If, as me, you are musician and record your ideas in a DAW, you may know the company IZOTOPE. If you want more about this company, look here. In short, they are producing tools to help sound engineers during from recording to masterize process. Of course, other companies provide similar tools but considering price versus quality, IZOTOPE is most probably among the best on the market today. Their set of toos are available for any compatible DAW, Protools, Logic Pro, Studio One etc. I precise that I’m not sponsored to write this article.
Introduction
Mastering is the final stage of music production that aims to enhance the sound quality, loudness, and consistency of a song. Mastering can also prepare a song for different distribution formats and platforms, such as CD, vinyl, streaming services, etc. Mastering is an art and a science that requires skill, experience, and creativity. However, if you are not a professional mastering engineer, you can still master your own songs at home with some basic tools and tips. Here are some of the best practices to masterize a song:
1. Avoid excessive limiting and compression. Limiting and compression are two common processes that reduce the dynamic range of a song and make it louder. However, if used too much, they can also cause distortion, pumping, loss of transients, and reduced clarity. A good rule of thumb is to use only as much limiting and compression as needed to achieve your desired loudness level without compromising the sound quality. You can use a true peak meter or an inter-sample peak meter to ensure that your song is not clipping or exceeding 0 dBFS.
2. Use reference tracks. Reference tracks are songs that have similar genre, style, mood, or sound quality as your target song. You can use reference tracks to compare your mix and master with other professional productions and identify any issues or areas for improvement. You can also use reference tracks to match the loudness level of your master with other songs in your genre or playlist. You can use tools like Ozone’s referencing feature or Match EQ to help you analyze and match reference tracks.
3. Avoid excessive equalization (EQ), distortion (saturation), and stereo imaging (widening). EQ, distortion (saturation), and stereo imaging (widening) are three other common processes that can enhance the tonal balance (EQ), harmonic richness (distortion/saturation), and spatial depth (stereo imaging/widening) of a song. However, if used too much,they can also cause problems such as phase issues,muddy lows, harsh highs, and mono compatibility issues. A good rule of thumb is to use only as much EQ, distortion/saturation, and stereo imaging/widening as needed to achieve your desired tonal balance, harmonic richness, and spatial depth without compromising the natural sound of your mix. You can use tools like Ozone’s tonal balance control feature or spectrum analyzer to help you monitor and adjust the frequency spectrum of your master.
4. Master with a specific medium in mind. Different distribution formats and platforms have different requirements and specifications for mastering. For example, CDs have a maximum loudness level of -0.3 dBFS, vinyls have limited frequency range and dynamic range, streaming services have different loudness normalization algorithms and target levels, etc.Therefore, it is important to master with a specific medium in mind and tailor your master accordingly. You can use tools like Ozone’s codec preview feature to help you preview how your master will sound on different formats and platforms.
5. Use the highest original bit-depth and sampling rate source file. Bit-depth and sampling rate are two parameters that affect the resolution and quality of digital audio files. Bit-depth determines how many bits are used to represent each sample of audio data, while sampling rate determines how many samples are taken per second from an analog signal. The higher the bit-depth and sampling rate, the more accurate and detailed the digital representation of the analog signal will be. Therefore, it is important to use the highest original bit-depth and sampling rate source file that you have available for mastering and avoid any unnecessary conversions or resampling that may degrade the sound quality of your master.
6. Leave encoding and sample-rate conversion to the streaming service. Encoding is the process of converting digital audio files into compressed formats such as MP3,AAC,WAV etc., while sample-rate conversion is the process of changing one sampling rate into another such as 44 kHz into 48 kHz etc.. Both encoding and sample-rate conversion introduce some artifacts and errors into digital audio files such as aliasing, dithering etc., which may affect their sound quality negatively.. Therefore, it is recommended to leave encoding and sample-rate conversion tasks to streaming services such as Spotify, iTunes etc., which have their own optimized algorithms for these processes.. You should upload your masters in lossless formats such as WAV,AIFF etc., with their original bit-depths, sampling rates, and metadata..
Comments