Mix vs. Master Levels | Are You Listening? Season 3, Episode 4

How do mixing levels impact mastering levels? Follow along as iZotope Education Director and professional mastering engineer Jonathan Wyner explores mixing and mastering levels, including the value of leaving headroom in your mix levels, what levels to pay attention to while you’re mixing before you master, and important considerations when comparing the level of your reference tracks to your mix so you can get the best results in your master.
Interested in learning more about mastering and mastering tools? Start your free trial of Music Production Suite Pro to get access to mastering plugins, along with educational lessons based on episodes of “Are You Listening?” taught by the pros: www.izotope.com/en/lp/are-you...
Improve your mastering skills with Are You Listening? Seasons 1 and 2
Season 1: • Are You Listening? | S...
Season 2: • Are You Listening? | S...
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:39 The difference between levels in mixing and mastering
1:28 What is headroom in mixing and mastering?
2:59 Considerations when using limiters in mixing and mastering
3:42 Using RX Pro to examine levels in your mix
5:00 Differences between the peak level and RMS level when mixing
5:41 Using Insight Pro metering to examine the difference between peak level and RMS levels
7:22 How the levels in your playback system can impact your master
8:36 How to monitor reference track levels when mixing and mastering
9:39 Outro
#mastering #areyoulistening #ozone #izotope

[@seismixx]

This series is actually a marketing -but done in a really good way which benefits both parties! Hands down 🙌

[@carlosrosendo4173]

I like how every episode has a bit of insight into the mastering world, I've taken in person classes and although they are good, professors go extremely fast and we do not have the luxury of rewind, to make sure we understood everything. Thank you for this Izotope I believe this definitely helps your current customers and potential customers be satisfied.

[@OriginalRaveParty]

Excellent education and presentation. Thanks Jonathan.

[@MetiCudi]

hvis video should be included in every daw that you download

[@joejurneke9576]

Great discussions. Johnathan is terrific

[@AnWyMyles]

Love this series!!!

[@KristohanongBisdakMusic]

Great content! I am listening.

[@teashea1]

very good presentation with good information

[@mrfleamino9350]

Great ,Thank You

[@liquiditey]

I gotta say .... He's really Level-headed when it comes to mix&mastering =~}

[@JLMIXEDIT]

Thanks !

[@Skimatik_DnB]

Always listening 👂🙌✌️ thanks for the insight 👀😂🤦‍♂️😎 ✌️

[@sirvaant]

Can we get an episode where you master a heavy 808 record and the challenges an engineer faces while trying to make that record loud while still having weight in the bottom end

[@emiel333]

Great video.

[@TravisNot]

I want to hear that tap dancing track! 💃🏼

[@ezstproductions_]

First of all let address the elephant or cat in this case lol love the shirt Jonathan 😂 Second of all I would like to say I usually walk away with at least two new perspective that I can adapt from these series. Thank you for doing this and please don’t stop. Would love to meet up and talk shop with you.

[@siyabongamngomezulu6208]

😂😂🤣

[@ezstproductions_]

@@siyabongamngomezulu6208 it was like he had important stuff to talk about but the cat was funny 😆

[@luxuriousfir]

Honestly I would love to hear some comparisons of a pushed mix after mastered versus a low mix aftermastered. Let our ears decide;)

[@mrpaman_Kwon]

this AYL? (a.k.a. Are You Listening?) series, really really great and helpful.

[@noisekrux]

I want a T-Shirt of Jonathan Wyner and a cat in the studio w/iZotope logo. J.W. is the Bob Ross of Mastering.

[@zachn12345]

Said it throughout Season 1. I would pay damn good money to grab a beer and pick this mans brain.

[@acre192312]

I did but where's my beer?

[@shavnore]

The biggest thing I took from this is to stop mixing at mastering volume, don't drag you reference tracks into your DAW at their mastered volume, bump them down.

