What's your MASTERING experience?

The best information out there! I remember sitting in one of the best mastering studios in the world with one of the best mastering engineers in the world listening to one of Mark Endert’s mixes of an album I worked on, the mastering engineer turned to me and said the mix was perfect and they weren’t going to do anything to it! Except turn it down because the other mixer on the album’s mixes couldn’t get as loud and still sound as open as Mark’s mixes! So agreed, the perfect mix really doesn’t need to be mastered, also agreed, it’s rare there is such a thing! Unless it’s someone like Mark Endert or Spike Stent!

Each stage of the process is more important than the one that follows it. Performance > Recording > Mixing > Mastering.

I first saw you on the URM channel, and thought you WERE the URM channel until I ran out of your URM videos to watch and was crushed by disappointment. So glad you're doing this! Cheers from Canada.

Awesome information, thanks for sharing this. It's really insightful to hear about what you heard and to see the differences and just how much better you were able to make the result with a few slight changes. Thanks man! \m/

Tracking = Car build - Mixing = Paint job - Mastering = Clear coat. Clear coat ain't going to do anything if the paint job is shit, and a paint job can't fix a bad car build.

I studied at Full Sail University and I can tell you that you are absolutely right about EVERYTHING that you just said!

Wow I knew about stem mastering for years but never did it or researched it properly and seeing this video was seriously kind of mind blowing for me, you took a good mix and turned it into a pro level sounding production.

This is really stem mixing :). Definitely agree on the benefit of having different ears on your mixes.

Great video ! Finally someone talking real. I'm sick of guys randomly saying "If you want I can do a little Mastering for [A certain amount of money]" completely ignoring the Mixing factor. And Always always bands or singers talk about Mastering... Sehr gut !

I'm super thankful to Warren Huart and Produce Like A Pro channel for introducing you to me, what a great channel you've got! So much of useful info! Thank you so much Kristian! And Scott Elliott's "Mixing Extreme Metal" super duper rocks going through it now ;)

You are the best Kohle, thank you for everything!

Kristian Kohle is gold!!! He knows exactly what he is doing!...definitely the most right person to express exactly what i think about production stuff!

This is super useful to a mastering noob like me! This is the collab I want: Kohle + Scott, the two coolest guys in metal audio youtube!

Your mastering here sounds great! Great and useful tips.

Very instructive, thanks

I buyed the course and I'm looking it right now... good stuff. Good video explaining mastering!!!

That "MaYhEm" sound really kicked in when you added the spacial verbs. Sweet. If there are issues found by the mastering engineer I totally agree with going back to the mix to fix it first. This is my number one choice for mastering. Number two would beat this technique. Stems make things so much easier. Trying to balance a muddy low-end when things are moving along quickly with the tempo is impossible on a single stereo track many times. Excellent information. Thanks for all of the kick ass videos.

I have to admit i preferred the guitars without the eq. I felt some upper mids (and the grind that comes with them) were missing. But it's really a matter od personal preference rather than correcting some error / problem in the original mix. The reverb on the drums really improved and helped them "breath". A question for you Kristian: with the streaming services dominating the scene, don't you think we all need less limiting and compression on our masters? By looking at he mastered track, it seems it was pushed pretty hard. Thanks for sharing this video, very useful as always!

Great video, as always. Interesting thing here is to notice, how much abuse digital recording can really take. I know Scott does a lot of aggressive guitar EQ, up to the point that he will almost completely remove "harsh" highs brought by the amps sims and then compensate it using some "warm" pultec-style replica. And then you came and smashed some 4db reductions on top. Takeaway here: do not be afraid to get brutal with EQ, I guess

FINALLY!!! someone else who thinks like me.... a BETTER mix = NO need for or very little mastering (eq). In my home studio, we always focus on getting the BEST track by track recordings, we then work with each track, for hours sometimes, play with mixes and eq's, etc. until we can be happy with the FINAL mix being a product of the entire projects work. No mastering..to us, its tedious bs. We're straight up rock/hard rock/classic rock/alternative rock, bluesy rock...all mixed into whatever song or songs we're working on. Whatever works for a particular songs style is what we go for in each track until the end result reaches that goal. If not, we'll go back and find out what track/tracks need either re recording or if its a good track/take, it may need additional eq, comp, reverb, etc. in order to make it 'fit' in the final mix. Its hours and often days of fader and control dancing, but its always a fun in the ass love affair and always a learning experience as no 2 songs are alike. Thanks for this great video.. glad i found it!

