How to Master Audio: Your Questions, Answered | Are You Listening? | iZotope

[@kurtcameron7562]

I just want to take a moment to thank Jonathan Wyner for his lessons that he is providing in this series. The man is without a doubt a genius, and the fact that this is available to the public is absolutely amazing. I feel so lucky and privileged to have come across these lessons. I mean, I have purchased the plug-ins, but never thought this kind of tutorial would be accessible. I wish I was able to take a year off from work just so that I could possibly study under this gentleman with a pad and paper in hand. I am so grateful for this series!

[@originalvonster]

1:30 eq first usually, compressor, eq broad changes, limiter last 3:00 cohesive album, lead instrument consistent level and tone 4:00 cohesive album leave room for dynamics from one track to the next 5:00 genre rules 5:30 not enough top end can sound muffled 6:00 need more bottom in reggae (bottom forward). 6:30 electronica noisy synth sounds, you don’t wanna smooth out an electronica record 7:30 crest factor difference between peak and RMS 9:00 crest factor Beyoncé Drunk in love (crest factor 15 dB) 10:00 aim for crest factor between 6-8 dB usually 10:30 jazz crest factor 14-16 dB 11:15 unrealistic to optimise for every streaming platform 12:00 -11/12 LUFS ok when turned down to -14 LUFS in streaming platforms 12:30 make a no limiting version for vinyl

[@ahadjahad]

This is the best series !!!!! Thanks Izotope for this amazing series

[@iamindin001]

This guy finds the perfect words to describe the almost undescribable! Very valueable! Thanks iZotope!

[@camarenblue]

Jonathan is such a knowledgeable guy and the cat shirt goes along way with me lol. Def a fan of this series!

[@doctorcarlos]

Some might agree that the absence of music in this video is perhaps the most powerful aspect of it! Always very insightful. Thanks Jonathan, iZotope.

[@dbtube]

Thanks a lot Jonathan. I always use Ozone 7 on all my mastering tracks and this episode helped me.

[@MASERSTUDIOS]

The greatest master! Tools + Accurate Knowledge Thank you for being so present/open in sharing your work and knowledge, I've seen almost all episodes of mix with the master, youtube videos about mixing/mastering, and this is by far the most complete course ever. On the right channel, this can totally impact future generations of musicians and engineers. Best regards!

[@VicTheMonster]

Jonathan Wyner = 🐐

[@OmkaraHellcore]

Man, I love that shirt you're wearing haha

[@fabspinho]

It`s Cats On Synthesizers In Space

[@YoungStuntYuan]

This is really the best series!

[@FusionAssam]

Thanks a lot. This whole session taught me a lot of important things. And all the music producers, engineers and artists out there, keep grinding 🤗

[@iZotopeOfficial]

Thanks FusiaA, lots more to come!

[@erinalexandra3983]

Jonathan is such a damn good teacher!!! Explains things beautifully, ughhh.

[@mgmthegrand]

I'm learning more about the skill and art of mastering specifically since I'm trying to up my profile as a sound engineer. As my experience is mainly in mixing and production, I only know the very basics about mastering. In earlier years I used to use Wavelab to arrange my tracklist, create markers and export my full album projects, but I'd send that to a mastering engineer for mastering. Lately I've been messing with Ozone in Cubase to master my singles, which has taught me much and works very well. I recently sat in on a MIXING session with a mastering engineer who mainly deals with hip-hop and uses Waveburner which I believe was packaged last with Logic Pro 9.5. He swears by it. I brought up Wavelab as the mastering DAW that I'm familiar with and also brought up Ozone as a great plugin app for mastering in a DAW. To my surprise he seemed quite inflexible when comparing ANYTHING to Waveburner. Throughout the session there are other practices that I picked up which left me bewildered, like how he didn't gainstage or didn't seem to monitor is levels and how the master was peaking at +0.4... many of the things that I'd learn when studying sound and that I've been learning and reading about more recently about mastering specifically from pros online, were not being followed in this session. I soon found out he was proud to have been "self-taught", as he put it. After the mixing session, I later received the final master. When I listened to it, I thought it might be distorting and was a bit to heavily compressed. I checked it with Izotope's Insight and, among other issues that raised my eyebrows, the true peak maxed at +0.7. This experience left me with a lot of questions. Are my ears deceiving me or does what Insight reflected confirming what I was hearing? Am I being to nerdy about gainstaging and clipping the master bus or are these "rules" that are not as flexible as those applied during the creative and pre-production process? Are the fundamental principles of sound engineering no longer applicable or do we actually need them now more than ever in an era of ever-changing technologies and applications which are now accessible to anyone who can train themselves to be a self-taught professional? Throughout my career the most pervasive idea I've heard, and that I hear more and more now, is that "there are no rules". But as I gain more experience I realise that this is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy by those who don't fully appreciate the complexity of the skills and knowledge required to excel in the discipline of creating, producing, mixing and/or mastering. Add to that the plethora of plugins and the questionable advice from an endless supply of self-proclaimed online gurus promising an ever easier way of getting your mix to sound just as good as the pros or a way of creating and producing music without even needing to know the theory behind it, and you have a situation where people don't feel they really need to learn the basics at all because the technology seems to it all for you anyway. I've rambled quite a bit. I know I likely won't get a response because this is so long and I'm not famous, but I hope I do. I will post a comment with some more specific technical questions, but it would be great to hear what other people think about my rant. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

