Mastering Your Music
What mastering actually does, how to prepare a mix for it, and how loudness, limiting and true peak work on streaming platforms. Finish with a master you have compared fairly against a reference and delivered in the right formats.
Start the course6 lessons · 25 min · free
What you'll be able to do
- Prepare a mix with the headroom and file format a master needs
- Read integrated, short-term and true-peak loudness and know which number matters where
- Build a mastering chain in a sensible order and justify every stage in it
- Compare a master against a reference at matched loudness instead of trusting the louder one
- Deliver WAV and lossy files with correct dither, metadata and album sequencing
Lessons
- 1What Mastering Is (and Isn't)Mastering is the last quality check and translation step between a finished mix and the listener — not a rescue for a mix that isn't finished.4 min
- 2Preparing the Mix for MasteringHeadroom, an unlimited master bus and the right file format: how to bounce a mix that gives the mastering stage room to work.4 min
- 3Loudness, LUFS and True PeakHow integrated and short-term LUFS, true peak and streaming normalisation work, and what they mean for how loud to master.4 min
- 4The Mastering ChainCorrective EQ, glue compression, saturation, stereo work and a limiter at −1 dBTP — what each stage does and how hard to push it.5 min
- 5Referencing and A/B at Matched LoudnessWhy louder always sounds better, and how to compare your master with references and with its own unmastered mix without being fooled.4 min
- 6Delivery: Formats, Dither, Metadata and SequencingExport the right files for distribution, dither correctly when reducing bit depth, and get ISRCs, metadata and album order right.4 min
Next up:
Producing with AI
Use generation, stems, transcription and a copilot as tools — with your judgement in charge.