Mastering With FREE Plugins Start To Finish! 🔊

Howdy doody, Buckaroonies! Today we're here to talk about mastering your tracks from start to finish using only FREE plugins!
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Reference Track: • Hibernation - Melt
Plugins Used:
Loudness Analyzer: www.meldaproduction.com/MLoud...
Melda EQ: www.meldaproduction.com/MEqua...
Frontier: d16.pl/frontier
Kotelnikov: www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelni...
Loudmax: loudmax.blogspot.com/
Stereo Widener: a1audio.alexhilton.net/a1ster...
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▼▼▼TIMESTAMPZ:▼▼▼
0:00 Learn You Some Music
0:19 Howdy
1:09 Getting Started / Reference Tracks
2:56 Stereo Widening
5:53 Mastering EQ
9:09 Setting Up Loudness
10:14 Dynamics Plugin #1
12:54 True Peak Limiting
15:25 Dynamics Plugin #2
18:03 A Note About Loudness
18:40 Too Much Loudness
20:01 Loudness Through Saturation
22:12 When Is Loud Good?
22:33 Fade Ins / Outs
23:08 Final Export Settings
24:36 Closing Thoughts
Stay classy!
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Disclosure:
If you make a purchase using any of the affiliate links, I will earn a small commission with no extra cost to you. This is a great way to get cool new stuff, and support the channel so I can make more videos like this one!
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I appreciate it! 😁

[@VenusTheory]

What are your favorite mastering plugins? 🤔

[@MrLarsDF]

Frontier:-) Absolutly lovin' it 🙂

[@lX-NDR]

T''racks by ikmultimedia (really oldschool type) or ozone 9

[@buzzdx]

i've been using ozone for that for the most part, api 2500 comes to mind too. this was a great video especially with the free plugins you used. however, i would be very much interested in how you would approach mastering with ozone 9 (standard). maybe in another video? =)

[@erazeTHEborders]

What about Unlimited? It also has a true peak mode.

[@fa0179]

UrsaDSP Boost was a hidden Gem you showed us in that other mastering video. Thank you.

[@Edninety]

I've personally come to the conclusion that if you really want to make it professionally, you're probably better off in hiring an audio-engineer with years of experience in that particular field for a hundred bucks or something. BUT, as you'll probably demonstrate here (writing this before hitting play), free plugins, if you dig a bit, can give you 90% of the tools that come in highly paid renowned products and even if you just dabble around with it, you definately can improve your mixing quality big time with these freebies, it's a free opportunity to gain more experience, and that is totally valuable. We're living in a hobby producers' wet dream nowadays, just think back 15/20 years ago and 90% of these things were that much harder to achieve on an amateur level, not having even touched that you probably would've spend way more money in achieving what you CAN achieve with these plugins. That's awesome.

[@stephenroldan5107]

Im just glad people are using the computer again.

[@lawinter1949]

Limiter No. 6 lives on my master bus when I make tracks. It's free, sounds great and it has everything you need in a mastering plugin except stereo widening, eq and true-peak.

[@stephenroldan5107]

Find it better on the master bus?

[@Studio22mix]

This is a perfect video for a coffee and a smoke on a rainy Sunday morning, learning something while waking up, can’t get better 😊

[@osmark86]

the whole LUFS thing is something I've struggled with before. I might have pumped my tracks much louder than necessary before and completely ignored true peaking. wasn't even aware of the importance of this so thanks a ton for this!

[@KBizzy]

Important to note that since most of us produce for streaming these days, the LUF thing is pointless, as the streaming services use their own volume control. It’s why older songs often sound louder than a lot of modern songs that pushed for loudness.