Amen Kohle, It's really cool to see someone with so much experience in the field being so blunt and honest. I master my own mixes as I'm a fairly new player and work with local bands, and your workflow resonates a lot with me --> as my master channel is very simple, since I fix most of the issues within the mix. Cheers and looking forward to more content!

Wie immer super hilfreiche Information kompakt und nachvollziehbar erklärt. Danke

Mastering used to be needed because of the limitations of vinyl. The lows got rolled off, the highs were boosted, and the whole thing was run through a limiter to reduce the dynamic range. Or it was used to get all the tracks on an album to be the same volume. Nowadays they always maximize the output levels. There’s little point to it these days if you finished mixes sound good.

A nice mastering tip I got was using YouLean or similar loudness meter and using limiter to check that your track is in the desired LUFS range for the platform you're planning to release on. And of course all the jazz you went through here, like using a compressor and/or reverb in the master track to glue the mix together and adding the desired "size" with the reverb. A little bit of eq to fit say a shitty mobile phone, car stereo, earbuds, the expectations of average listener or whatever you like. And the beauty of it being like you said, it preserves the beautiful and dynamic mix while tweaking it for the audience and medium of choice. At least I noticed that I much prefer all the dynamics, more middle focused guitars, everything beautiful about more raw track. Yet in a track you plan to release, you want the guitar to sit a bit back and vocals to pop up, have a less intense listening experience than fully blasted mid focused guitars (the original sound is there but less in your face). A little bit of master eq and compressor makes the great sounds sit better in their reserved spot. I still try to avoid too much bass, I personally just hate too much bass and especially when it's very slow and messy sub frequencies that remove tightness from the music. Bass guitar is awesome but I kinda try to leave more room for it to shine by cutting the guitars a bit higher, then work out a nice balance of tightness and bottom. I think one of the most significant skills of a professional producer/audio engineer is getting the bass just right.

This was awesome , thanks dude !

Mastering today just means making it loud as f*ck. Thanks for this reminder that I need to pay more attention to my mic placements and dials

So glad I came across your channel after I participated in the Turning Point Mix contest which I had lots of fun. I just learned a new way of mastering now. Vielen Dank!

I think a lot of mastering engineers earned their cash burning DDP masters on their SADiE systems. They made even more cash when DVD authoring kicked in. They still play a useful role in the mastering of albums. Singles though, that’s debatable. It’d be nice to have an Ozone chain stuck right at the end of the chain for realtime mixing and mastering. That takes a lot of DSP though. Thanks! Have a good weekend :)

it all starts at the source, you are correct my good man! great advice thank you!

Super cool tnx man!

Really informative, learned a lot of things Ii wouldn't have thought of. Thank you!

As always amazing content from Kohle

They said: "Mastering is where they sprinkle that fairy dust - we're metal. We don't apply fairy dust to our mixes" ;-) Oh, I have a dream: I was lately fumbling around with amp sims (naughty, I know...). I realised, when panning one channel hard left, the other hard right while having both inputs set to the same source, my gonio meter would also drop to nearly out of phase, while creating a ball shaped figure (kvr gonio meter). So I thought: hey, these must be phase issues due to the fact that both sims are triggered at the exact same time". But setting both channels to center, everything was perfectly fine. I realised also that when using the same sim with the same settings on hard L/R there is no wild bat shit at all - but my signal is always mono. So what did I learn? That I know fuck shit about phase, polarity, and don't know how to use my tools. I would so much love to see a Kohlekeller vid where this kinda shit is explained.

I’ve mastered hundreds of titles for Clear Channel and others. You make many valid points. Unless you’re mastering vinyl it’s a dead art.

This is an extremely helpful video! Thank you so much! \m/ Cheers!

like your vision a lot man! thx for the awesome content! a lot of usefull infos

Thanks a lot!!!! I've never Ever understood mastering prior to this- didn't seem to be merited w/ the solo work I do. And I was right!!! Cheers

I believe, a lot of mixing engineers learned this the hard way. In the beginning of my voyage as a mixer, my mixes sucked and I was expecting a lot from the mastering guy....like...to send me back a sound for the Grammys, which never happened :)))). Poor me, I didn't know the mastering process doesn't fix bad mixes. Over time, when the mixes started to sound better and better, I started to expect less from mastering

Agreed.

I'm leaving a like and coming back later to watch

damn that sounds cool (the song, the mix and the mastering!!)

