Preparing for Mastering: What Files (And Levels) Do I Need to Send to the Mastering Engineer?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ม.ค. 2021
- What kinds of files should you be sending to your mastering engineer? Should you be leaving your buss processing on or off? How loud should your mixes be? Justin Colletti answers all this and more in today's episode.
Want the short answers? Here goes:
-What files types should I send?
Send full resolution WAV files. Send them at whatever bit depth and sample rate you were working on in your session. If you were working at 24/88.2 send that. If you were working at 24/44.1, send that!
-Should I leave my bus processing on, or take it off?
Leave on any processing that was part of your MIX! If you mixed through a compressor, or an EQ, or a limiter, or any other bus processors, leave them on.
If you added them at the end of the process, just for loudness, leave them off. (Though it can't hurt to also send your own attempt at mastering to give your mastering engineer something to "beat".)
-How LOUD should my mixes be?
In this day and age, it doesn't really matter too much! But you'll probably want to send your mixes a bit quieter than you want the final master to be.
A final master in rock and pop genres may often end up anywhere between -14LUFS and -9 LUFS on a loudness meter. So sending files that are on the lower end of that spectrum, or even lower than -14LUFS is good way to go.
A super "safe" range to mix at would be -22LUFS to -16 LUFS for these genres. But if you're getting a great sound by going substantially louder, have at it!
Electronic dance-oriented genres will often end up between -9 LUFS and -5 LUFS after mastering. A good "safe" range for mixing would be -12 to -10 LUFS. But again, feel free to mix louder if you are getting great sounds.
Hip hop masters are often somewhere in between, and can often end up anywhere from -13 LUFS to -6 LUFS after mastering, depending on the subgenre or style. Mixing a little bit lower than where you expect your mix to wind up in the end is a good call.
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That negative
I don't care was GOLD
Damn! That was a good one. I especially enjoyed the “Negative... I Don’t Care”. 😂 I’m gonna use that next time I get caught up in one of those online forum debates where some guy is telling everyone you have to have 6db of headroom or the engineer won’t take the job. Oh wait! That already happened today. SMH.
On all levels this is such an informative video. Great job.
This guy has too few views and likes for the gold he is sharing. Thanks for the information!
Super interesting as always!
Good stuff Justin!
Thank you Justin. Very precious insights. 😎
Super informative and a great delivery as always. Thanks for sharing your insight, you’re a great teacher!
As a solo artist, this has helped me quite a bit. I was just asking my engineer buddy about this because I’m preparing to send off my full length to be mastered after mixing it myself. I’m sitting here trying to keep it “loud” but also kill the peaking and he just told me “you’re gonna wanna send it off quiet, adjust your levels. They’ll do the leg work there for you”.
Thank you!
Thank you so much. This is the end of many discussions ;-)
Gotta share this video with some friends and mixing engineers, it's a summary of everything I tell people all the time.
Excellent work....thank you!
this was everything i needed to know. thank you!
Beautifully said! You confirmed a lot of things I had been wondering about! Many thanks 👍
Great advice from the master mastering engineer.
From a master songwriter?? I'll take it! -Justin
Thanks for explaining this clearly.
Super great information. Love your channel. Great work!
Awesome to hear Cory! Please remember to subscribe and hope to see you around more :-)
Very best,
Justin
Awesome video! I was looking for info on bouncing my instrumentals to "master" for shopping to artists.. But this info was very useful at knowing how to prep a final mix for a full song!!!
great as always, thnx a lot
Awesome! Thank you kind sir. Big help!!🤘🤘
Great podcast Justin!!!! Especially for the mastering with stems moment, only useful; from my humble point of view, when you are working with movies and TV shows music.
Thanks for the precious advices
👌🏻thank you
cool info, i totally agree even to a larger extent. If you want me to master stems than you want me to mix the song, theres no other reason to bounce stems unless you want to change their levels and tonality individually. make sure youre clear on whether you want your mix mastered or you want someone to mix and master what youve created.
Damn! That “No no no” text book killed me 😂😂😂
happy new year 2021 Justin!! droppin' hot SONIC SCOOP knowledge as always son!! great level tips for prepping mix for master... -18LUFS seems to be my sweet spot for most mixes going to mastering but like you said, if you can SPANK your mix bus harder for tone and vibe, knock it out the box Luke!!!
Insightful information without waffle ... cheers
class channel
Thank you! Class comment :-)
Justin, what’s a good metering plug-in that you like? Love the videos and the course
Sorry I missed this! I like the SPL HawkEye, iZotope Insight and the ADPTR Audio Streamliner for different reasons.
That textbook one lollzzz, hahaha !!
Justin - Have you done a video on the online mastering platforms out there? How would I know, if I hired a "Pro Mastering Engineer", that they don't just put my file through some online service and call it good? Especially, when I would hope I would be paying for their "ears", experience, gear and expertise. Ever do a video on the (ethical) side of hiring someone to provide this (or any) audio service? I know a lot of people hiring people (like yourself) long distance (around the world) and have always been skeptical about whether people are getting their money's worth. Thank you!
You got a massive head my friend
You should see the rest of me! X-D
@@SonicScoop That one got me haha I too have a massive head!
Hey Justin, I'm a little late to the party here, but a quick question please...it's regarding your advice about supplying stems vs a full mix for mastering. I'm sure this is a difficult question, but if an artist had a 'good quality full mix' ready for mastering and 'equally good stems' for mastering, which would generally yield the best mastering result? Thanks!
