I hope this helps as a guide like I explained at the end you can switch out the compressors and the chain as well. Like saturation can come before compression to make it obvious. You can clean the mix at the end instead. Ozone imager before stuff. EXPERIMENT and make your own chains
monsieur171 If you're using Fruity loops and don't have a saturator like ableton's,using sausage fattener with slight tweak on the color knob for saturation is not a bad idea.
I can honestly say that this is the ONLY good mastering tutorial on TH-cam thus far. I seriously cannot find another one of this quality or depth and I don't even use Abelton, and instead use FL Studio. Everything just makes sense, and there is no BS. You have definitely earned my respect and my subscription.
EQ processing typically change the phase. That's correct. Exemption: Linear Phase EQ mode. You are correct about the cutting and the phase changes, and that's also the idea of negative EQing: When an EQ band is used to lower a part of the spectrum, then you have your phase changes where the frequencies are reduces. So if you want to boost a part of your spectrum but instead everything except that band, then you, again, have phase changes only in areas you reduce. That minimizes the phase changes of EQing.
Bro, you are a god man! Thank you for this awesome video. Really gets into the sound of EDM, rather than general music mastering that other videos offer. Massive props for this one.
I am currently mastering my track that really isn’t mixed too good. I’m super new into producing. And I’m blown away by how good this makes it sound. This REALLY helped me. I’m subscribing and I’ll check if u have any mixing videos👍🤣
my masterchain is: 1. Line EQ Cut all under 30 and above 18000 2. FabQ with a Side Lowcut at 185~ 3. OTT with around 20~ 30 is too much in my opinion! 4. fabq-L to get it to zero. as zen says i do the stereo things in the buzzes already and some compression etc aswell. mastering is for me only polishing. :)
I was kinda skeptical at first when I saw this video notification (17min Mastering tutorial), but I am actually really astonished by the quality and information in this video. This was really helpful and good!! Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks brother. Yeah it's long as I wanted to explain my process and some peoples process. Remember there is more than 1 way of doing it so keep learning and develop your own mixture of techniques that you enjoy.
Yeah that's true but I even meant that this is quite short for a video for mastering. But you wrapped it up perfectly and it's the best video for mastering EDM out there I would say and I watched a lot man :D
You are correct in saying that people sometimes are unfortunately more interested in debating in forums about things like how using a 48db cut can cause phase issues, which could cause artifacts from the foldback, more than likely though it will just ever so slightly degrade the audio around where the cut is, which in ur case is higher than most people can really even hear. Also, clipping is done on purpose if it can be, meaning that it works out sonically and is pleasing to the ears. I am fairly knowledgeable about the things going on "under the hood," but i acknowledge that out of the past 7 years that i have been producing, i have spent too much time learning information which for my purposes was unecessary overkill in the end. It has not caused my music to become any better, except in some real anomalous situations. I admit i do just always have a need to understand the mechanics of whatever i am doing. It is how my mind works. It uses theory to make decisions during practice, and has i believe helped me to sort of mentally integrate whatever it is i am focused on learning at the time, and now i can say 7 years in that even though it has taken me longer than it would've otherwise i am really glad that i have had absolutely no mentors, and have taken the time to truly understand each and every aspect of music production because these two things have made it to where i have learned to intuit things often during times when im writing that will turn out to be correct, and it is something i had never done before. Just keep on going brother. The more hate, the better you know you're doing
My Master Chain lel: *Fruity Balance* to lower the volume/gain for buildups without cutting it like a decreasing cealing on a limiter *EQ* for 25/30hz|18khz Cuts Anuther *EQ* for potential Buildup Lowcuts up to the Snare freq. *Ozone 5* *Ozone 6 Maximizer*
Wanted to take a moment and say thank you. I really like the way you explain things, and your no-nonsense way of getting the master to sound commercially hot without distorting. The Learn feature in Ozone Imager was a hidden trick that I only had to make a minot tweak to keep it under 150hz and was able to really fix a mono issue. So ... thank you, from an old school 80's artist trying to make it happen again 40 years later. It's not the years, it's the miles. :-) Peace.
Very good tur. That OTT really is magic. There is one thing I think you should have mentioned - mid/side EQ with the sides highpassed (I ususlly do this in the mix before mastering). Sometumes it has a huge impact and tightens the mix.
zen world. man you are making exactly what ever i need to know. i was thinking i should learn FM synthesis. Next day, i see your tut on it. yesterday i was struggling with mastering. He you are "The savior".❤
Awesome knowledge. Love the "sound" of today's music, fat bass etc. Many musicians can play but don't understand this aspect of what's going on. The "sound " is what people want to hear today now that the technology can reproduce it.
