💡 What is in YOUR mastering chain? 😀

My only tip is.....WAIT. By the time you've composed and mixed your tune. You'll have heard it dozens of times. You'll have no critical ability left. Save your project and don't open it again for a week or two. You'll be surprised by what you have or haven't done to the mix. If you've got good friends who produce similar types of music and have a similar skill level (or even better are far more advanced than you). Get them to give it a close critical listen and ask them to write some notes about what you are doing right or wrong. But don't give it to a friend who might get jealous of your work and just dent your confidence. If you can afford it, pay someone to master your tune, just once. Then compare your master to theirs and see how close you can get on your own. There's more than one way to skin a cat. All that matters is how it ultimately sounds.

Someone give this man a medal!

Again, incredible, relevant content delivered with clear explanation. Keep it up Stranjah! 🙏

Very stoked to see this video. I have been struggling using Ozone and finalizing. Your workflow chart and knowledge were so helpful! Looking forward to improving my mix

genius thanks for taking the time and putting this together! learned a lot and you express everything really well. Props and keep up the awesome work

This is totally what I've been waiting for!

Very well thought out and accurate information, would be nice to stumble upon this early in one's audio journey. Kudos Stranjah!! Good job Keep it up

My masterin chain, utlity (bass mono below 150hz), fabfilter (cutoff at 30hz to 21k hz), mix buss compressor (OTT or other bus comp), ozone 9 elements, youlean loudness meter, span

This is what I've been waiting for!

Great video Stranjah. Good luck on your mastering journey.

Another great resource video and well explained. Keep going! You are helping me out a lot! Salute 👏

This was Awesome! What stood out to me the most was what you did w the bass and mid bass in the Multiband compressor. It really controlled the sounds and made it much cleaner and smooth sounding.

Thank you stranjah! Never miss any of ur vids!

loving it and loving your speech, you're awesome man.

Your tutorial stack actually helped me to finish a track! Keep up your great work!

Easily one of the most informative tutorials I've ever seen. Thank u bro!

1:31 big it up Alan! So great of you to do all this work, to help us all out!

This is great! Awesome tutorial

I've been looking for a video like this for years!

Wow! Well done Stranjah

This video is a great help! Many thanks

Another amazing video - thank you!

Awesome Vid Bro, really helped me a lot

Great video man ! Much Love! :)

Thank you for this!

Very interesting, thank you for your share

Amazing video, thanks for such a great lesson!

Thanks for the work. Would be cool to know also more about using meters and what aspects to pay attention to.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR KNOWLEDGE. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you very much,gold!

so helpful!

..awesome tutorial..

Thanks Alot For this Tutorial

Top one G! one thing to add is a linear phase EQ will help stop any affect the boost/reduction may have on the frequencies around it, so this can be useful as a first EQ

7:44 verly clearly said Alan. Thanks for pointing out this important detail, that the limiter is in fact at the END of the chain, despite being one of the first things that is inserted.

The Amek 200 is amazing so smooth!

DUDE, THANK U X

amazing!

Very diligent work. I really enjoy when I see music editing done with care and from a Plugin Alliance fellow user at that. Shadow Hills and BAX EQ are really something to swear by. Still haven't tried the AMEK, though.

THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!! I am struggling big time with wrapping my head around mastering and of course I'm probably overthinking too much. Going to sit down and watch this tomorrow morning! Big up! - Damyja

Thanks a lot for this video, I loved it!! :-) On my Master Buss I have Ozone 7 Maximazer (acting as a Limiter), SPAN By Voxengo (Analitic tool) & Utility which I use to create a volume fade at the end, so tracks fade out into silence at the end.

Your videos are the best ...I already know like 50% of the knowledge but you boost that to like 98%

I made my first dnb tune after watching one of your videos. Thanks m8

You dah most underrated producer on youtube. luh dis shiiiiii

Amazing tutorial!! I use Ozone Maximizer & SPAN on my Master!

5 minutes in, and I'm really looking forward to the rest! I love your content!!