[@jrurbbehdidiwdnndjduw85eos73]

@@KBizzy literally every old song I've listened to on Spotify has been noticabledd quiter than newer songs

[@KBizzy]

@@jrurbbehdidiwdnndjduw85eos73 my point is that streaming services automate volumes equally. So if a song gets louder/quieter throughout the song, it’s only going to get so loud. The reason that so much newer stuff sounds louder is because it’s less dynamic because of the massive amounts of compression. Most newer music has less dynamics than older music. In that way, quality has suffered.

[@verynormali5163]

I can't express how much your channel is helping me. Thanks a lot!

[@thomassykes6190]

This is one of the most easy to understand and informative videos on mastering a track on KZbin, seriously a huge thank you

[@DJBuglip]

Man, you just touched on the thing that had just impacted me while watching: that its helpful to listen to the entire range at which a control affects a parameter, and then listen for the "sweet spot". I'm horrible at getting good mixes, that helps a bunch. Thanks man!

[@AKAtAGG]

I've never heard anyone say LUFS as a word, and that made me happy. Love that you showed how mastering is not about the expensive plugins, it's about knowing what you're doing. Great video.

[@stalmeseto]

Gotta say, I love the subtle humor you’ve been weaving into your content recently. Love you channel, keep it up mate.

[@thejoshuathomas]

Thank you for this easy to understand mastering tutorial. This gave me a great basis of where to start and what to aim for. I agree that on this particular composition, aiming for -14lufs suited it far better (at least to my ears). Thank you again and happy holidays to you and yours.

[@MartHommes]

Omg I've been looking for something like this for a while. I haven't even finished watching it yet but I already wanna thank you for doing this

[@michaelahanti9189]

Big thanks for this and all your other videos. Helping me to take my production to new levels

[@liamsavoini4729]

Brilliant video! Really helpful and informative, without feeling patronised at any point, as someone who's recently started making music as a spare time hobby, this video's really helped me with how to approach mastering 😊 Love your content, keep up the amazing work!

[@starnak1389]

nice job and very pleasant to watch because of the good chill tracks, and your chill standing. Thanks you man, musique is share and you know that.

[@itsmenishant]

nothing complicated, nice compiled video with lots of info, appreciate ur work guys ❤❤

[@Redonkeyulous]

This is such a great lesson.... thank you so much for helping us with the knowledge..... thank you so much!!!

[@AlbertSirup]

i think using some mild clipping in mastering (before the limiter) is actually very useful so the limiter doesn't overcompress on excessive peaks - i use freeclip for that usually

[@simonlockley2854]

Excellent tutorial. No mucking about. Just downloaded these and created an FX chain in Studio One. Also thanks for turning me on to the Hibernation album...cracking stuff 👍

[@AmitEshbal]

SUCH a great video, just used it to finish up some work, and the process and plugins were exactly what I was looking for..! Thanks so much

[@VenusTheory]

Glad it helped!

[@blaaarrghh]

Dude this was a goldmine! I just installed the Frontier and happened to stumble on this video. Also learned a ton of using the MLoudnessAnalyzer and Loudmax.

[@robbe4711]

You rock! Made so much progress!

[@BorisBarroso]

Wow thanks it's great to see a tutorial for mastering this is the skill I really need to work more and with these plugins I think you can get a really descent mastering

[@CJTheMusicDude]

This was a fantastic mastering tutorial. Thank you!

[@blattymeow]

Thank you for this video. Very helpful mastering chain to start learning!

[@isajoha9962]

Cool video, fade out (nostalgia trip) I have not used that for a long time. 🤔 Using LoudMax a lot, thanks for the IPS scenario exampel.

[@rskityaev]

Man, that's an awesome song you made there!

[@seanpeer136]

that was AMAZING!! THANK YOU MAN.

[@illatraxzz103]

This is the video that I’ve been waiting for

[@jaffaralali2870]

Thank you for this easy to understand mastering tutorial

[@TheSonicAlchemist]

This really helped, thank you so much.