Hey Zen, love your videos bro! I have 1 thing to say though hopefully, I won't sound so nerdy 😂 At the beginning, you used your ear to determine how much high frequencies you should cut off. I personally don't think that's a good habit to get into because the older we get the less high frequencies we are able to hear and therefore we'll risk cutting some frequencies that are audible for younger people. I think the best way to do it is to play it safe and cut off anything above 20kHz. Cheers!
Phase doesn't matter if you are using a linear phase eq or passive eq which is a must on masters anyway. If you want to see how phase effects when cutting with a non linear phase eq fabfilter's channel has a great video on this with them showing the phase measurements as they cut. Also good practice when mastering your own stuff is to low cut close to your speaker range to avoid surprises when playing out.
Yeah there are always people preaching especially on gearslutz. The Linear Phase vs Minimum Phase vid @ 2:25min on fabfilters channel explains it pretty well from a controlled environment sense. For low cutting masters close to speaker range I'm just speaking from personal experience from mastering my own stuff for gigging. There is no substitution for learning your environment and referencing in as many places as possible, but if that is not an option better safe the sorry.
You're so right bro, about paying someone else to master the shit. Swear to god, bro. This is IMPORTANT because someone else will fix it for you and make it sound dope for multiple platforms. I master shit too but I wouldn't master my own shit for pro release. I end up making the same stupid mistakes based on my own biases and the track suffers on playback on multiple platforms (youTube, spotify, websites, etc...). Good vid, bro! I'm gonna subscribe.
Firstly, let me say that watching this gave me a solid path forward on mastering a new track I've been working on - little tips like removing resonances are awesome, and then looking at the WLM output to master against. I noticted that with a double Ableton Limiter it sounded like it was clipping a bit or something, so I shelled out for the Pro-L 2, and the result is much much better. Also given that we now have Ozone 8 and Neutron 2 - which is the bundle Splice is making available to pay monthly for (so nice) - it would be nice to see an updated tutorial, or maybe a tutorial on Neutron 2 and Ozone 8 together! Thanks, and keep up the awesome work!
FYI, as an electrical engineering student learning about signals and transform, getting rid of the low frequencies does not translate into time domain shifting. So the Phase myth is nothing but lies. In order to cause a time domain shift you would need to multiply an exponential decay along the frequency response of such signal. the attenuation constant of the exponential will be the same as the shift constant. In other words, you would have to specifically have an exponential decay along the frequencies of such "sound," which in our case is nothing but noise at 0-20 Hz normally.
Add a Pro-Q2 on the channel, put it into the different modes, print the result and compare those (visually). You'll see that the phase does change around the frequency, you're cutting. I don't say that necessarily bad, because sometimes that might be what you want. I usually cut at 25 to 35 Hz as well, depending on the song. Finding the right algorithm for that cut is key, however. If everything was with clinical precision what you say would've been true, but in the real world things are off - especially latencies in calculating those cuts, depending on the cost of an algorithm that is used.
Right, a linear decay on such low frequencies will resemble an exponential decay of sorts. The phase does happen from where the slope of the line occurs. I am not sure how exactly the slope affects the phase, but I thought the main issue I was addressing is that applying something on certain frequencies directly affects frequencies around it. If you are decreasing the magnitude of frequencies at a constant slope then you should see a similar result as applying an exponential decay. Again, I assuming a shift in those frequencies is not a concern since in the end they are being cut out. Softwares usually try to reproduce a special feature that audio hardware gives so inconsistency between digital plugins may be expected.
I really liked this mastering chain..i mastered my track and it sounds better than the mix..all of the time when i used to master before, it used to sound very distorted and weird. My mix sounds good tho. For the first my mastering is sounding better than my mix. Thanks zen. Subscribed
Nice vid. what about people who use eq's and Comp on there mix buss? do you still bounce down the audio file and master it with the added compression on the mix buss or do you guys take off the fx off of the mix buss before you master. just wondering what some people do.
When you add ott to the master remove the upward compression on the low end. It will just add mud when you don't have a bass playing. Also you don't need to put ur bass in mono. Make it mono in the track not the master. If you want a reese bass it will fuck it up. Just make in mono in the source track
Yow Zen World, I have something for you: Try to use the plugin called 'Engineersfilter'. Many EQ's leave some frequencies through when using a highpass or lowpass but the Engineersfilter doesn't let a sound that has been cut off through at all. It's cleaner than Fabfilter Pro Q. If you highpass in proQ and you open another proQ, you still see some sound left but with the engineersfilter, it's compeltely gone.