There is another reason to master these days as well. If you release an album or some kind of collection of songs and you want them to have a coherent soundscape you can take the boom out a little of one song, add mid range to another or add a treble sheen to all of them or whatever. Last chance to marinate the songs together so they sound like they are recorded by the same band before they' hit the grills of the speakers at the release party! :D

"Stem Mastering" = Mixing

When scotts mixes suck..... send in mixmaster kohle!

Most people mixing: throw on a multiband compressor around 200hz range to control palm muting. Kohle: “see you in hell motherfucker!” Boosts range with EQ Also, love Scott’s work, been following his channel for years. Speaking of, how the fuck am I not subbed to this channel?!?. Ding dong!!! 🔔

I think nowadays, with so many home/bedroom studios out there, many people send their mixes to mastering more like a mix coaching thing, and/or some corrective balance on the tone or dynamics, coming from a better monitoring situation or a more experienced engineer. In some cases there's just a lack of self-confidence in the mix engineer and they need to spend in somebody telling them "the mix was good, bud" 😁 Lately, I'm always delivering a Mastered reference track to my clients, if they are sending to a mastering studio or to another engineer to do the mastering, It must come back better than my reference. That's my deadline.

Your hate for celestion g-t12-75’s makes me laugh Everytime! I gave up on trying to mic my marshall cab. They are really difficult to record with, but playing with a band live is really the best place for them.

To make a serious comment though: Stem mastering is giving a lot more power to your mastering engineer. It's good if you trust him, but if you want him to use his high-quality listening space to fix the final details of your overall mix and prevent him from completely reinterpreting everything you've done, then giving him the good old stereotrack is better, I think.

I would have to agree with you there.... A good mastering engineer can take a good mix and inject it with life to make it more exciting but will be limited to how they can improve a bad mix or a badly recorded mix!

A good mastering engineer will listen to the MIX, advise on the MIX, we are hiring an extra set of TRAINED ears, not a magician.

It always seemed so logical to me. cheers from chile!!

100% agreed.

I wish you could "turn shit into gold" 🤣! Anyway thanks again for the info! Gr8 vid 🔥🔥🤘🏼

Nice video, thank you :)

Yes, mine suck! :D Thank you for your great videos, man! They help and inspire a lot! Besides, what's the name of the great Band the mixes of you stem mastered?

I've seen you compare pedals that are closer than your current mix and master like they were night and day.

4:12 This is the thing I never understood as a producer. Why would you want mastering on a stereo track? For loudness you could simply use Ozone and the included assistant. It doesn't help with a crappy mixing job however. That's where stem mastering is so much better and I appreciate you telling people about this. It's literally 5 minutes more work getting the stems ready for the mastering engineer but he can do so much more. Levels between tracks, making room for each instrument and even using automation for different parts (I feel like vocals need automation more than any other instrument)

BACK IN MY DAY!!

Just a great video!!

Tausendster like, krieg ich jetzt n Keks? Ich höre mir meine tracks immer später nochmal an, vor allem leise und laut, korrigiere hier und da, und gehe dann erst mit einem "Lautmacher" ran, vorher eher nicht.

i've been noticing that Stem Mastering becomes more and more prevalent with the rise of bedroom producers/musicians who mix their own stuff, which might not have the best monitoring environment when compared to dedicated project (particularly, well, mastering) studios.

That mix with the vocals sounds like atmospheric Deicide

I deserve Scott's tutorial due to my previous contract with satan needs to be renegotiated and I can play him the final song (satan of course) after I finish the tutorials. cheers and thanks!!!! PS That song crushes!

Cool! Nice Mastering. See you in Pro Mix Academy maybe?! Master Keller.

I agree that stem mastering is where it’s at and probably more of the future in mastering. On a side note, that master is so limited. The song didn’t have a lot of dynamics but I hate seeing metal mastered like pop music. Pushing for maximum loudness is rarely the best sounding way to do things...let the songs breathe.

Stem Mastering is mis named and should be called remix finishing or remix mastering. Another mastering function you forgot to mention probably because it is getting rarer is volume matching several songs for a CD release

Did I miss the name of the band? Sounds great

Dude, so your videos are awesome. Curious: I'm sure you are familiar with the 'loudness wars' of the previous decade, so I'm curious as to why you mix has such a brick-walled appearance here?

SO TRUE!!

What if i am already subscribed to you email list? Do I need to resubscribe to enter?