[@SMYAH]

Fantastic can't wait for more

[@drummerjeroensimons]

Thanks Izotope and Jonathan for your superb video!!!

[@mimidhof2179]

Hey, glad to see you again... off course you still have to work and not only educate...

[@BoogieBear]

Another brilliant and informative lecture. These lectures are the best there is, thank you 🙏

[@TalkinMusicProduction]

I love this series. Keep the good content coming.

[@jacquelamontharenberg]

Thank you Jonathan.... Great job....

[@Ballaplaya1791]

Your videos have helped me out tremendously! Thank you for supporting the community of music producers who want to learn.

[@matrixate]

Finally! Xxxx! I guess the last bit of advice, is to listen to tons of music in different genres.

[@devlinrcg]

Please, keep up with these vids!! Great info, congrats to all of you!! 🤘

[@EddieKMusic]

I think the most important part is knowing how your setup should sound like on a professional master. Also speakers, positioning and room treatment. Otherwise I think it's impossible to master track correctly.

[@juanchis.investigadorsonoro]

Thanks for taking time to answer questions. :)

[@MikeHeebz]

Thanks Jonathan for this series & taking the time to share your knowledge! =)

[@EddyWojBlog]

Very good advice. Thanks for sharing your experience !

[@louistotalcontrol]

Excellent video - thanks, guys!

[@SharigramaOfficial]

What a T-Shirt Send you greetings Mr: Jonathan .. =) Thanks for all the videos =)

[@CarlosMartinez-gr1rp]

Thanks for sharing the wisdom, much appreciated

[@philippgrunert8776]

Brilliant series (!) And btw. cool Shirt

[@michaelmontanaro4603]

Hi Jonathan, thank you for your video tutorials which are amazing. I'd have a question if you don't mind. I'd like to know if there is a difference between mastering for streaming platforms and mastering for high end hi-fi systems? Thank you so much.

[@dzintarsvitols3764]

Thanks to the iZotope team and Jonathan! Great content as always! I would like to ask a following question for 5th question of this episode. Do you Jonathan approach encoded format file mastering differently than PCM file mastering, do you try to compensate for the anomalies occurred due to encoding process?

[@s90210h]

Thanks a lot! What are some tips and tricks concerning Mid-Side processing? What to listen for, what to aim the mastering towards? What are the potential benefits and downfalls with compressing the side channel? How creative can you allow yourself to get (perhaps from a producer or experimental composer point of view)?

[@iZotopeOfficial]

We have some great tips on mid-side processing and compression on our Blog, be sure to pay it a visit! www.izotope.com/en/blog

[@DSKarki]

Sir your all lessons are awesome.. You are giving every detail very deeply... Sir please make a video on vocal mixing from start to finish because vocals are backbone of most of the mixes in the world irrespective of genere.

[@marmadukewinterbotham2599]

Thanks, great stuff.

[@dafingaz]

Great video!