Yo zen I have a question bro! If you're so good at music production why aren't you a famous dj and music producer bro you're really good thanks for teaching all of us! You're the best teacher I have haha
Nice vid!!! What about compressing the side signal separately? Not much, just to tighten up the side hits with some ratio 1:1.15 to max 1:2.5 and some big low threshhold. It will help to control the side a bit better especially during drops. What do you think? Greets.
Solid vid. Live's limiters get louder at shorter lookahead settings and a fast manual release. PSP Vintage warmer is a hardware emulation of saturation in comp/limiters, but I bet the free 32 bit Variety of Sound plugins like Ferric TDS, and the free VladG saturating comp and limiter are more popular and equally great.
Thanks for this video Zen. Supporting your channel and videos as much as I can. If you had to pick up a few mastering/mixing third party plug ins, which ones do you recommend? Ozone or Fab?
Actually at very low q's its not noticeable but eq will cause a pre and/or post ringout (self oscillating filter?idk.) of a frequency (usually the q freq) . Linear phase will fix the phase issue but not the ringing over time issue which will bring an additional pre ring therefor smearing transients more. You can test this for yourself easy grab a trance kick like a vengeance kick one that sweeps a sine wave from really hi to really low then put a eq on that channel. If u have lfo tool with the oscilloscope turned on or smexoscope(free) you can see this effect on phase and time in real time or u can record to another channel and compare before and after. with the eq u make a reasonably steep low cut (24db or more) and then you start moving the filter to higher frequencies while watching what is happening to the kick in the scope. If the eq was just cutting then it seems strange that that a low cut would drastically effect its length and lower the actual tuning of the kick. In mastering and at inaudible frequencies on most systems (40-20hz) a cut is of cause unnoticable visually and audibly but again this could be because its at a very low volume at those hz.
Hey zen why are you using the utility to lower the volume? I mean when you are done mixing then the volume on the master should be -6 right,I didn't understand why you had to lower the volume when you started Mastering. Please can you explain
As the mix was a bit over -6 when I transferred over from my MacBook Pro I lowered it to give myself the -6 as it wasn't there. You don't have to do it if your mix is already at -6
Great video! Your explanations were very clear. One thing I am confused about however is the signal flow. First you inserted the compressor, then OTT to the left of it but all other plugins were inserted to the right of the Glue compressor. Does this mean the signal flow is OTT > Glue > Sat?
Truly appreciate this video... Being messing around with music for a while learning online and get good up to a point but I always get stuck with the mixing mastering... My tracks are always muddy and low.. THIS ANSWERED A LOT... Thanks,... Just Subsc.
Question about EQing drums. Do you drop an EQ (Im on Ableton so EQ8 or Fab Filter ProQ2) on each individual drum hit or instrument rack for layered sounds, or do you just put an EQ on each channel broken down (Kick, Low Drums (Toms, Bass Drums, etc), Mid Drums (snares claps hit hats) and then High Drums (cymbals, cow bells, rims etc)? Do you do compression and limiting the same way or just lave that for a master or channel? Love these videos man they're super helpful glad I found them and you're pumping them out!
Great stuff as always Zen World! I am currently mastering a song I produced and mixed. It has been a while since my last one though so needed some inspiration. In this case you :) One of the things I read in an article in MusicTech a couple of years back that pretty much sums mastering up is "the main objective with mastering is to do no harm". I believe that is a crucial part of the final stage of audio engineering. I.e always check after twisting the knobs that you actually are progressing in the right direction. Reference masters are a great tool as well. All the best // DJFLX
Sick vid, really cleared up on some stuff! I’ve got a question; if you’re using compressors on the busses will it over compress to re do it on the master? Also in serum if you use the multiband inbuilt compressor should you avoid post processing compression?
When you get to the part of resonating frequencies is it better to use dynamic cuts or static cuts? You used static in the video and I tend to as well but it just gave the idea.
Personally love the Ozone 8 modules vintage compressor (modelled on the fairchild), exciter, vintage limiter etc... mixed with soundtoys decapitator which is a great saturation plugin
Actually you want to cut below 20 hz not 30. you probably won't notice, but it does make a difference when the track is played on huge speaker systems (festivals, clubs ect.) that extra 10 hz can really make a difference
an ze A lot of big producers cut at 40hz, I really don't think it matters about the super low frequencies, you just can't hear them and they do more harm then good, so just get rid of them
It does matter if you cut below 30 or 40hz. That is just too much of a cut, and you won't notice it on your studio monitor, but it will lack SUB FREQUENCIES. Never cut below 15-20hz guys. Especially for club tracks.
***** ...but you physically can't hear anything below 35ish hz...no matter what... I'd rather have head room than sound only elephants can listen to
Hey zen your videos are awesome and they really help me a lot. I'm searching my own sound but I don't know anything about sound design. Can you give me some tips or do you have any video explaining it? I would love it if you can answer me thanks!
