In Summary
While most engineers know that using a pro mastering engineer brings the best results, many mixers must produce the finished article themselves. Here are some things to keep in mind for self-created masters that actually make things better.
Going Deeper
What Mastering Is
Bounced mixes alone can rarely hit the final destination such as streaming services or physical media. For that there needs to be a further mastering stage as the final arbiter of technical and artistic quality. Like many terms in the industry, the meaning of mastering is always evolving, however in its purest form, mastering is still simply the creation of production master audio files for the final destination.
There are technical requirements and artistic considerations, and creating production masters needs to cover both:
Artistic
Spectral balance - Ensure tonal balance is consistent within a single title or between multiple titles in an album project, and/or compare well to the qualities found in reference masters.
Dynamics - If manipulated at all, tracks’ dynamic ranges can be brought closer together using rides or subtle compression on album projects.
Mix balance - Depending on what is possible using the assets provided, identify any mix levels that might need changing and re-balance accordingly.
Mix width - Width manipulation might be used to give a consistent panorama on album projects, or to change the perspective on standalone titles.
Technical
Quality - Removal of any clicks, pops, noise or distortion.
Project levels - Projects such as albums will need titles’ levels judged to give the right changes in dynamics across the album’s length.
Loudness - Compliance with the loudness requirements of onward services.
Metadata - Encoding artist name, album name, track titles, ISRCs into production masters, or providing them to onward services in their chosen format.
File format - Delivery of the correct file type including format, channel width, sample rate and bit depth.
Getting Self-Mastered Mixes Right
Most would agree that where budget allows, the specialist knowledge and separate perspective of a pro mastering engineer is going to deliver the best results most of the time. That said using their services will obviously add to the cost of the project, and countless smaller projects must rely on making production masters of their own. The key point is that any mastering should make things sound better as a whole entity.
Find Perspective
One of the most powerful tools to use in any mastering job is a fresh perspective. The mastering pro comes with this precious commodity as standard, but for the self-mastering mixer, there is no magic bullet. The single best way to get some perspective back is to get some time away. If at all possible returning to processing and bouncing out production masters after some literal and figurative breaths of fresh air is key.
How much time away is enough? Only you can decide and it will be apparent when you hear those songs again if you’ve left it long enough. If you’re so fried that you have no idea any more, the music still comes first - in that scenario it’s probably best to get someone else to master if at all possible. After all, the whole endeavour is pointless if you break the mixes after you’ve made it this far… Failing that, try at least half the time that was spent mixing away from the music to regain some sanity and perspective.
Whether it’s louder, quieter, brighter, bassier, or smoother, using reference mixes to check things are on track is invaluable. Having a genre-appropriate track to compare to is simple, effective, and incredibly easy to check against - just make sure it’s not routed through the master processing chain!
Get Organised
In the self-mastering scenario, there are few of the restrictions of working with pre-mixed audio - all that is needed for more surgical tweaks is to open the DAW project and get stuck in. This has been referred to as ‘mix-tering’, where the result of working like this is the production master itself.
That said, for meaningful mastering decisions to be made, it is probably better to work in a separate, dedicated DAW project for mastering purposes. This can be populated with pre-master mixes from which the production masters can be bounced. This gives the psychological headspace between the mix and the master and emphasises the big picture. Working without multiple song projects open, or the minutiae of audio plugins or rows of meters affords a way to zoom out and listen. This way either single titles or an entire album project can easily co-exist alongside any reference tracks without clutter. They can then be properly sequenced and processed for production master bounces.
Avoid Bias
Most agree that the most useful perspective can be someone else’s, but self-mastering warriors must rely on their own judgement. The effects of louder sounds and their ability to skew decisions are well known. Like it or not, listeners (including engineers) often prefer louder audio without knowing it. Production masters need to give the impression of both power and dynamic range, while at the same time hitting at the right number for loudness on any given service - this is definitely one of the dark arts of mastering that everyone talks about so much! Luckily we have the tools to stop us getting carried away with treatments that might be merely louder rather than better.
It’s also true to say that sacrificing something that feels right for the sake of a dB or two here and there is probably worse than your master being compensated for at the other end. Unless the master is far too hot or cold, as always if it sounds good it is good.
Monitoring
By taking on responsibility for mastering your own material, the biggest practical advantage you’re passing over compared to using someone else is their fresh ears and perspective, and hopefully experience as a mastering engineer. However coming close behind these is it the opportunity to check your mix on a different (hopefully better) monitoring system.
If you master in the same room and on the same monitoring that the project was mixed on then the inevitable acoustic fingerprint of that room will never be properly revealed. If you master your own stuff, checking on other monitoring systems in other rooms is even more important. Checking your mix in the car and on the smart speaker in the kitchen is all very well but can you do better? Can you check in another studio? If so it will be worthwhile.
There is a whole subsection of audio plugins designed to take the strain when making objective decisions. Some let you do meaningful AB comparisons of known options such as MeterPlugs’ Perception AB, or ADPT Audio Metric AB. Tools like Hofa’s 4U+ BlindTest allow anonymised options to be auditioned. When it comes to matching to reference material, some tools let you import an audio file to impress custom reference curves onto the master such as with iZotope’s Tonal Balance Control 2.
Final Bounce?
Although budget might dictate that the mix engineer is also making the final production masters, this does not have to mean compromise on the final quality. Mastering pros might concede that their best sounding work comes from mixes that arrive with all the right things in place. For almost any mastering task, the aim is for the final thing to be the best it can be, and by extension as much of that needs to happen in the mix. Whoever is creating the production masters only needs three things: a level of detachment from the mix itself, good judgement, and the understanding to dial in the final finish where needed.