[@arttravelsmusictravels4lif438]

Great Topics appreciate this Info this is what I need to take more practice on ThankYou for the Great BreakDown 🔥🔥🔥👉🏼💯👉🏼🤜🏽💯🤛🏼

[@SuperJonSluggo]

Great tutorial, and the music choice was easy to hear ten times, not so with some similar vids. Ty

[@ArchimedesWoo]

Excellent video. Really clear and concise, with loads of useful information. ;-)

[@neilbiggin]

Superb guide, thank you!!

[@dekoningtan]

This video was very informative, thanks!

[@FaceBing]

Thank you Cameron. You are a Gem.

[@forsale313]

Thanks for making things simple. A few of the VST's you mentioned I already have and had no idea they could be used for mastering. LOL

[@patbreacadh]

That was amazing. Thks!

[@nox-modus]

Thank you!!! Great Tutorial, very helpful!!!

[@clarytune]

This is Dope Man

[@timbushong4387]

Dittos on the Kotelnikov comp - it really is a great plug, and it usually finds its way onto most of my mastering busses.

[@peterelfman]

Excellent video!

[@zachary963]

From Mixbus TV, and the award winning mastering engineer who runs it: Just make your tracks as loud as you can while keeping it clean and open. All the things that make a track sound good will make it naturally sound loud too. The loud sounds that sound smashed? That’s bad mastering. Good mastering can get really loud without distortion or feeling smushed. From my personal experience: The “don’t get too loud” advise comes from noobs who throw limiters on the top and crushing it. Using subtle compression, appropriate limiting throughout the mix, correct eq, correct gain staging, sidechain and parallel compression, saturation, basically all the things I would do in a mix anyway because that’s what sounds good, I’ll usually end up with my tracks hitting -10 to -8 LUFS or so. And I like open mixes without a ton of compression lol. I put some of my favorite records in my DAW and measured them. -12 for very old stuff (1970s) and then louder than -8 for more modern stuff is where it was hitting.

[@bengsynthmusic]

Would you export your track at -8L to streaming?

[@screendrem]

OTT is one of my favorite Free mastering plugins. I know that's nuts but I also know what it can do to tighten up the mids and punch if used sparingly. Love this video!

[@ArkmageEDM]

loud max has been my go-to brickwall limiter for a while now. great plugin.

[@JamesAlphaz3ro]

Man imma listen to your music now , THATS SO INSANE

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

Excellent tutorial on free master plug-ins. I'm going to load up Limiter No. 6 to try it out, along with MEQualizer, and since it's free Frontier. It did sound great. PS I didn't know mixing and mastering required losing a limb. Signed peg leg 🤪

[@KosmoDeuz]

Very Nice and Deep music in this video

[@Walid.OnTheTrack6725]

1:45 is that heaven? woooooooooooooooow man, i didn't expect that at allllllllll 😮

[@noisynerdman]

"use your ears. Not your eyes" love this.

[@jackpepe2140]

damn just every plug in is here this was so useful thank you

[@jatoforterevitalizacao4496]

SO COOL, THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS, HUGS FROM BRAZIL

[@eaglestars]

Thanks so much for this

[@simonrigby2776]

+1 for Frontier. I don't see the D16 plugs talked about as much as they should be. Whilst completely different, Devastator2 is an insanely flexible distortion plugin which I love. Frontier is a brilliant bit of kit. Great video Cameron. :)

[@kyledege315]

Decimorts cool too.

[@simonrigby2776]

@@kyledege315 wouldn't you know .. its on sale :). I bought it :)

[@kyledege315]

@@simonrigby2776 focusrite gave me devastator then I crossgraded to decimort. I also have to toraverb its good but devastator and decimort are their 2 must haves imo

[@calebbright8289]

This was an incredible video, I just discovered your channel and it’s been inspiring the hell out of me. When are you gonna release this song? I’d like to listen to it on repeat ASAP!

[@VenusTheory]

Really glad to hear that! Always good to know the channel is a helpful resource. No release plans quite yet on that one, working on a new album that I want to finish before revisiting some of these older projects that have been sitting on my drive.