Can you consider to make tutorial about ghost triggers and multiband side-chaining 🦦? Great videos mate!

Thx king

i use EQ to cutoff anything below 20hz and above 20k hz, ozone imager to control bass below 100hz and highs above 13.8k hz, if needed i use another Parametric EQ, dynamic EQ or Gulfoss for tonal balance/control, SSL comp for dynamics and lastly ozone Maximizer for the gain and limiting. Span is my go-to spectrum analyzer and sonarworks reference 4 to improve my studio monitors.

I"m on another genre, but the way you organized the process is very useful!

Thanks again for a great tutorial! Have you, or are you planning to do a tutorial on how to mix a jungle / DnB track?

Big up!

Excelente ¡¡

Atta boy reppin Canada like a big boi.. Massive tips in this everybody take a chair and have a listen.. Canadas got some fire DNB comin! Big ups to ya homie!

Awesome advice! Thanks for making all these videos much appreciated! Also would it be possible to send you a track to get your input on it?

Epic video. Thank you, I'm in the studio tomorrow working on my album. BTW your website is currently down : (

10:34 it is important to note that these values and amounts should be based on the track itself. These are by no means 'presets', or values that are always to be adjusted. One must listen to the track and hear what 'actually' needs adjusting and go from there. What is good for one track, may not be the same for another and this definitely stands true depending on the quality of the original mixdown.

amazing video mate! can you make a FJAAK type breakbeat techno tutorial?

gold.

Super nice video!, also wanted to ask if you still doing dnb tutorials could you try out macky gees black widow bass, its a super classic sound but im really strugeling to recreate it

Thank you!!!!!!

mano tu é brabo

My (ahem) ‘mastering’ 😂 chain: Pro-Q rolling off below 30hz, Glue Compressor, sometimes PSP Vintage Warmer *VERY* lightly with a GR of between 0.5 -1db, Ableton’s Utility to check my mix in Mono, finally Pro-L and then Metric A/B for referencing.

Nice Vid... Thanks for sharing. At my mastering progress, I only use max 3-4 tools. Neve 542, Tegelere Creme, Kush Aaudio Silika and a Limiter (depends on the Song). Mastering can not do magic, if the mix is not good, only a few engineers could fix it... -14 LUFS is what I do. If you want it louder, turn up the volume. Smashing the Limiter in order to get -5 LUFS is not the right way for me.

I love warmness in my bottom end!

28:27 big up the Macc! I get my stuff done by him too!

The mastering chain I use now is like this. 1. mono filter to control the low lows with a cutoff at 20hz and add some punch to the sub range and low mids with a 0.6- 1db boost to the overall low end. 2. eq taking out some 160 hz build up and some 600 hz build up and any other resonance or build I can find ,but small 1-2 db changes unless its really annoying resonance. 3. Saturation knob set to high and boost until it sounds ugly then back off till it sounds louder and not distorting in a nasty way. 4. Saturation knob set to neutral and same process as highs 5. Saturation knob set to low and same process as other 2 knobs. 6. Ott flavored to taste 7. Maximizer with the milisecond timing of every knob I can control set to the ms of the bpm im working at. I just play with the values until it sounds good. 8. Soft clipper set threshold to -0.6 db and play with it till it's as loud as possible without clipping red on the master. I may add a camel phat sometimes before the ott if it sounds good. It's such a dark art lol. It's cool to see other peoples chains, I like looking at the pop guys vocal chains, blows my mind. Eqing is the hardest thing to me because we all hear different and what might sound good to me may sound like butchered crap to someone else. Thanks for sharing your chain this is really great information and you covered a lot of what I also found on my journey through the internet for knowledge on this topic, thanks bruv.

I had to do a couple of rewinds on that intro. Funny af.

i use fab filter pro q 3 and ozone 8, limitless limiter and l2 maximizer

Great content as always. What's that reference track?

