{"id":3731,"date":"2011-03-01T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/passivepromotion.com\/?p=3731"},"modified":"2020-05-15T12:05:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T19:05:16","slug":"a-mastering-engineers-guide-to-final-mixdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/passivepromotion.com\/a-mastering-engineers-guide-to-final-mixdown\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mastering Engineer’s Guide to Final Mixdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
“Garbage in, garbage out” is a common saying among mastering engineers. The quality of the source material limits the quality of the final product. Most of my clients have no problem following my simple preparation instructions<\/a>, but they stop there. They figure once each mix sounds as good as they can get it, they’re done. In fact, there’s a higher level of refinement that pays huge dividends. I’ll break it down in this mastering engineer’s guide to final mixdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Choose a reference.<\/strong> Find a major label track with the tonal balance you’re looking for – ideally something that hasn’t been totally decimated in mastering, since you’ll be comparing it to your unmastered tracks. If you followed my earlier advice<\/a> on using a reference during the mixing process, you’ll want to use the same track here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Load in your tracks.<\/strong> I’m assuming that you’ve already rendered all the tracks for your release as stereo 24-bit or higher .wav or AIFF files, with no processing on the master bus, and that they peak <\/span>under<\/strong> 0 dB. If they hit 0 dB, that means they’re clipped. Lower the gain on the master bus by 6 dB and try again. Once you’ve got clean mixdowns, fire up your DAW and put each of them and your reference on separate channels, like so:<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n