About the thing of getting used to the track by either working on it a lot or simply hearing it over and over in mixing, a trick that can be used to avoid overdoing stuff in the mastering chain is to reduce aprox. 10% of what you tweaked (f.e. if you think that the saturator is good at 8% wet the best would be to put it at 7.5% aprox.). Also, when you are done with the mastering, wait a couple of days and then listen to it again before rendering it. As always, great video Zen! A lot of info, in a short and entertainig video.
Can you please make a video about how loud your song should be for different platforms? For example club/live, spotify/youtube, and soundcloud? And whether or not most people just roll with a single master or if they have multiple masters?
Right so crush every band into about -6dB of headroom... However, I am wondering how does gain staging work when you have something where you want it to open up or become more energy? I read that the best mixes have automation of gain and some high progression?
Hey ninja, I texted to follow the link to support the sample pack and buy it but it is literally no where to be found. Can I get the Nina sung vocal pack plz.
Yeah teh nerds dont know that cutting 30-40hz prevents spikes in dB later on. Having those low frequencies in the mix causes wierd dB spikes that really stick out on a high high end speaker setup or a really good live stage.
I hope this helps as a guide like I explained at the end you can switch out the compressors and the chain as well. Like saturation can come before compression to make it obvious. You can clean the mix at the end instead. Ozone imager before stuff. EXPERIMENT and make your own chains
Zen World
don't pin your own comment! :v
Just so it don't get lost big daddy
Zen World lol #rekt
I love you man. Thanks for hearing out my request!!! :*
Zen World those are really great tips bro, but I do didn't understand why the 2 limiters at the end, cause I think it can cause extra saturation
Awesome video bro! And some great tips to get that mastering right!
love u edwan
Zen Loves your Comment ..He Dont care About Us ? Lol :P
Broduceer :p
Man. These are honestly some of the most concise, informative, and ACTUALLY helpful videos on mixing/mastering I have seen.
real major league producers use sausage fattener on the master bro
soundgoodizer*
OTT on the master or bust
monsieur171 If you're using Fruity loops and don't have a saturator like ableton's,using sausage fattener with slight tweak on the color knob for saturation is not a bad idea.
HomelessGuy ^^^
Dubvision have put sausage fattener on their master before. Do what the fuck you want.
I can honestly say that this is the ONLY good mastering tutorial on TH-cam thus far. I seriously cannot find another one of this quality or depth and I don't even use Abelton, and instead use FL Studio.
Everything just makes sense, and there is no BS. You have definitely earned my respect and my subscription.
EQ processing typically change the phase. That's correct. Exemption: Linear Phase EQ mode. You are correct about the cutting and the phase changes, and that's also the idea of negative EQing: When an EQ band is used to lower a part of the spectrum, then you have your phase changes where the frequencies are reduces. So if you want to boost a part of your spectrum but instead everything except that band, then you, again, have phase changes only in areas you reduce. That minimizes the phase changes of EQing.
Thanks, Zen. I never realized removing resonating frequencies could make the sound so much better. I've been ignoring this
Yes one of the things I do on every track. Cleans it up a lot.
ok, now this is just incredible homie. my days of ozone are officially over. i can't believe we live in a world where videos like this are free
Bro, you are a god man! Thank you for this awesome video. Really gets into the sound of EDM, rather than general music mastering that other videos offer. Massive props for this one.
I am currently mastering my track that really isn’t mixed too good. I’m super new into producing. And I’m blown away by how good this makes it sound. This REALLY helped me. I’m subscribing and I’ll check if u have any mixing videos👍🤣
my masterchain is:
1. Line EQ Cut all under 30 and above 18000
2. FabQ with a Side Lowcut at 185~
3. OTT with around 20~ 30 is too much in my opinion!
4. fabq-L to get it to zero.
as zen says i do the stereo things in the buzzes already and some compression etc aswell. mastering is for me only polishing. :)
I was kinda skeptical at first when I saw this video notification (17min Mastering tutorial), but I am actually really astonished by the quality and information in this video. This was really helpful and good!! Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks brother. Yeah it's long as I wanted to explain my process and some peoples process. Remember there is more than 1 way of doing it so keep learning and develop your own mixture of techniques that you enjoy.
