Hi Friends, this is the final episode of our free mixing Pop/Rock series: Mastering A Pop/Rock Song. My good friend, mastering engineer and online mentor Ian Shepherd from productionadvice.com teaches you how to give your mix the final polish and make it sound great throughout all popular platforms: Itunes, KZfaq and the Radio. The best part? Ian shows you how to master a this song using plugins only, so you can achieve the same results in your home studio! Topics covered in this tutorial: Plugin choices How to prevent Inter-Sample-Clipping to avoid distortion when converting your master to mp3. EQ/ Mid-side EQ to shape the tone of individual instruments on a stereo file. Compression & Multiband Compression to achieve a tight and powerful low end. Order of mastering stages (Using EQ and Compression in conjunction to achieve the desired result) How to achieve maximum results with minimal processing Ideal loudness to strive for when mastering for Itunes and KZfaq Level Automation to increase the impact of your choruses. I hope this tutorial helps you take your mastering skills to the next level. Please leave a bunch of comments and questions below. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us Ian! Have a marvellous time recording and mixing, many thanks Warren

I did exactly what you've done in this video, and suddenly my master sound 3 times better.Ian thank you so much!

I'm struck by how subtle the EQ application actually is when you do the loudness matched comparisons. People might debate the overall approach, or individual tactics, but the end result speaks for itself. Very conservative application of the tools yields dramatic differences between the raw mix and the finished product. It's not only ear candy you're after, it's also crucial for preventing fatigue on the part of the listener, who might be listening to an entire album, or an hour or so of pop radio. Poorly mastered or unmastered music, particularly pop/rock, can be very fatiguing to listen to after just a short while.

I love how you can see Graham's "Never Satisfied EP" in the waveform preview.

Ian's one of the few guys I trust, mostly becasue he doesn't seem to give a fuck about how loud he can get the master - just how good he can get it. I used to agonise over reference mixes and how I couldn't get my songs as loud, but now my masters are maybe 4-5dB quieter than commercial mixes, but they sound good and that's all that matters.

Ian has excellent ears and mastering technique...what an informative video! Thank you.

Thanks a lot for this video! At 20:24 this "onion-like methodology" is perfect since it is used to enhance the qualities of the song's unique character (through strings, voice, snare, volume, toms...). And it is good to remind us that a third party perspective is useful in creation (at 33:00). Really a pleasure to see your process going along. There is love respect and taste before any technology. Thanks to Ian for sharing his experience (i have seen many of his videos) and to Warren too for sharing his own and other's also. Thanks to both of you we can (might?) improve the sound quality of our music so to make people feel way better. Wish you the best to both of you!

Great bit at beginning for creating context of mastering, and the rest makes entire mental process and strategy more human and accessible. Great video.

Wow, this is like chocolate and peanut butter together! Awesome!

In the A/B I preferred the unmastered version because it had more clarity in the high end (less low mids) but I feel like over the course of an album that tone would be fatiguing and irritatating so the mastered version with its better balnce and more controlled high mids would work better.. Awesome video by the way great to see mastering tutorial by a professional mastering engineer who is know NOT to just try to get things loud. Thanks Ian and Warren very informative.

Great info here, I particularly like how we are presented the whole process in the order that it was implemented (the onion layers). Thanks Ian and Warren!

currently taking Ian's home mastering masterclass and it's very insightful and interesting that he's switched up the plugins he used then and now in the video,although still keeping intact with the values and concept he really recommends for mastering. Thanks Warren! (And Ian!)

great video, it show the quality of human being u are, professionalism and open to share your journey with others, specially in the mystic world of audio mastering. cheers.

About the TC multiband vs Pro-MB: Short answer, no, you can not get that kind of "spanky attack" on pro-mb. The reason is that Pro-MB is much more transparent. It's actually highly program dependent which the TC is not. Especially the attack is really "effect like" on the TC multiband whereas on Pro-MB they aimed for ultimate transparency so it's very difficult to get that kind of spank that you have going on with the TC.

for someone like me who has a small bed room studio, i love video's like this, thanks so much the tips and tricks and taking the time to share. \m/

Ian, you're my man!

thanks Warren

Really interesting. Great Video. Thanks for letting us being part of the progress. Thumbs up :)

Wow - my two favourite music production mentors on youtube in the same video - Great :)

just to say one word: great!! - thx a lot warren and ian - i can clearly hear what ian did - and understand why its done :)

That sounds amazing. I love when those strings come in. Many thanks for the great video

Let me EQ this highend up a bit... Ah, let me lift now the lows and the mids as well. Perfect 😎 😛

Thanks Warren! always a pleasure to watch your videos.

Cool vid, thanks Warren... this was very interesting. By the by, I'm having a Marvellous Time Recording and Mixing! Thanks, B.

I'm a noob compared to this guy, but with the EQing sections, I thought it would be more efficient to just narrow the Q's more and be subtle so you're just tweaking specific elements, rather than using such wide Q's, then having to compensate for their overall effect. I felt the wide 3dB EQ on the entire low end made the mix muddier. I guess it's all about personal preference AND really important is that every single listening situation is different from the next (eg. headphones, speakers, rooms, background ear tinnitus, ear wax.... you name it!!!) so the subjectivity on this stuff is off the charts! Even with my own mixing I might mix it differently after a few days - what's changed? Maybe I've just listened to something prior that colours my perception or audio desires! I might hear a tune with a cracking snare, which has me thinking mine sounds lame; or a tight kick-ass bass and now mine sounds wooly - ahhh! So many variables :o

So I came here instead :) That was the mastering tutorial I was looking for. Thanks Ian!