I think that the proper gain staging is really magic, and this part of mixing and Mastering is not the same on the different genres, and Justin you know better that saturation is very important to have a punchy master and as a result, achieve your favourite loudness easily.
I typically use saturations the first steps of my mastering chain, also I use tape machines for colouring before clipper and maximizer, the tapes also help me as well as saturation, and in my opinion and regarding to my experiences, tapes and saturations aren't at the same category for me,
Saturation can reduces peaks to achieve more limiting, and tapes can do the same job as well but tape machines usually be used as colouring on my mastering chain,
Ik multimedia T-racks5 Tape machine model 99 is really magic for mastering
Absolutely, I use some form of saturation in nearly every master I do. In analog mastering that can happen without a dedicated saturation box. But in digital mastering it's useful most of the time to have some kind of dedicated saturation tool fired up. Thanks for weighing in!
-Justin
@@SonicScoopyes that's it, I mix in the box so your second advice is very pure and useful, tnx again
wow, i believe i once heard a mastering engineer say there should at least headroom of -5? did i hear wrong? am now setting up my home studio
-5 would be very loud. That would be at the upper end of these ranges. So that’s a pretty accommodating mastering engineer-which is cool!
Remember that in this case, the smaller the number, the louder the track. So -5 would be towards the loudest ends of things, and -22 would be a really quiet unmastered mix.
Most finished masters depending on genre, might end up anywhere from a low of -14 to a high of -5 or so. There are some tracks that will want to go quieter or louder than that range though. I break it down by genre a little bit more in the video and in the video description.
Hope that helps!
-Justin
Justin, I have a question. Platforms like Spotify seem to suggest that they will noramlise track playback to -14dB LUFS so on that basis, what would be the point of mastering something beyond that level, only for Spotify to turn it down on playback? Doesn't that just mean that you're effectively limiting your peaks? As an example, you mentioned mastering up to a level of -5dB LUFS but at that point, you'd have to severely limit your peaks. Then Spotify will turn everything down by 9dB and your peaks could have been a lot bigger had you mastered at a lower level. Have I missed something? Thanks for a great video.
Here's the long answer:
In Podcast form:
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With Audio Examples:
With Plugin Alliance:
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With FabFilter
th-cam.com/video/y4NlW5S8AsE/w-d-xo.html
What if I'm using Reaper and/ or they are using something else... what if they don't use the same plugins? example would be a particular violin.
Hi Justin great content as always, where can I find your mastering services? I was in sonicscoop.com but I was not able to see prices for this services appreciate if you link your page for this job.
Hi, you can find me add joelambertmastering.com and justincolletti.com. Hope that helps! Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you :-)
-Justin
Hahahhahaha I don't know why I love watching ur tutoring . Negetive I don't care lol
When I listen to pro tracks at -6 luffs and my tracks at -6 luffs mine never sound as loud
probably a recording and/or mix problem rather than a master problem
Maybe your mixes have more sub frequency content that you can't hear well in your listening environment
You could be ruining your transients by pushing them into the mastering chain too hard.
Tame them in the mix and they will come out of the master chain cleaner and still punchy.
That’s definitely a thing! Not all tacks will sounds equally loud at the same nominal level.
There are a variety of factors, but a big one is that all else being equal, brighter tracks will sound louder than darker tracks.
It is common for home mixes and masters to have tons of extra sub that you might not be hearing and might not be doing you any good.
Send some tracks some time if you ever need help on the mastering or mix coaching front!
Very best,
Justin
Thanks for the advice.
I’ll have another go at eq my subs.
I have tried this before but found my mix then sounded thin and not as subby as my reference tracks.
Maybe I was to destructive with the eq.
Thanks again
Hi Justin, your podcasts are always useful tnx , please check out my comment on your last post before this video, tnx alot man.
Your channel and produce like a pro and also Sage audio TH-cam channels have been very very useful for me since 4 years ago, specially MixCon series made my own mixing and mastering style, I always appreciate you Justin.
Thanks! Just replied over there.
@@SonicScoop thank you sir, yes I checked out your comment and your kind words, and thanks again for your valuable time.
I'm always grateful Justin
Always enjoy your videos and advice, except this doesn’t really apply to my mixes. Just Commenting to help the algorithm, cause I make Tearout dubstep and nothing technical matters in tearout except being loud and proud lmao 😂
Damn I’m out here saying shit like “hmm -3 is too quiet” I honestly don’t understand what other dubstep dudes are doing getting so much perceivably louder then my masters, when club levels are around -3. Just thinking out loud in the form of a comment because I’m sure you and most people watching these videos think that’s stupid af.
There are definitely genres that go even louder than these recommendations yes. If it sounds right for what you were doing then do it!
And you are right, the numbers on the meters don’t tell you everything you need to know about loudness. Two tracks that meter at the same level can have different degrees of perceived loudness.
Overall frequency response and tonal balance has a big impact on this. But so does arrangement and other factors.
Hope that helps!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop definitely helps, you have great advice and knowledge, thank you!
But on a personal side note, I’m the type of guy who much prefers set in stone numbers, and I’ve come to find that music is anything but set in stone, but it’s a good challenge and learning experience which I do enjoy.
Cheers!