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PREPPING YOUR MIX FOR MASTERING

Make sure you love the mixes. Mastering usually isn’t going to make an amateur or bad sounding mix become awesome. The happier you are with the mix, the happier you will be with the mastered version.

Remove any limiters or other plugins on the master fader that are inserted just for the sake of loudness. Sometimes mix engineers apply quick and rough clipping/limiting plugins to the master fader to get mix approvals and to hear how the mix might react to mastering treatment. This is fine, but be prepared to remove it before sending off. Without proper headroom, very little can be done without doing more harm than good.

Regarding other plugins on the master fader, if you don’t 100% love what it is doing, take it off. I have a few engineer clients that send me two versions of their mixes. One version with all the plugins used to get client approvals, as well as a version without the limiter and any other plugins that aren’t essential. 99% of the time, this is what I start with.

Avoid peak levels reaching 0dBFS. I see all sorts of suggestions on the internet about where to have your peak levels pre-mastering. There is no magic number for peak levels pre-mastering. Don’t hit 0dBFS, or have a plugin acting as a limiter applying a brick-wall ceiling somewhere before 0dBFS and you’ll be in good shape.

This is largely for those mixing “in the box”. If you’re going analog and capturing a stereo mix back to digital, it’s actually much simpler: Don’t clip the input on the way back to digital, and don’t apply any further digital processing. Export the newly captured stereo mix at the native bit-depth and sample rate of the session. I will take it from there.

Bounce/render your mix at the same sample rate as the mix session. It is best practice to not change the sample rate when you make your final mix files for mastering.

Carefully listen to the beginning and end of each song for stray noises and anomalies, and remove anything you do not want. Doing a separate more analytical listening session before sending off for mastering can be very beneficial.

Listen to the vocal tracks in solo mode to check for any clicks, ticks, thumps, plosives, headphone bleed, and other sounds that might be masked by the rest of the track but not intended to be in the mix. Vocals seem to be the source of most unwanted noises in a track from my experience. These things are not always easily audible prior to mastering in the context of a full mix, but they can become more noticeable and unnaturally loud after mastering.

If you think there is any chance that instrumental versions of the songs will be needed, make them right away. It’s not hard to master instrumental mixes at the same time the main mixes are mastered. Also, as I use analog equipment in the mastering process, doing the main versions and instrumental versions at the same time ensures much better continuity between the two.

On a similar note, make sure your bounce/render timeline selection doesn’t cut off anything at the start or end of the file. This happens quite often for whatever reason. It never hurts to leave more space on both ends to be safe.

Check for bad edits/crossfades causing clicks and pops that you may have not noticed when you’re in the mixing zone.

LISTEN TO THE ACTUAL BOUNCED/RENDERED MIX FILE TO MAKE SURE A PLUGIN OR DAW GLITCH DID NOT OCCUR BEFORE SENDING TO MASTERING.