That is, your stereo output never exceeds -3 dB on its peak meter. Which is why you should always bounce out your mixes with at least 3 – 6 dB of headroom.
The mix is too loud for your plugins to do their thing. If the mix output is in the red when you bounce out your mix, you’ve left yourself with no options.
The third tenet of mastering is your tracks need room for processing. 80% of the work occurs before the mastering stage. Which led to way better masters! But if they had said no, my mastering would’ve been pretty pointless.Īt the end of the day, your masters are the final polish on your tracks. When I remixed the record, it was like night and day. So after some convincing they let me remix their record. Not to knock the client! But their mixes needed some help. But no matter what I did, my mastering efforts wasn’t actually improving anything. I don’t care how much “analog vibe” you throw at it.įor example, I once had to a client ask me to master their record. No mastering engineer can turn a bad mix into gold. Tenet #2 – Your masters are only as good as the mixes you receive. Mastering is all about subtle adjustments. And it should guide you in every mastering decision you make. So their low end will be boosted as well. You can’t separate the guitar or synth tracks out. So if you try to boost the low end for the kick drum, you’ll boost the low end of all the other tracks in the mix. Does the kick need some more low end girth? Go ahead and adjust the kick with the Channel EQ.īut when it comes time to master, all you have is one stereo track of the whole mix: In a mix session you have the freedom to adjust individual instruments. The biggest difference between mastering and mixing is that you’re never processing just one instrument. It’s all in how you think about your tracks: Tenet #1 – You’re processing every single instrument in your mix at the same time. While the tools are the same, the mindset of a mastering engineer is very different from a mix engineer. I call this shift in mindset The 4 Tenets of Mastering. And it’s incredibly important to shift your mindset when you’re mastering. However, mastering has several key differences. Like I mentioned earlier, mastering engineers use the very same tools that you use for mixing. That’s cool! You just have to be super thoughtful in your approach. Or maybe you’re looking to improve your own mastering skills. Maybe you’re not ready to hire a mastering engineer. It’s hard to have that conversation when you’re both the mix and mastering engineer! Mastering Your Own Mixesīut of course, why pay someone else to master your mixes when you can do it yourself?
#MUST HAVE LOGIC PRO X PLUGINS MASTER HOW TO#
You can also have a conversation with the mastering engineer and learn how to improve your mixes on your own. So it will be obvious to that engineer where your mixes need improvement. Your mastering engineer hasn’t listened to your mix 1000+ times. When a mastering engineer double-checks your work, that only helps you.
And the more involved you become, the more biased your ears and mind have become. When you’re in the 11th hour of a mix, you’ve lost the ability to be objective decisions hours ago. And soon enough you won’t notice that the mix stinks. Try listening to a recording you think sucks. The race is against your biased perspective. Although I bet you’ve never thought of it like that. And in my humble and sincere opinion, hiring out is always a good option. The first option, of course, is to hire a mastering engineer. So today I want to help you dig into mastering in Logic Pro without harming your mixes. Safety nets that can catch you before you make a mistake. It’s all about having the right system in place when you approach mastering. You know something’s going on behind the curtain, but just aren’t sure what!Īnd unfortunately, not knowing can do more harm than good when you try to master your own mixes. Even though mastering engineers use the exact same plugins as you or I, how come mastering always feels like a mystery?īut it’s like meeting the great and terrible Oz. Mastering in Logic Pro X, or any other DAW for that matter, can be super intimidating.
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