[@whymonkeymusic]

Apologies for bringing this issue here, but I can't think of a better place and maybe someone can answer me this. I recently did an Audiometry test which obviously showed some deficiencies, the most significant of which is a 20db drop at 1000hz on both ears (starting with a 15db drop at 500hz). I'm not sure if this is going to sound stupid, but if I take an EQ to the master buss and compensate for these loses in the same measure of db will that give me a more truthful perception of the acoustic reality of a track? This just happened yesterday and I have a track to master today, so I'm a bit at a loss.

[@jessealves_xc]

Why Monkey I am not a professional, but I would say that your strategy is fine. But there’s some caveats. First, you might damage your equipment, if you add 20db to an already hot signal. Just because you can’t hear it, it doesn’t mean the equipment can’t. Second, there can’t be any compressor after your correction eq, otherwise the compressor will be triggered by a signal that is not present in the supposedly final mix.

[@nebulka-]

A brilliant Tshirt

[@xx4248]

I would really love to see/hear an example of reverb getting used in mastering I'd hope it was a case when a client asked for a lot more space in the mix.

[@nevermind0143]

I think it's "Crazy In Love" and not "Drunk in Love" that has the high crest factor you're talking about with that classic drum part..."Drunk in Love" is prettty compressed!

[@mrluwin5054]

I’m really curious about vinyl pre-masters because from what I know it’s different then digital just for example bass ( everything below 300hz got to be mono because of needle jumping )…

[@officialbusy]

thank you for this

[@alexs4497]

I just wanted to know everyones opinion/advice: wheres is good to become a professional master Engineer? Any good online schools to earn a certificate/degree? Thanks.

[@tonimilenovic6927]

When is ozone 9 coming out,any news?

[@obiwantschernobyl5650]

Best shirt ever

[@Syklonus]

I prefer albums with songs that sound a little bit different. Not in style, just maybe the way they're mixed slightly differently, and some are brighter than others or maybe quieter. I think it adds to the ebb and flow of the listening experience instead of every song having exactly the same guitar tone/drum sound and being at exactly the same level with exactly the same focus on exactly the same instrument.

[@RobertCow]

The best

[@KtraaOfficial]

Im late to the party this video is so cool

[@stanvasic8592]

I was analyzing some flac files from max martin and I realized that the tracks are clipping +3 db over 0.. I dont believe that we are dealing with intersample peaks.. Please- help me understand 🙏

[@pipelineaudio]

Is the beyonce example really right? I mean half the song is like acapella and a string or something, so its going to have a high crest factor, but when the rest comes in, it seems as hammered as anything from 2007

[@newguy6935]

Just curious why the -6Db and the Pink noise lines on the O8 Eq graph are horizontal up to 1K before tapering off. Shouldn't that taper extend all the way to the left side of the graph? Is there some special math going on here? Thanks

[@futurebeats898]

Google pink noise

[@newguy6935]

@@futurebeats898 Your reply means nothing.

[@majewskimusic]

Thanks, ;-)

[@aadysi5659]

I want that shirt lol

[@ryebread532]

Did you say “vinyl cutters don’t like living”??

[@iZotopeOfficial]

"don't like limiting" But we totally heard what you heard too: smile:

[@VINYL-CHECK]

Not only the vinyl cutter don‘t like limiter, also the music lovers in front of their stereo systems don‘t like these hot mastered music. Thanks for these videos, but keep in mind. Louder is not better. More dynamics is always better and an LUFS under 15db sounds not good. No matter what genre it is.

[@mark-ze4en]

I never hear anyone discuss Upward Expansion. I use it in conjunction with compressor to add color and add presents.

[@Syklonus]

*presence

[@mark-ze4en]

@@Syklonus Hmmm, hey thanks for the input. I do use it for 'presence' more or less but the audio function is sort of the inverse of compression bringing the softer bits up louder. These videos on compression never really talk about it like it doesn't exist. Compression and expansion seem like topics that would be discussed in the same discussion . I'm interested if general concepts regarding dialing in the sweet spot between the two. I , of course do that by ear and I have gotten use to the effect on the audio but a more professional discussion on the subject would be nice. Thanks again!

[@Tieg]

Video starts at 1:14

[@xx4248]

You are cool as a cucumber good sir

[@kingech_B15]

8 year user

[@AteuCu]

Please stop filming like that because sounds stupid or unrespectful. The subject looking for another direction worked well... but for just a few years, not anymore. Today, we need to communicate correctly - face to face - because there is not much time to lose. Damng!