[@ronmoes42]

My experience is that there is no set difference, meaning the older music genre's have more dynamics and the contemporary music has less difference in peak and rms. But as I have also seen some R7B hip hop music of today have alot of peaks compared to the intergrated level. It has been good to me to keep the difference under 6Db difference and I am aiming to get a 3db difference because is you want to have a loud mix that does well on all devices you must have to loudness in order for people to like it. It sounds modern. Though there is a catch, when you see the audio clip of your mix in your DAW, I would not like a mix that is just a solid brick, the best scenario is to see small peaks that are well incorperated in the rms level, they usually won't excede 3db. Look at modern EDM music and you will see what I mean! This is somewhat a hot debate for mastering engineers, because imo they are redundant for most of the people who make great songs. That is not to say that well known people use mastering engineers, but then they obviously know who can master their songs to get absolute levels and keep the song intact.. BUT then again you can't send a mix to a mastering engineer and expect him to carry the song to the next level if you don't understand mastering right!? 😖 *At any rate...* I personally think people are overrating the mastering process, and the way their song needs to sound...I know it is a touchy subject and this is just what it is.. You make a song, either it is good or not, mix it well give it your own spice, master it for yourself and live with it, you will be looking back in 10 years and think wow, I have become so much better, BUT that was the sound I was looking for or of that time. The message in the song and the melody etc are much more important, that is what listeners will remember. PLUS the fact you will keep alot of money in your pocket that you would otherwise spend on a mastering engineer that is probably going to do it in the box anyway... you are not that important and the high profile customers will get more time... that is how it works, he might even ask a friend to do it.. that is the reality.. Cheers

[@CHOKSTARmusic]

I know, I am asking this question may be off topic. But please tell us what is the RT60 we should aim for, for mastering rooms. Similarly, what should be the ideal Waterfall curve or Spectrogram plot for the room-speaker combo in a mastering room. Thank you.

[@dafingaz]

Let's go! @dafingaz

[@Janneeraker]

Hello mister Wyner, I'm a tap dancer, about to record an album, and I'm very curious which tap dance album you've worked on? I want to hear it! :) Thanks.

[@Joseph-ot8rc]

This is interesting, but I still don't really know what values to aim for when mixing..

[@snarplaya]

I'm usually mixing live sound and I don't have a split for monitors and FOH world most of the time. So I usually run my preamps pretty hot to fill the VU meter with as much signal as possible. Maybe this is the wrong approach, but my mixes sound better when I have a hotter signals. I used to use more makeup gain with a lower signal, but that usually also causes more feedback problems in the monitors. When I do live streaming at the same time I don't have much room for limit and compressor mastering for my streams from my board. It usually results in a mix that sounds lower in volume and lacks low end punch and top end clarity with no obvious stereo sound stage image. Maybe because of the streaming websites compression or some other conversion, but how should I compensate for this?

[@rainieralbertsz4165]

I dont understand if you export a 24 bit wav file wouldnt you want to make use of al its dynamic range so you have the most range to work with in mastering?

[@ItsEphora]

Can we get a full version of that intro track?

[@philmartin7474]

When referencing mastered work, when mixing, approx how many DB should we lower the volume of the Reference track so we know about where the sweet spot RMS level should be for our unmastered final mix?

[@IsaacJDean]

You might want to use an LUFS value so you can match loudness properly. I personally use A/B plugins with this built in (they listen to the reference while listening to your mix and turn the reference tracks down by the correct amount based on loudness/LUFS. I use Metric A/B but there's another that's just as good.

[@philmartin7474]

@@IsaacJDean Oh thats great, i didnt know the plug in will suggest that difference. Yes i bought Metric AB a few months back but need to update my entire studio OS and all software, which ive been patiently waiting for a friend to help with this task once the pandemic is over.... I have over $1,000.00 in plugins over a year old i never installed because of this.

[@athuhkhroitv5542]

Sir can you suggest me free best plugins for mastering and level..thanking you sir for wonderful video lesson

[@sohamchowdhury]

Download Span n Youlean loudness metre, these two are must have free plugins for mastering

[@tgentertainment8754]

THANKS FOR INFO KEEP THE MIX LEVEL LOW AS POSSIBLE...

[@88keyz]

👍🏾

[@peaceandrelaxationwithgodscrea]

When i was taught live mixing i was told to have my sliders close to unity, is this not as important when mixing recorded music?