[@mikeparks3154]

Great video - love all of them and always look forward to the next instalment. I also love the track you were working on. Is it available to listen to now?@@VenusTheory

[@mudi2000a]

Regarding available plugins it could maybe help to use a different DAW for mastering, Reaper recenly got some nice additions, e.g. a loudness meter and brickwall limiter which also supports True Peak limiting.

[@ileryon4019]

what about Loudmax

[@SG-ix3ly]

I make a lot of Drill beats and honestly frontier is the best thing ever for that. Its literally mt secret weapon

[@TimOost]

Thanks!

[@2009jazzman]

Dam dude, you are good...keep up the Greattttt work...👋👍

[@krishnungshugangopadhyay7144]

LET'S GOOOOO

[@NikMwra90]

Help, super confused here. Spotify suggest to master at -14db intergated LUFS, but as you're using the frontier limiter you're looking at short-term and short-term max. The integrated index in MLoudnessAnalyzer isn't the same with the intergrated LUFS Spotify refers about ?

[@ivm70]

I'd love to hear how you would apply Chow Tape while mastering. Evidently it's amazingly versatile.

[@KozmykJ]

Some Limiter plugins, usually not Free ones, have dithering of one form or another set to ON in their default state. That's fine IF you're placing them last in your Mastering FX chain BUT Not Good if that limiter is being used for something else, like on a Sub bus. And/Or , as you point out VT, if your DAW is going to dither for you ...

[@ulph69swe]

Nice!

[@TheCelestineProph]

Great video. Of all the videos I've seen on mastering one's own tracks I like yours the best. Q: Most of the others say you should use the INTERGRATED LUFS range (and true peak of course ) to make your adjustments. In your video you talked about the short term and short term max ranges to make your adjustments. Any particular reason you dont use the Integrated range? Cheers

[@dawnofreality]

Kotelnikov and Youlean's free plugin work pretty well for me, but I had no idea melda and loudmax... or frontier for that matter... shall be downloading forthwith

[@xandacab4285]

great plug-in recs here. i wish more folks would make dedicated freeware videos like this. super helpful for beginners who want to learn before they invest money and also anyone who wants to avoid authenticator hell lol do u recommend any limiting at the start of the master chain?

[@kighyuga]

“Today we’re going to be talking about life, about love, about LUST … I mean lessons learned and limbs lost!”

[@douglasnewman4163]

Thanks so much this incredibly good tutorial! I learned a ton from it. You’ve got a truly wonderful channel here!

[@rautshsale1948]

i would love for you to get into dither, and all the other nerd stuff you mentioned here, that you could go into at some point in the future. especially lufs - how it relates to true peak, to different platforms and mediums, etc. ie, when mastering my own music, should i export it several times, at different lufs values or find a balance between all requirements, and make one export only? this is all still too confusing to me lol

[@Cloudjump3r]

Thanks Cam :) great video! Gonna send this to some folks and keep it in mind for the days when mastering feels to complicated and get blown out of proportion in my head ;)

[@karadytube]

Omg, your voice is Hollywood voice ❤

[@The_Answer_Is_Within]

You should’ve def made a before and after…so that we could’ve listened to both versions of the track:) Btw Frontier is a true workhorse/powerhouse and I like the design as well.

[@BillyBatsonMarvel]

Someone has a voice for radio. 😂👍🏽

[@bobrobertsNotUrBob]

I always hear Howard stern when I hear Venus speak

[@vidarhjal]

There is a great video by Dan Worrall on dithering (trigger warning: very technical).