Yeah that's true but I even meant that this is quite short for a video for mastering. But you wrapped it up perfectly and it's the best video for mastering EDM out there I would say and I watched a lot man :D
You are correct in saying that people sometimes are unfortunately more interested in debating in forums about things like how using a 48db cut can cause phase issues, which could cause artifacts from the foldback, more than likely though it will just ever so slightly degrade the audio around where the cut is, which in ur case is higher than most people can really even hear. Also, clipping is done on purpose if it can be, meaning that it works out sonically and is pleasing to the ears. I am fairly knowledgeable about the things going on "under the hood," but i acknowledge that out of the past 7 years that i have been producing, i have spent too much time learning information which for my purposes was unecessary overkill in the end. It has not caused my music to become any better, except in some real anomalous situations. I admit i do just always have a need to understand the mechanics of whatever i am doing. It is how my mind works. It uses theory to make decisions during practice, and has i believe helped me to sort of mentally integrate whatever it is i am focused on learning at the time, and now i can say 7 years in that even though it has taken me longer than it would've otherwise i am really glad that i have had absolutely no mentors, and have taken the time to truly understand each and every aspect of music production because these two things have made it to where i have learned to intuit things often during times when im writing that will turn out to be correct, and it is something i had never done before. Just keep on going brother. The more hate, the better you know you're doing
My Master Chain lel:
*Fruity Balance* to lower the volume/gain for buildups without cutting it like a decreasing cealing on a limiter
*EQ* for 25/30hz|18khz Cuts
Anuther *EQ* for potential Buildup Lowcuts up to the Snare freq.
*Ozone 5*
*Ozone 6 Maximizer*
The best mastering tutorial I've ever found on TH-cam. Thank you so much bro!
Wanted to take a moment and say thank you. I really like the way you explain things, and your no-nonsense way of getting the master to sound commercially hot without distorting. The Learn feature in Ozone Imager was a hidden trick that I only had to make a minot tweak to keep it under 150hz and was able to really fix a mono issue. So ... thank you, from an old school 80's artist trying to make it happen again 40 years later. It's not the years, it's the miles. :-) Peace.
Wooow incredible like always, by the way cutting those resonating frequencies fixed my mix, i never knew what they were until i saw this! Thanks man!
Very good tur. That OTT really is magic. There is one thing I think you should have mentioned - mid/side EQ with the sides highpassed (I ususlly do this in the mix before mastering). Sometumes it has a huge impact and tightens the mix.
Lol, this is like a video sent from heaven. I just finished a song, took a break before mastering it, went to youtube, saw this
Not even 10 minutes in and I have learned more, (about mastering) than I did in my previous six years of production
zen world. man you are making exactly what ever i need to know. i was thinking i should learn FM synthesis. Next day, i see your tut on it. yesterday i was struggling with mastering. He you are "The savior".❤
Thanks brother but remember theres more than 1 way of doing this.
Straight up the most straight forward and helpful mastering tutorial that i have ever watched. Big thanks my man
Glad it helped.
fucking love you man - this right here is a goldmine of a youtube channel
your channel is really awesome. by far the best channel for learning music production
I literally do this to everyone of my tracks, and it makes a night and day difference thanks so much !!
I saw someone comment asking if you could make this vid and here it is!!
This helped me out a lot even though I don't use Ableton, thanks a lot man, I appreciate your tutorials.
I learned alot here. didnt realize how much you could actually do with ableton stock. thanks man ! much love
-M. Law
Just mastered my second song with this video, thanks Zen! :)
Thanks man! This tutorial really helped me to set up my own mastering chain.
Awesome knowledge. Love the "sound" of today's music, fat bass etc. Many musicians can play but don't understand this aspect of what's going on. The "sound " is what people want to hear today now that the technology can reproduce it.
Grand Talent well said. I'm glad not everyone from the older generation is fearful of change in music
Didn't have to say older, geeezzzz
Hey Zen, love your videos bro! I have 1 thing to say though hopefully, I won't sound so nerdy 😂 At the beginning, you used your ear to determine how much high frequencies you should cut off. I personally don't think that's a good habit to get into because the older we get the less high frequencies we are able to hear and therefore we'll risk cutting some frequencies that are audible for younger people. I think the best way to do it is to play it safe and cut off anything above 20kHz. Cheers!
Omg Zen, these tutorials are coming out at the perfect times.
Phase doesn't matter if you are using a linear phase eq or passive eq which is a must on masters anyway. If you want to see how phase effects when cutting with a non linear phase eq fabfilter's channel has a great video on this with them showing the phase measurements as they cut. Also good practice when mastering your own stuff is to low cut close to your speaker range to avoid surprises when playing out.
Gonna check it out as the gear slutz forum is fileld with people preaching stuff
Yeah there are always people preaching especially on gearslutz. The Linear Phase vs Minimum Phase vid @ 2:25min on fabfilters channel explains it pretty well from a controlled environment sense.
