What is Mastering?

[@Landon_Dyer]

Bigtime fan Joe!! Your videos have helped me tremendously over the past few days. You're quite literally my favorite audio engineer/ tutorial and general knowledge guy!!! You put in such a great amount of effort and it really shows! Please don't ever stop doing what you do! God bless you and your family!

[@petealba707]

Just signed up and super excited. Thank you Joe for providing this opportunity!

[@rossedwardmusic]

I think this guy might be my favourite KZbinr. Your attitude is top notch!

[@jinnvenus4183]

Thanks again for the compression tips

[@music7studios]

Thanks for putting this together Joe, happy to attend!

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

Wow, that triggered the 70s and 80s TV audio flashback thing where the commercials made sparks come out of the speaker, but you can't really hear the program. Had to ride the volume knob for that. The old days were so much fun, especially trying to watch TV late when you're supposed to be asleep. BOOM! THE NEW RONCO GADGET! JUST $19.95! ORDER NOW! back to the program blah blah blah...

[@darryldouglas6004]

Late to this one but…Firstly I’m a complete amateur. Only have recorded for myself and friends, only a couple of “clients”. I perform my due diligence on getting volumes right during the recording stage, gain staging, add and remove compression, EQ, effects, etc. I spend a lot of time polishing. I put the same plugins and Studio One limiter on the mains. I haven’t had this volume issue. The only time I’ve used the mastering section of Studio One Pro is to burn to CD to make sure each track sounded cohesive and at the same volume. I’m sure I’ve much to learn but I’ve yet to be presented with an example that wasn’t made up. I’ll keep looking but I feel Studio One has overcome many of the challenges in the past that made mastering necessary every time. 😃

[@DrDsDevoDiary]

thanks for your insight awesome stuff ...

[@beau8823]

Thanks Joe for this amazing opportunity!

[@chrisscharenbroch5961]

Hey Joe, thanks for all of the great videos, very helpful. I have a question, I'm sure that you have covered this in a previous video, but I am mixing just a piano and strings track how do I make it sound big and also how do you master this to be considered Broadcast quality? Thanks Joe, keep up the great work, appreciate it all.

[@poglej]

That's gonna be amazing, I just singed up! Thank you!

[@regallmusic]

This is the best channel!

[@obetalk86]

Gotta hold it in cool

[@i-24band98]

Two quick things. What do you think of mastering services like Landers. I did notice quite a bit of difference after I use Landers to master some of my music. And have you ever considered doing a mix review of some of your listeners music. I-24 band just released Redneck Santa Claus video on KZbin. One I think you will enjoy it and two I'm curious what you thought of the mix. Looking back I think the lead guitar is a little too hot. Appreciate what you do I've learned a lot from you

[@music7studios]

Out of all of those e-mastering services, Cloudbounce was the most 'natural-sounding' one, but if you want to use one it should still only be for referencing or demonstration purposes, in my opinion. All the others just slam a single, digtal limiter. Even Ozone's AI will slam a limiter for a 'pseudomaster' as I call it. This generally inflates the sound too much and causes unwanted distortion.

[@ProductionAdvice]

If you can watch live, you'll be able to post questions in the chat and Joe and I can try to answer this for you 👍

[@debarjo]

Ha ha ha! You are the greatest Joe!!!!!

[@sgg6927]

One thing that really stands out when I look at wave form of professional masters is the the top of the wave form is mostly flat and even. Compared to mine which are still choppy looking even after the volume is increased with limiter. Theres something I'm not getting right. I read something about using a clipper first? Anybody have some tips?

[@stephenpriestmusic]

Yes, this was something I always wondered about until I figured it out. The key is using a good limiter plugin at the end of your mastering chain. You can push the input into the limiter up a few dB for the whole song (or just for specific parts that you want to be loudest), which will make the piece louder but without letting any of your loudest parts peak. Doing this will make your loudest parts more "flat and even" without too much audible compression. There are lots of limiter plugins, and everyone will have their own favorite, some of which are free. I personally like multiband limiters - instead of compressing your whole mix when things get too loud, then only compress the loudest frequency ranges, which makes the compression cleaner/smoother and less audible. I like the Waves L3-LL Multimaximizer (Waves has lots of sales, don't buy it for more than $30). www.waves.com/plugins/l3-ll-multimaximizer You'll (almost) never get great limiting with a simple *compressor* plugin, no matter how you tweak the settings. The key really is to use a good limiter plugin. Hope this helps, sorry for the length.

[@sgg6927]

@@stephenpriestmusic Really appreciate the response. Yeah I'll take a look at upgrading the limiter I use. Which right now is just the one that comes with Studio one. Thanks !

[@Zay_TLA]

Still a great explanation of mastering.

[@mikehudson5121]

Unfortunately I'll be working. Will it be available to watch later? I hate I'm going to miss this!

[@luisrangel3296]

Do you use your mixer for preamps when recording or do you have have audio interface?

[@KevinTTowns-jn9rp]

Thanks Joe. I'd be eternally grateful if my tune is used in this...

[@Hipyon]

Is this a digital problem I make analog recordings which don't seem to suffer from this

[@tatertotter25]

Hey Joe, i'm completely new to mastering and have never mastered a song before ... or even opened the project page in studio one (i have gotten lots of mixing practice though, thanks for the virtual mentorship on what i've learned so far!). all i know is mix, mix, mix, mix, export mixdown to a .wav/.mp3 file and... that's the threshold of what i know how to do if i want to listen to one of my "final products". i was wondering if it would be too much trouble for you to put together a quick playlist of videos you've already made yourself or videos you've done with Ian constituting a very brief guide to mastering, all the way from the beginning of importing a .wav master bus track into the project page to getting it streaming platform ready, in terms of loudness, quality, master bus compression, normalization/standardization, LUFS rating, blah blah blah all these things i've heard about before but have really no clue what they mean in practice. if such a collection already exists on your channel and i have simply failed to find it or if there is another channel/creator whose content you recommend for this topic then that is fine as well.. just let me know thanks!

[@citizenworld8094]

Joe do you need it for Dolby Atmos?

[@chiefQUEEF69]

Joe question for you...I work in the IT space and in IT there are boot camps for training. Do you/Presonus offer a 1-2 week boot camp for studio one? I would imagine there are new people to recording that would really benefit from something like a boot camp!

[@GoodOlTahj]

Hey Joe, in the event that some of us can't watch it live, will the livestream with Ian be posted on your channel or anywhere else? Mastering is something I have little understanding of, however I experiment with limiters and other things during my own recordings with good results. It would be nice to find out more of what I'm missing! Thanks

[@ProductionAdvice]

We're planning to share the replay, yes - it's still worth registering to make sure you get the info, though 👍

[@hermask815]

So mastering helps me win the Loudness War? 🤣

[@joev4483]

Blue Blazes!?!? Oh no .... thanks

[@ReyYbarra]

This dude pulled a young life switcheroo on us…. “Hey you wanna hang out?”……….welcome to church! Gotcha!

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Huh?

[@biggreyman246]

I think he's complaining that you're talking about a free (?) seminar. Tbh even if it were a paid thing you give away plenty on here for free and we're grateful for it 😊. And I am British and hence super credible.

[@larrytate1657]

@@HomeStudioCorner Do you wait until the mastering phase to use your first limiter than or do you use one at the end of the mixing phase as well?

[@harryfromaustralia657]

What. Is. Mastering. Answer the freakin question whats the deal with all these masterers cant even explain what it is they do

[@maika2449]

So, he is from Britain, so he is super credible... Where in the world does one have to be from to be super not credible?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

‘Twas a joke