Mastering for Streaming / Compressed Data Rates

• What mastering can do & what it can’t
• Self-mastering vs. third-party mastering
• Picking a mastering engineer
• Mastering workflow
• Audio artifacts & fidelity: Limiters & soft clippers
• Mastering chains in Live & vs. plugins
• Destination specific mastering

Review