MYTH BUSTER: MASTERING ENSURES MY TRACK WILL SOUND SPOT ON

Ahoi fam,

on this post today I am back at trying to bust another myth and share my thoughts on it for you.

And this time the myth is that "mastering will ensure a track is going to sound spot on in the end".

Well, simply put this imo is false. Don't get me wrong, mastering indeed can be an important factor to polish things a little more in the end; however, the quality of your production depends already on everything before, and imo starts at the very beginning of recording and writing music.

At this start, recording your material in a proper way, or using well recorded material, usually is essential. F.e. one should avoid to record uncontrolled clipped or totally "destroyed" or wrongly phased sounds, unless it is what you are after in the context of your production. Unwanted distorted or clipped signals are hard to fix, as they might miss some important info you might need later on when mixing, or if they have too much of info at certain parts (too much frequency presence on a specific band, too much room etc.). In most cases it literally is "Brown in Brown out".

Also, in terms of signal flow within the mix of your track you will most likely achieve better and more optimal sonic results if you set up a production all properly from the start in terms of watching levels at least a little. Try to avoid to get over board with levels on everything, but also maybe try to not work too low in levels. Something in between -9 or -6 db, at least in my world, usually is fine looking at mix. Surely if there is a sound that comes alive in overtones just because you clip the signal to the wall and run aggressive resonant eq'ing on it, then this is a creative element and it could ofc happen too: I recommend to just make sure one still records or controls its signal, so it doesn't peak all uncontrolled into the master above everything else and ducks all the rest or makes a master effect go crazy so to speak.

I do not believe it is so essential to ALWAYS watch specific values or figures (db, LUFS, RMX or such), just because someone else said it is "that only" good value to go with. It imo isn't that simple and there is not really a right or wrong when it comes to art. In the end it just has to sound well and balanced, somewhat harmonically, so your hearing will enjoy listening to it. And to achieve that, you have to train your hearing to identify good or "nicely balanced and put together" sound. 

Back on topic though, I did a couple of posts about the topic of gain staging (when looking at optimizing mixing) in the past which, you could still check on the feed. Also, there is a ton of additional info on this topic all around the web, if you want to go down that rabbit hole even further to make up your own very sense of it. Generally said, when I myself look at gain staging, I try to ensure there is headroom in a signal to be able to do other cool stuff with it later on when needed, or simply try to watch not to feed any effect with a too hot signal that will get that effect or plugin to act weirdly and add unwanted artifacts, unwanted distortion or noise. So that in the end I could still turn things in a mix, have some headroom for re-balancing so to speak, without loosing control of the master signal too much or not at all. 

When working on the mix of a track it also imo does help a ton to take care everything is somewhat nicely distributed throughout the frequency range, but also in terms of depth, balancing and width. To me it helps to think of your track as 3 dimensional room you'd like to design and fill it so it feels comfy to be in. F.e. it imo is a beneficial thing for a track to be mixed with contrast, so it has more grip and is easier to understand. When you mix everything loud, wide or noisy, nothing will really stick out and the listeners motivation to keep on listening will most likely don't last too long. The room feels cluttered.

Also, even though super obvious, I feel it is essential to remember that the quality of each element one uses in the production can also, and usually is, be essential. In the end those elements have an impact on your overall final sound. So if one, for example, does not program or records everything her or himself, but uses samples or any other second party audio bits; these audio recordings should be somewhat complete in frequency range and also translate the sound in an honest and correct way. So one can shape it better to ones liking later on still and have more control of it. For example you should avoid using audio recordings with bigger phase issues, you will eventually find very hard to fix. Or it also it is important that the audio recording is not in a compressed format and hence misses out on frequencies. MP3 compressed recordings of sounds are imo a great example of something to avoid. It's so simpel and probably clear to everyone, but it starts already there.

I think that all this is important already, before you even think of mastering. Unless one is looking for that overall LO-FI vibe in a track and wonkiness on sonics is all wanted. But still then I feel the main elements should do the right thing in the context, i.e., the kick should have a body, the bass should have nice warm low and there somehow should be a bit of air feeling to the tops, in which way you may manifest it on sounds or its mix or its mastering, and so on.

If you look at all that from the beginning, I believe mastering can do an even better job in the end. But if what you have set up for mastering is unwanted wonky, out of balance, is not right in terms of its basis or essentials, mastering will most likely be not able to fix things. 

The process of setting a track up, choosing instruments, or sounds, recording things, mixing it and having an eye on the mastering, to me usually starts when I have an early idea written down. Pretty much just after I jammed on the idea and have something that kicks me. At this point, when I want to expand the idea and do more songwriting and rollt he track out, I then usually ensure that quality of sounds, signal flow, gain staging and master signal are set up in a way to leave me space for creativeness and adjustment, so I am not placed in a dead end from the start or not have any control over the signal. I surely have been in that dead end situation many times. One can usually clean up a mess still, but when going back on that fixing path parts of the production’s vibe will most likely be lost plus it simply is additional time one usually needs to invest into fixing; which I think one would be better of using for something more fun, like creating ideas.

So to me, mastering is as much a creative process as mixing or working with sounds or ideas. To me it isn't that dark art or disconnected part of music production I can't influence. Ofc there are mastering tricks, skills and experience that can help here, but I feel mastering should do only a subtle job. So your track doesn't sound like something totally different in comparison to what you had in mind. 

Often I find that in mastering a gentle 1 dB - 2 dB boost her and there, a little width control or optimization, a little downward or upward compression here and there, or a small overall gain reduction is enough to make things final, or is all that is needed to give your track impact, shine, the right room and glue.

I hope this does make sense to you too. I did choose to write my thoughts more from a broad view on the topic. I felt it could be a very valuable thing for you to remember. Out of own experience I believe if one puts her or his mind a little more on this topic, maybe even dives in a little deeper, the result one can achieve will most likely get better in less time.

More things coming your way shortly<3

Flo