WAV file, and applies volume, eq, and compression if needed. Mastering takes your the final mix, which is typically a 2-channel stereo 24-Bit or 16-Bit. Once you are done your final mix, and left the proper headroom, your song is ready for mastering. To answer this question: What’s the Point of Mastering? I will show you that, and also educate you on the trade-offs between industry loudness, which has stemmed the loudness wars, and how to retain dynamics while mastering (with competitive loudness.) But if not, we’re going to learn to master songs out self!)īut I’m sure most of you have come here to learn how to master your music loud.

If sent to a professional mastering engineer – Having a second set of trained ears in a properly treated room are two very beneficial things.

Adding ISRC Codes into the song – an ISRC code gets embedded into each individual song, and allows others to properly track your music for plays and monies.

EQ balance is harder to achieve, but in simple terms, you do not want a super bright song to transition into a super dull song.

Volume and EQ balance between tracks – The listener shouldn’t have to adjust the volume knob from song to song.

Set proper intro/outro times between songs – Having the right time spacing between songs is very important for an album’s emotion.

The best mastering plugins – in my opinion!īesides making a song loud and competitive in the real world, mastering actually plays a couple roles:.

Achieving loudness without ruining dynamics.

What are the loudness wars – and why they’re ending.

What’s the point of mastering in the first place?.

I’m very thankful for people like Ian Shepherd standing up and starting Dynamic Range Day to let us producers be aware of the dangers of loudness to our music.Īnd that’s what I seek to do in this write-up!

In my opinion, besides learning compression, mastering is one of the trickiest parts of audio production to learn.

(We will also touch a bit on the difference between mixing and mastering.) I will share with you a bunch of audio mastering tips, mastering plugins, and how the industry is changing with loudness standards in regards to dynamic range and LUFS. We are going to cover how to master a song in FL Studio.

Stereo separation fl studio