For low cutting masters close to speaker range I'm just speaking from personal experience from mastering my own stuff for gigging. There is no substitution for learning your environment and referencing in as many places as possible, but if that is not an option better safe the sorry.
You're so right bro, about paying someone else to master the shit. Swear to god, bro. This is IMPORTANT because someone else will fix it for you and make it sound dope for multiple platforms. I master shit too but I wouldn't master my own shit for pro release. I end up making the same stupid mistakes based on my own biases and the track suffers on playback on multiple platforms (youTube, spotify, websites, etc...). Good vid, bro! I'm gonna subscribe.
Better than the whole Deadmau5 Master Class combined, thanks bro.
Thanks Zen. You improved my productions a lot! Finally good videos out there that explain professionally how to do stuff properly
Firstly, let me say that watching this gave me a solid path forward on mastering a new track I've been working on - little tips like removing resonances are awesome, and then looking at the WLM output to master against. I noticted that with a double Ableton Limiter it sounded like it was clipping a bit or something, so I shelled out for the Pro-L 2, and the result is much much better. Also given that we now have Ozone 8 and Neutron 2 - which is the bundle Splice is making available to pay monthly for (so nice) - it would be nice to see an updated tutorial, or maybe a tutorial on Neutron 2 and Ozone 8 together! Thanks, and keep up the awesome work!
FYI, as an electrical engineering student learning about signals and transform, getting rid of the low frequencies does not translate into time domain shifting. So the Phase myth is nothing but lies. In order to cause a time domain shift you would need to multiply an exponential decay along the frequency response of such signal. the attenuation constant of the exponential will be the same as the shift constant. In other words, you would have to specifically have an exponential decay along the frequencies of such "sound," which in our case is nothing but noise at 0-20 Hz normally.
example:
x(t) = signal
X(S) = output signal in frequency domain
x(t - t0) **time shift** e^(-s0)X(s) **Exponential decay**
Thanks for the engineering side of this brother.
Alex Hoyos 9+10=21
Add a Pro-Q2 on the channel, put it into the different modes, print the result and compare those (visually). You'll see that the phase does change around the frequency, you're cutting.
I don't say that necessarily bad, because sometimes that might be what you want. I usually cut at 25 to 35 Hz as well, depending on the song. Finding the right algorithm for that cut is key, however.
If everything was with clinical precision what you say would've been true, but in the real world things are off - especially latencies in calculating those cuts, depending on the cost of an algorithm that is used.
Right, a linear decay on such low frequencies will resemble an exponential decay of sorts. The phase does happen from where the slope of the line occurs. I am not sure how exactly the slope affects the phase, but I thought the main issue I was addressing is that applying something on certain frequencies directly affects frequencies around it. If you are decreasing the magnitude of frequencies at a constant slope then you should see a similar result as applying an exponential decay. Again, I assuming a shift in those frequencies is not a concern since in the end they are being cut out.
Softwares usually try to reproduce a special feature that audio hardware gives so inconsistency between digital plugins may be expected.
You're great zen, my masterchain has been like this the last few months, thanks for the good video
Should the resonance removal be done before or after compression? I would think before but I could be wrong. Thanks.
It´s better if you do it before the compression.
Cheers :-)
Hell yeah, man. Hell yeah. Been following you for awhile now. Good stuff. I finally subscribed. Thanks for all you do!
very helpful video ! also might I recommend "TP bassline" which will allow you select any rang of frequencies you want processed in mono and its free.
Hi, thanks for the great tutorial.
One question.
At what LUFS level do you currently master your tracks?
-14 LUFS for Spotify?
Bro you're a life saver. Thank you for your masterclass!
I really liked this mastering chain..i mastered my track and it sounds better than the mix..all of the time when i used to master before, it used to sound very distorted and weird. My mix sounds good tho. For the first my mastering is sounding better than my mix. Thanks zen. Subscribed
The video I've been waiting for. All your tips are top class and so I've wanted to see your perception on mastering. Thanks a lot
Good stuff! Solid mastering tutorial
Nice vid. what about people who use eq's and Comp on there mix buss? do you still bounce down the audio file and master it with the added compression on the mix buss or do you guys take off the fx off of the mix buss before you master. just wondering what some people do.
When you add ott to the master remove the upward compression on the low end. It will just add mud when you don't have a bass playing. Also you don't need to put ur bass in mono. Make it mono in the track not the master. If you want a reese bass it will fuck it up. Just make in mono in the source track
still the best mastering tutorial!
Thank you zen, this really helps. You are #1 handsome man.
Yow Zen World, I have something for you: Try to use the plugin called 'Engineersfilter'. Many EQ's leave some frequencies through when using a highpass or lowpass but the Engineersfilter doesn't let a sound that has been cut off through at all. It's cleaner than Fabfilter Pro Q. If you highpass in proQ and you open another proQ, you still see some sound left but with the engineersfilter, it's compeltely gone.