Very good intro to mastering! Best of all, you demystify it. I have been on a similar journey over the past year and I have arrived at basically the same place you have. One question: why did you use only the clipper in the TDR limiter 6 GE? I think their limiter is also very good. It's actually a great starting point for getting into mastering as it has a pretty complete chain in one plugin for $50: hard to beat. I think standard clip is a great clipper, by the way. I should also give a shout-out to the bx-digital eq. I like to use it in mid-side mode. It's great for those small moves, as you illustrate. One more thing: you can use an analog-modelled eq for some bit of saturation. Try a pultec emulation (e.g., analog obsession RARE). The pultec is great for some punch in the low end (be careful with it!).

19:21 Nice! Would be a great match for my Dangerous D-Box! ;)

So just a quick question , when the limiter is at the end of the mastering chain … when you eq and it makes the track just a bit louder should you go back into your LUFS meter and make sure your tracks at the lufs it was before u eq’d … if that made any sense at all 😂😂 what a legend tho this has gave me a much better understanding of mastering !

Great info. One comment, the SSL bus compressor has a very slow attack setting, wouldn't that actually emphasize punch and only reduce audio after the 30ms transient? I typically use that kind of slow compressor to add punch on a drum BUSS and glue shit

For me too many processors in the chain. I usually tend to use corrective EQ + corrective comp + color eq + color comp + limiter/clipper. Anyway, thanks for sharing!

22:45 ah! The Mighty 'Glue'! I swear by this buss compressor. I have the hardware version and ALL my tracks go through this!

I have hold the believe that the best use of reference tracks is at the mixing stage rather than the mastering stage where you are very limited in the moves you can make to get close to the reference track .

My mastering chain is Utility bass mono under 200hz (that’s what Ed rush and optical said they do) Eq Compression Saturation Multiband compression Ozone imager Gullfoss eq (cool plugin, it adds clarity to ur mix with just a few adjustments) Then I add a limiter at the end pushing it up so it’s being compressed 3-5 dB I have only been producing nearly six months so I could probably improve my mastering chain -any tips appreciated! Cheers!

Why the 'dynamic phase' setting on the Pro-MB and not the 'liniar phase' one ?

Hi, any chance you can make a tutorial on how to recreate the bass in « Flat T - L Bass » ?

have you tested the elysia museq? recomend defo. it has a really warm and smooth sound and its really nice to work with 🙏

Do you think you could use the Ozone Dynamic EQ in place of the multiband compressor at the tonal contorl section? I know its not really a compressor as such, but distortion of the low end and kick is my main problem and I haven't been using multiband so I think this might help.

I have DT770pro 80Ohm :) also good for mastering

Nice! What app do you use for making dnb?

waves analog button just adds some annoying noise btw i also recommend to activate true peak on your limiter

Hello man ! I’m a little bit lost in your exemple you say that BREAK use a limiter at the end of his mastering chain, but in the order of your chain you put it in first!? Before the eq, the coloration…? And then when you recap at the end of the video the maximized is in last position, and the clipper has disappeared 🤔

This channel has literally taught me everything i know about producing

typically open-back headphones have better transient response than closed back.

27:55 sounds pretty great to me!

What is the tune you are mastering, and the reference? Both are sick

true peak help you to prevent this analog clipping :)

Great video, nice and to the point. One criticism... talking in between A/B comparisons ruins the effect

Hi! I've been clicking on the link in your description to get serum but it doesnt take me to a specific plug in (just the general page). Which one should i be downloading? I'm new to this sorry if it's a stupid question haha

Setting the limiter to the loudness your reference seems to be smashing the peaks of your track immediately. I've always understood this as bad mastering practice if you're not preserving the full crest of the wave. Am I wrong?

niceeee....bro and about dither do you use to export ?

Thanks Fam the tips! Much Love!

I only use my headphones for everything. They arnt what most peoe use and I bought them for about 50 pounds about 15 years ago. Looked at getting a backup pair but they r like 250 quid now.

Hi! I recently bought the DT 990s for producing dnb, and I noticed that the hihats sounds so much high, is there any way to EQ to prevent lose my ears? Thanks so much!

Put a T Racks Classic Clipper on Master. Boom done. Sounding better than Diplo.