[@jameskerr9509]

Frontier is like a magic box

[@noahrathje8976]

@0.26 LMFAAAAOOOO!! :D

[@flibflob2785]

TDR Nova is a free equalizer that can do dynamic and M/S Equing (I also just realized that's the same plugin maker that makes Kotelnikov)

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

They also have VladG Limiter No. 6. The free version is obtainable I think, but no longer updated (legacy). There is the Gentleman's Edition (GE) that's 50€. This looks like an old effects rack with several sections for different things, RMS compression, peak limiter, high frequency limiter, clipper, true peak limiter. It can process as M/S, brick wall or soft limit, and ISP.

[@Lokkodog]

great Vid , thankyou ... one issue though ive downloaded Melda pack but Loundess Analyzer does not appear in my daw is it an effect ?

[@vidarhjal]

great :)

[@djGreenALERT]

Hi Cam, very informative as usual. I do have a question though.That bass sounds particularly exquisite, even before the mastering. Could you tell me what plugins you used just on that as a starting point please? (The bass sounds like it came from Legend or Diva perhaps?) Sorry if that's a bit of a cheeky question.

[@VenusTheory]

Yo! Glad you enjoyed it haha. Not really anything special to talk about with the bass - it's just a couple detuned saws with a square an octave below fed into a 24db/oct keytracked lowpass with some filter drive. Made in Dune 3, which does have some super fat filters though. Should be able to get a similar sound with just about any plugin though - I think the real key is adding dynamics with velocity, and using a low (or 0) sustain value for almost an '808 bassline' approach to really let the notes punch.

[@tyabrahamse2461]

I'm a bit late to the video but I loved it

[@TheTonyTitan]

Gotta say... thanks!

[@RyanHarris77]

Your voice sounds great. What mic do you use?

[@MadMusicologist]

A little question perhaps: I often make classical tracks, huge orchestra and things. So I have an extremely wide range in dynamics. I often ran into issues when teying to apply dynamic equalizing: if the orchestra plays loudly and there are percussive sounds ( e.g. timpany), they would almost disappear with dynamic eq running. Now on the other side I love to apply dynamic eq when the sounds are soft, as I can make them "bloom". So what can I do to have the timpany strong, and soft sounds blooming?

[@rivagesfm5018]

I really would like to know the name of this song you were working on here. Sounds great.

[@MannyXO]

You should get into audiobooks man. The voice

[@saizoku2665]

Gone through u r plugins which u recommended they were changed my sound to loud and good but I'm getting +12 or +16 range reading u getting -2 or -1 so what way we should get - readings which suits streaming platforms

[@thorstennesch1]

I use Klanghelm mjuc Jr. , singersongwriter/indie stuff.

[@PARKERSHAW]

As for true peak reduction... If my loudness analyzer is already reading a -9 for true peak, do I need to do anything? I am already past the -1 target, and I'm not sure how to go the other way to get back to that point.

[@Mixjaker]

За битвиг студио - Лайк 👍

[@MoeThermodynamics]

Hey man, just a quick question: Is there any reason why you don't use or recommend Melda's free MCompressor for mastering on this video? It's included in a free pack with the MEqualizer plugin and it seems to have very good features, excluding oversampling which you have to pay for. Just wondering in case you could mention some benefits of the other compressors. Thanks

[@575motocross4]

All these plugins worked great except for the A1 Stereo Widener, i couldnt for the life of me get it to load into Mixcraft after installing. If anyone has any tips or insight id appreciate it!

[@jimmylennon3088]

super.thank.you.so.verymutch

[@erkamau9629]

Ciao, use Your ears, ok, so wich Is the SPL level You set for listening, and Your distance from monitor (sweetspot), and headphones level as well ?

[@ruffusduarte]

Hey man! i have a question: If the samples you use on your projects are in 44100hz and 16bit it's beneficial after finishing the track render it in 48000hz and 24bit?

[@Brutuscomedy]

If one spends a bunch of time recording music, I wouldn't advise then finishing it off with free plugins. Professional mastering can make a big difference.

[@debarjo]

Which DAW are you working on?

[@DJRob4Real]

With frontier. Why was the initial output dropped to that level? Thanks