I'll try
deadmau5 uses this if I remember. Havent tried it but heard good things
Alex Meulenbeld i use it to cut frequencies completely if necessary. it's great
its a nice free plugin. i never understood why i downloaded it months ago, havent used it. but imma try it out aswell
Can't run it on 64 bit arch, so there's that! Or am I missing something?
Yo zen I have a question bro! If you're so good at music production why aren't you a famous dj and music producer bro you're really good thanks for teaching all of us! You're the best teacher I have haha
I needed this, like really needed this.
Glad I could help but the EVO group knew it was already coming
me too , it just filled all the holes lol 😂😂
The best video from this channel 😚
But don't your tracks get reduced to -14LUFS on TH-cam and Spotify? Or are you aiming to a CD master?
camelcrusher is best
Tiësto Edit on 100%
splice has it
Nah, OTT on master is best
Nice vid!!! What about compressing the side signal separately? Not much, just to tighten up the side hits with some ratio 1:1.15 to max 1:2.5 and some big low threshhold. It will help to control the side a bit better especially during drops. What do you think? Greets.
Solid vid. Live's limiters get louder at shorter lookahead settings and a fast manual release. PSP Vintage warmer is a hardware emulation of saturation in comp/limiters, but I bet the free 32 bit Variety of Sound plugins like Ferric TDS, and the free VladG saturating comp and limiter are more popular and equally great.
That PSP is weird but thanks for clarifying it. I remember it as a saturator but then I heard it was a compressor and I as like ? HUH
This video got my sub. My mastering chain looks similar, but I'm always open to tinkering and trying new methods. Thanks!
Thanks for this video Zen. Supporting your channel and videos as much as I can.
If you had to pick up a few mastering/mixing third party plug ins, which ones do you recommend? Ozone or Fab?
Could you do a video on which plugins you think you should invest in? Both effects and synths. NICE VIDEO!!
Actually at very low q's its not noticeable but eq will cause a pre and/or post ringout (self oscillating filter?idk.) of a frequency (usually the q freq) . Linear phase will fix the phase issue but not the ringing over time issue which will bring an additional pre ring therefor smearing transients more. You can test this for yourself easy grab a trance kick like a vengeance kick one that sweeps a sine wave from really hi to really low then put a eq on that channel. If u have lfo tool with the oscilloscope turned on or smexoscope(free) you can see this effect on phase and time in real time or u can record to another channel and compare before and after. with the eq u make a reasonably steep low cut (24db or more) and then you start moving the filter to higher frequencies while watching what is happening to the kick in the scope. If the eq was just cutting then it seems strange that that a low cut would drastically effect its length and lower the actual tuning of the kick. In mastering and at inaudible frequencies on most systems (40-20hz) a cut is of cause unnoticable visually and audibly but again this could be because its at a very low volume at those hz.
Hey zen why are you using the utility to lower the volume? I mean when you are done mixing then the volume on the master should be -6 right,I didn't understand why you had to lower the volume when you started Mastering.
Please can you explain
As the mix was a bit over -6 when I transferred over from my MacBook Pro I lowered it to give myself the -6 as it wasn't there. You don't have to do it if your mix is already at -6
Zen World Thanks alot bro and congratulations for 50k😀
Congrats for 50k subscribers!!
Who made the compression video you recommended? I looked for "Julian Green how to actually compress" and similar and couldn't find it.
Absolutely sick tutorial by the way, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
Great video! Your explanations were very clear. One thing I am confused about however is the signal flow. First you inserted the compressor, then OTT to the left of it but all other plugins were inserted to the right of the Glue compressor. Does this mean the signal flow is OTT > Glue > Sat?
Awesome video Bro! Thank you Greeting from Mauritius.
Truly appreciate this video... Being messing around with music for a while learning online and get good up to a point but I always get stuck with the mixing mastering... My tracks are always muddy and low.. THIS ANSWERED A LOT... Thanks,... Just Subsc.
Really cool video amigo. Thank you. For my Master Channel, I like to use MStereo Expander, Neutron EQ, OTT, Ozone Vintage Limiter
My master chain is pretty much the same as this. Pro Q2, glue compressor, Kclip for saturation, ozone imager and limiter
Love Love Love this tut !!! best one i found on internet !! best Explained !!! love your vids !! you are tooooo helpful !!! big big big thanks !!!!
i wasn't expecting such a quality video! great job
Thanks for watching
Thanx a lot for the tutorial zen and congratulations for 50k...I might send a MASTERED track for feedback on Thursday
Question about EQing drums. Do you drop an EQ (Im on Ableton so EQ8 or Fab Filter ProQ2) on each individual drum hit or instrument rack for layered sounds, or do you just put an EQ on each channel broken down (Kick, Low Drums (Toms, Bass Drums, etc), Mid Drums (snares claps hit hats) and then High Drums (cymbals, cow bells, rims etc)? Do you do compression and limiting the same way or just lave that for a master or channel? Love these videos man they're super helpful glad I found them and you're pumping them out!