[@nexusobserve]

There's a lot of mumbo jumbo about keeping everything at -16 dB while mixing in a daw, but in the end the master fader is digital and most daw use 32 bit float processing so turning up or down gain at the end doesn't matter. What does matter, is function. Having the faders up close to unity means you have more FADER RESOLUTION. Moves can be in increments of a dB instead of % of total volume

[@murraywebster1228]

Having your gain staging so that your fader is at 0dB, irrespective of what mixing you are doing will always give you the best fine control,+ - 10dB area you have physically more length for fine adjustment, 1-2 mm will give you 1dB or even finer volume adjustment, if your gain is so that your fader is down by -40dB or so then 1-2mm movement may change the volume by maybe 6dB, so therefore fine adjustment is very difficult. Hope this helps you somewhat.

[@nexusobserve]

@@murraywebster1228 I liked both of our comments. hope someday they will be read and understood

[@raf5.132]

So… was that tap dance recorded to a click track?

[@AgentCharles522002]

i always thought his surname is Wider

[@davidasher22]

Tap dancing album = Transient hell. 😂

[@JohnMichaelFord]

“Turning it down when it comes time to master” ..that’s fine by me, increasing the noise floor by a few db on most modern mixes shouldn’t make a difference.

[@DavidRavenMoon]

If it’s digital, what noise floor? 😁

[@andrepinzon8337]

This is the first time that I disagree with you, I believe that if you have a limiter on your master, which is doing what you want to the peaks of your audio, and not distorting, there is no point in going through the mastering phase, yea there are times while producing to bring down your input and listen and see what peaks are coming in too hot, but if the song is mixed well then you don’t have to worry about that. if you have a limiter on the master and your ears are attuned to what a master sounds like then there is no problem limiting the peaks of your audio. If you want someone else to master your song yes bring down your input, so it is easier for the mastering engineer to work with, but I’m if you know you have put in the hours to understand music production ( a lot) you better than anyone else should have the confidence to know what the end product should sound like. This has put into light that mastering is an optional service to make money, never forget that. I do appreciate the videos izotope, but a final master can come straight out of the door if you know what you are doing.

[@kristalianacarter3359]

I work in the same way. I used to not work with a limiter and then when I'd get my masters back there would be surprises that would end up getting audibly clipped. So I started working with a clipper and limiter on my mix bus and now I can hear and deal with those issues throughout the mixing process. No more surprises! I work within the dynamic range that the track and genre dictate so I'm making all those mix decisions within that context. Ever since I started working this way my stuff come out way better. I still do a separate master session where I'll move all the tracks from a album into one project so I can adjust their relative levels and get them sounding a bit more consistent. I just move my mix bus chain from my mix project into my master project and work from there. But I already know that I won't have any problems with loudness and distortion because I fixed all of those issues in the mix.

[@davidallanmusic]

This is not correct. No matter how good a mix is it will always benefit from thoughtful processing on the master bus.

[@antimatter209]

if you can get your mix to sound good at low volume imagine when it's mastered 👍

[@new2dayuser151]

Transfer Engineers did it all! Got to go back to the beginning then move forward to thoroughly understand what's going on. I always compare mixing and mastering to this scenario! Please, if you can control yourself do not comment on what I'm about to show you!! You have to listen to old recordings then new recordings. Here is what Ive been taught. James Browns Band= Mix or Mixing James Brown= Master or Mastering James Brown is great but he's nothing without the band, The Band members made James Brown, they play the music. They made him great, he's nothing without the Muse or music. So , how important is mastering? Many older recordings where never mastered because they were mixed very well! Bass heavy recordings were hard to cut on vinyl, the needle would jump out the groove. So an Eq and compressor man was needed to tame certain instruments, particularly bass. You got to have a Mix in order to Master! Ponder over what I've revealed to you then you'll understand !

[@acre192312]

You got old bro

[@DavidRavenMoon]

To who’s ever directing these videos: that not looking at the camera thing is like a cheesy 1990s men’s warehouse TV commercial. Please stop.