The Mastering Show

This show is short & sweet - but essential listening if you’re interested in getting better results with online loudness - and balanced, musical dynamics for your masters. In this episode Ian describes: - How he increased playback loudness on Spotify by 3.3 dB for a song by reducing it’s overall loudness by 1.5 dB, and why it sounded better afterwards - What to do if your song gets turned down mor...

It’s been a while since we had a Q&A episode, so - here it is ! In this show we discuss: * Can a spectrum analyser make up for poor monitoring ? * Is allowing peak levels up to -0.1 wrong ? * Do speaker isolation pads work ? * Handling client payment issues * What to do when songs overlap (segued) * Do dynamic masters sound worse on a PA ? Full show notes on the website http://themasteringshow.com...

We’ve all heard it - “the music is in the mid-range”. But what does that mean, exactly ? And if it’s true, is there anything we can do about it in mastering ? We’ve talked about bass and high frequencies, but in this show we dive into the muddy, murky mess that is (often) the mid-range, and talk about how crucial it is for a great-sounding master. Including: * How the mids help us hear bass * Comm...

…comes great responsibility. And mastering engineers need to accept that. If you take on the challenge of mastering someone’s music, you also accept a huge amount of responsibility for that music, and In this episode we tackle the question - what are the responsibilities of a mastering engineer - and even the ethics ? Including: * Should a mastering engineer have a “signature sound” ? * Why the “B...

It’s a question we get all the time: what do you do when the mixes you receive are more… “challenged" than you might ideally like ? How much can you fix in mastering if you really need to, and how much should you do ? In this show we cover a range of strategies for dealing with some of the toughest challenges when you’re mastering tricky mixes, including: * What is a crappy mix ? * Should we even...

Everyone wants that glorious, sweet, silky-smooth top end in their masters - but how do you get it ? How do you stop things sounding harsh, tinny and brittle ? And even if the high frequencies do sound gorgeous, how hard should you push them ? In this show we’re talking about treble, and our topics include: * What is “Newton’s 3rd law” of EQ ? * How do room acoustics affect how you hear high frequ...

As you know, we think normalization is a Good Thing. But many people disagree. And often that’s because it’s not perfect yet - not by a long shot. In this episode we explain some of the quirks, bugs and problems of normalization in action, and how they can cause unexpected results when you’re trying to optimise your music for listening online. Along the way we discuss: * Four really normal normali...

We all want great low end - deep, fat, solid and punchy. But it can be one of the hardest things to get right - especially knowing how much of it is needed. Too much bass can sound boomy, flabby, muddy or dull. And as a result, it’s easy to be scared of bass. It’s easier to be cautious and avoid all those possible problems, right ? Well, maybe. Except if the low end isn’t working in your master, y...

All the online streaming services play music back at roughly -14 LUFS, so that’s the level we should aim for when we’re mastering, right ? Wrong. That may sound strange, given how much we’ve talked about online loudness over the years - but we’re serious. In this show we dive deeper into one of the points we discussed in the last show: why you shouldn't be aiming for specific integrated LUFS value...

"How loud will my music sound online ?" It’s the question everyone is asking these days, and the answer has always been “it depends”. Until now. In this episode Ian Kerr from MeterPlugs talks about the new tool he has been developing with Ian Shepherd to answer this question. It’s a website called Loudness Penalty, and it’s free ! Along the way we also discuss * Why -14 LUFS isn’t the right target...

You can’t master on headphones, right ? Well, let’s see… This year’s Dynamic Range Day Award-winner broke all the streaming records in it’s first week, debuted at Number 1 in the Billboard chart and... it was mastered on headphones. In this episode we talk to Glenn Schick, the engineer who mastered KOD by J Cole about his decision to become a “mobile” mastering engineer, including: * How (and why)...

As well as running our own show, we’re huge fans of other podcasts too, and in this show we take a little time to wander off-topic and recommend some of our favourite audio-related shows. We each choose four podcasts, and suggest great episodes of each to get started with. If you listen to all the episodes we recommend, you’ll get to hear hours of useful, interesting and amusing content, including...