We here bois
Great stuff as always Zen World! I am currently mastering a song I produced and mixed. It has been a while since my last one though so needed some inspiration. In this case you :) One of the things I read in an article in MusicTech a couple of years back that pretty much sums mastering up is "the main objective with mastering is to do no harm". I believe that is a crucial part of the final stage of audio engineering. I.e always check after twisting the knobs that you actually are progressing in the right direction. Reference masters are a great tool as well. All the best // DJFLX
Sick vid, really cleared up on some stuff!
I’ve got a question; if you’re using compressors on the busses will it over compress to re do it on the master? Also in serum if you use the multiband inbuilt compressor should you avoid post processing compression?
When you get to the part of resonating frequencies is it better to use dynamic cuts or static cuts? You used static in the video and I tend to as well but it just gave the idea.
nice tutorial man cant wait till i finish my exams gonna make a zen world marathon and try to watch as many tutorials in one day haha
Personally love the Ozone 8 modules vintage compressor (modelled on the fairchild), exciter, vintage limiter etc... mixed with soundtoys decapitator which is a great saturation plugin
Actually you want to cut below 20 hz not 30. you probably won't notice, but it does make a difference when the track is played on huge speaker systems (festivals, clubs ect.) that extra 10 hz can really make a difference
an ze A lot of big producers cut at 40hz, I really don't think it matters about the super low frequencies, you just can't hear them and they do more harm then good, so just get rid of them
thank you for making the video, really helped me out :)
It does matter if you cut below 30 or 40hz. That is just too much of a cut, and you won't notice it on your studio monitor, but it will lack SUB FREQUENCIES. Never cut below 15-20hz guys. Especially for club tracks.
***** ...but you physically can't hear anything below 35ish hz...no matter what... I'd rather have head room than sound only elephants can listen to
You should cut everything that doesn't need to be on the 20-150 hz, but leave the sub from 30 to 70 at least.
Great video man! what do you think about ozones limiter?
Hey zen your videos are awesome and they really help me a lot.
I'm searching my own sound but I don't know anything about sound design.
Can you give me some tips or do you have any video explaining it?
I would love it if you can answer me thanks!
About the thing of getting used to the track by either working on it a lot or simply hearing it over and over in mixing, a trick that can be used to avoid overdoing stuff in the mastering chain is to reduce aprox. 10% of what you tweaked (f.e. if you think that the saturator is good at 8% wet the best would be to put it at 7.5% aprox.).
Also, when you are done with the mastering, wait a couple of days and then listen to it again before rendering it.
As always, great video Zen! A lot of info, in a short and entertainig video.
Thanks Nicolas and I agree come back and listen to it as your ears gets used to things and it will be harder to cypher out some errors.
1. EQ 2. Multiband comp 3.Compression 4. Saturator (sound distorsion) 5. imager 6. limiter/maximalizer
Can you please make a video about how loud your song should be for different platforms? For example club/live, spotify/youtube, and soundcloud? And whether or not most people just roll with a single master or if they have multiple masters?
Hello Zen!When we master for TH-cam, we should aim for -7 LUFS?
Always dope information. Period.
btw that mastering chain worked a lot better for me than what I had going on even tho i'm using an outdated version of Ozone (Ozone 5).
Finally a Master tuto!
Sickerblue Music tuto??
...there's so many
But all garbage
yeah this one is by far the best ive come across
I've been working on tracks for years and i still use this video as a general guide sometimes to refresh.
Right so crush every band into about -6dB of headroom... However, I am wondering how does gain staging work when you have something where you want it to open up or become more energy? I read that the best mixes have automation of gain and some high progression?
Congrats on 50k!
Hey ninja, I texted to follow the link to support the sample pack and buy it but it is literally no where to be found. Can I get the Nina sung vocal pack plz.
Sounds so good! Is this a released track?
Yeah teh nerds dont know that cutting 30-40hz prevents spikes in dB later on. Having those low frequencies in the mix causes wierd dB spikes that really stick out on a high high end speaker setup or a really good live stage.
My mastering chain.
Reverb > Flanger > Red Wine > Cake > OTT > More Wine > Fighting.
That OTT is crazy!