Would be amazing to see how to get that extra loudness without killing the dynamic feeling.... how you do that??? multiband limiting?? clipper??? BTW, thanks a lot for this kind of videos Kohle... this information is gold for every producer :D

08:07 Isn't the low cut on the guitar stem a little bit too heavy? Seems like Scott Elliot did a very steep filter there which of course depends on the recording. I'm curious what's your opinion on that! Great video!

Isn't STEM MASTERING can be the final stage of MIXING? Great info! Greetings from the Philippines!

Cool !!!

Your stem mastering was awesome, next time it will be easier

Mastering is the jizz of audio production. Everything else takes more work to get to the happy ending.

Off topic. Have you done a review of the hughes and kettner grandmaster 40? Youve mentioned cab 1st. Thoughts on the 4x12 240 of the same name. This thing is heavy as hell.

If mastering engineer's main purpose is to be as second pair of ears was it better if mastering engineer also have access to whole mix project with separate files?

Why you remind me Benny Greb? 🙂 Great channel !

Awesome video, Kohle! Using stems in mastering is really cool :). How do you approach mastering for different platforms? Do you master quieter for digital streaming and louder for CDs?

hey Kristian. i just subscribed to your e mail list because i belief in your work and you had being such an influence for me and my modest home mixes for so long… and looking to this video and the song you mastered, i start to get really worried about nowadays drum sound... please don't get me wrong, that drum sound.. it doesn't sound like a real drum anymore... i mean.. like... superior drummer does that and it sounds like that ... i'm kind of concerned about the industries sound standards nowadays ... regarding drum production... i do rather to hear the real drum sound ... rather than that consistent machine gun sound... what is happening to de sound nowadays? i was very curious about the curse... i really do, but... i don't want the comercial standards! i want the old school standards! where the sound was so mush more alive... especially the drum sound... please don't get me wrong Kristian about this text. but i want to know how to mix real metal... with real feel... vibe... not over processed stuff... but in the end of the day , you are still the best out there . thanks for all the precious information and keep the good work... and i'm very sorry about my English ... S.W.666

Now I'm really wondering would master sound better or worse without limiter?

Just so happens my mixes do suck.

Great video, thank you, Kristian. What would you suggest if you've mixed a song into a chain (compressors, EQ, etc.) on the mix bus and then want to get a track mastered using stem mastering? Would you print a reference track and export the song with master bus effects bypassed and tell the mastering engineer what you've used or would you use a sub mix with everything except the instruments in the stem you'd like to print to feed it into the sidechain of let say the compressors you've used on the master bus and repeat this procedure for every stem you want to export? Or would you do something completely different?

Dat midi bass. Sounds good though.

Do you ever use analog gear when mastering. I hear lot of opinions on this and was curious of yours.

I do cut the front and back silences out during mastering phase, does that count ;)

Hi Kohle, I have a drawmer dl441 and bss dpr 402 compressor, firstly im pretty sure i’m doing something wrong because the plugin version of the bss sounds more pronounced than the hardware, can you perhaps do a small bit on how to use inexpensive compressors throughout

Is stem mastering different from making the same moves on individual busses in the mixing stage?

Hi Kohle, I have a question about guitar tracks I have a band with one guitar, but we recorded 2 guitars. Do you think it’s better to have a slightly different sound between the two or the same? Better reamping through different cabs and/or amps mics etc?

with a good mix what about doing a master direct with a ssl comp an eq and miximizer limit on the master mix bus ?

Have 1 percent hope you see and respond to this, but I'm a musician looking to learn all about this kind of stuff, both to engineer my own music without it sounding like noobcake and to work other people's music as both a service (local guys are just as lost and less computery and have less time to learn) and as supplemental income so I can eat twice a day. Where the heck do I go to learn in depth stuff like this?

I like your vids , one silly question , how loud do you mix? I find that when mixing quietly I can'thear low end really well

I always thought they are the same thing

Adding reverb to drums or changing the voicing of the distortion comes down to a creative decision. As the mastering engineer, you should not be making creative decisions - leave that to the producer/mixer. Your job is to make the stereo mix provided by the client sound as consistent as possible on the widest variety of playback devices. There is also no longer any point in brickwalling, if there ever was one to begin with. Streaming services such as Spotify will do a form of volume matching upon playback, so every song of every band sounds more or less the same, volume-wise. Why not keep those transients intact for a change?

What verb did you use on the drum stem? Did you high pass it or treat the reverb in any way?

Are you secretly Paul Gilbert??

I thought mastering was exactly what it says it is : making a master copy ready for reproduction across different formats.

Hey the link to Scott's course didn't work for me