Our guest in this episode is Katie Tavini, who shares the inspiring story of how she got into mastering. It’s something we’re asked all the time, and Katie is a great example of one way to start in the industry, in a time when internships and junior positions are becoming less and less accessible. She also talks about the great network of engineers she’s discovered through Red Bull’s Normal Not No...

It’s a question we get asked regularly, and our answer may surprise you. To answer the question, we put together a “shopping list” for the ultimate DAW, and then discuss which of the applications is the best fit, and why. Topics include: * Which DAW sounds best ? * What does that mean ? * Do all digital EQs sound the same ? * What’s a DDP file ? * Pro mastering applications * Workflow versus featu...

Another chance for us to catch up with some of the questions you’ve been asking us. In this episode we talk about: * Bass - where does it start, where does it begin ? * How to use an analyser to assess EQ balance * When NOT to use an analyser to balance EQ and * What to do instead * Adding saturation in mastering - should you do this, and if so, how ? * The most difficult projects we’ve each worke...

Many of you will already know Jonathan from iZotope's excellent educational videos on mastering - he's also an experienced producer and recording engineer, head engineer at M-Works mastering (www.m-works.com), a lecturer at Berklee and has written a book on mastering. In this interview we talk about many different aspects of his career, including: * The delights (and perils) of analogue tape * Re-...

LUFS… WTF ?!? (And why aiming for -14 isn’t the right answer for online loudness) We talk about loudness all the time on this show, but how do you actually measure it ? How big is a “loudness unit”, and why are there three different kinds ? What does LUFS stand for, anyway ? How do you loudness match two files using LUFS measurements, and what free software can you use to get started ? In this sho...

Something a bit different to celebrate the festive season this week - we invited a group of cool audio guests to join us on the show, and asked each of them to bring a “gift” to fill an imaginary "Christmas Stocking” for you. So, you get a pile of cool, interesting and funny little treats to keep you amused in the run-up to christmas - or, just to amuse you, if you don’t celebrate it ! There are S...

Can robots really master our music ? Kenny Gioia set up poll on Facebook to see, asking people to choose between six different masters of the same song - three by humans (John Longley, an anonymous engineer from Sterling Sound and Steven Slate) and three by machines (LANDR, Aria and iZoTope Ozone). The great thing is, the test was blind, and loudness matched - so no-one knew which master they were...

This is huge. There’s a problem with loudness normalization, and TIDAL asked Eelco Grimm to find a solution for them. What he found in his research was unexpected and exciting. Eelco has been involved with loudness measurement and the LUFS standard from the very beginning, and in this show we also talk a little about his story and how it involves: * Technology versus emotion in music * The origins...

A Q&A episode with a twist - we recorded it live, with questions arriving all the time we were recording. We’ve added them all to the list for future episodes - here are the ones we had time to tackle this time: * How has mastering changed over Ian's career, and where is it going next ? * Is there somewhere out there with reference tracks for mixing and mastering ? * Are there any tips for avoidin...

Gain staging used to be a crucial consideration for analogue recording and mixing - but you’ll hear plenty of people saying it doesn’t really matter, in a modern digital audio workstation. And they have a (floating) point. But you’ll also hear lots of other people, me included, saying it IS important to understand what gain staging is and how it works, even in a digital environment. So who’s right...

If something is technically wrong but inaudible, is that a problem ? When is it OK to break the rules ? What is “audibility”, anyway ? Topics include: * If everyone else is listening is listening on earbuds and phones, why shouldn’t we ? * If music is art, it’s just a matter of taste - so how can anything be wrong ? * Ear training - how do you learn to listen ? * Are the answers to any of these qu...

Gear: does it matter ? And if so, how much ? And if gear DOES matter, does it define your sound ? And how ? In this episode we’re joined by Mike Hillier to talk about the significance of gear in mastering. Topics include: * Is a wide selection of gear essential to success in mastering (and mixing) ? * What are the “essential” pieces of gear we just couldn’t live without ? * If two pieces of gear c...

In which Ian probably goes too far with his analogy explaining compression using sponges. And in which Jon describes the concept of “sloppage headroom” and inter-sample peaks, and in which we also discuss: * Why lossy data compression doesn’t affect dynamics, except * When it does. And * Why dynamic compression doesn’t affect lossy compression quality, except * When it does. Plus * mp3 or AAC ? VB...