Maybe its just me, but I found a harsh hi mid spike in the vocals, in the mix itself, which at louder volumes would be very fatiguing. The mid boost in the mastering process gave the vocals more body, which helped cut the harshness.

You all realize that about 88% of Warren and Ian's credibility come from their English accent, right? 😉

Thanx Ian & Team WarHu & Team PLAP......these info vidz are priceless!

The two of you collaborating is brilliant!

Thanks for an awesome and well explained video, Ian.

I can read Ian's screen shots.....great mastering video !!!

Glad to see you've connected with the man behind Dynamic Range Day. A relly reflected and good mastering-engineer.

Hey Warren, love your videos. Just wanted to make a request. Don't know if it will be possible to pull of for you, but, still giving it a go by asking you. Would it be possible to put together a tutorial about album mastering? Workflow and how every track of an album is mastered to give it a cohesive sound? Would be super helpful! Thanks for your content!!!

on my mixes you have to reinvent the wheel

Been looking for some home mastering vids! this is great! thanks Warren and Ian of course!

Thank you Ian and Warren for this!

Thanks Ian. Huge improvement, even with subtle changes. This song has a really big bottom, but it works.

Excellent video.

Very Good. I was able to hear everything he talked about on a pair of (equalized flat) audio-technica ATH-40X phones and almost everything in my (sonarworks EQ) Mackie HR-824 monitors. Thanks….

Thanks for the info !

how long i've been waiting for some new Ian's video! Thanks!

LOL. "Lumpy" and "Stompy". I love those descriptions.

So very interesting. Thanks Warren amd Ian. great video

Thank you for the video, noob question here: in this video, Ian does a cut around 230hz, then a huge boost around 40hz which effectively impacts the cut he previously did, I would think, pushing up the frequencies that he wanted removed. Can someone please comment on/explain that? I guess boosting something that's been cut does not have the same effect as something that hasn't, but is that all there is to it?

What would be fun - is provide the original mix, and allow your followers have a try on mastering and compare to Ian's final Master.

Thanks for this!

Great video

That multi band compresor makes the snare disapear

Sweet! Just as I was finishing up a song too. :) I'll take a lot of this into account when I... attempt.... to master.

Great! I love it!

Great video!

I prefer it before than after. When level matched, the mastered one sound muffled

Thank you a lot!

I like the honesty...similar results....thats it the equipment im using needs n upgrade....so its official paid plugins r better than stocks

Hello Ian, Thanks for your videos. If you ever added reverb to a mix, would you add it after your EQ, compression, limiter chain?

Bloody good job mate.

Wow! So much heavy and worthful 'behind closed doors' information. Gives me a marvelous time ;)

great video! The EQ curve in FF looks almost like a tilt eq with a bump.

Is this the same master that is actually on Apple Music?

thank u i learn about Eq in mastring thank u so much

What about loudness for audio cd?

As ever, great video! I'm gonna get some of free T-RackS plug-ins to compare with Native Instruments plug-ins for a starter. Thanks for useful info and let's start mastering! (well, one step at a time...)

Smashed it Ian...learned so much as usual

I think a "rescue mission" would've taught us all much more, just my thought.

Brilliant! Mastering is still a mystic science, but it's explained so well!

Song name?

MUCHAS GRACIAS

excelent. just when i thought i had eq sorted hahaha. great ive learnt something important. i still need to get my head round mid/side thou not had much practice with it.

please train more about mcdsp plugins they are great plugins and I remember that you had a post about mcdsp mastering tutorial changed my beleaves about mastering

Excellent Video ! Thanks for sharing such brilliant insights. I only missed the level in LUFS of the mastered version, important subject for these digital streaming days.

hi tnx a lot for this post anyway I think that we can master this genre of songs higher level without any squashing sorry for my weak language coz I'm Persian and many many thanks Warren for your training in mix and mastering maybe you don't believe that every night I see you on my dreams love you so much and tnx again

who ever gave it a dislike is because thinks is better than Ian but in reality don't know shit😂

Nice detail, and very useful understanding... Thanks for sharing Ian Shepherd !!! Warren,,,, Thanks so much for all you do mate,,, (and I'm USA born, but am 25% English, but a touch of Scott hahaha, lol) Why is it, but seems though if born with an English accent, the understanding of music is more colorful ? he he he, All in fun :D,,, But seriously, Thanks for giving so much of your time Warren, can not put to words how much I appreciate you... Cheers :D

Looks like a cut around 300hz would have done the same as all those boosts. How lufs relate to rms? I use voxengo span, and it only uses rms. I always shoot for around -12rms for my masters.

I can barely hear a difference between most of those A/Bs. Is KZfaq compression masking the differences, or do I just have rubbish ears?

I love iZotope Ozone 7, but I rarely find myself using its multiband compressor, and I instead use my outboard t.c. electronic Finalizer Plus, so I understand why you're using the PowerCore. I thought the vocal was rather harsh in the high mids in some expressions. Perhaps a mid/side multiband compressor in mid mode with a high Q could have addressed that.

Hey, many thanks for the great video. You've done amazing work here Warren and Ian! By the way, may I know the name of this song? It's so catchy.

I still dont like the sound of multiband compressors . they still soubd strange to me on masters

What system is this pro-tools

so, all additive EQ, verse subtractive interesting TY! One question, are your VU meters the very last plug in the chain?

great video!

Great vid!!

Hi Warren,..I think if I had mixed the original, I would have been happy with that,....so typically, would you always send a mix of this standard to be Mastered further?

can't tell if I'm missing it, but what is Ian calibrating his vu meter against to come up with -11db?

Good interface (check) good monitors (check) room correctly treated (check) played on youtube on highest quality even though youtube quality is bad (check)... still cant hear a single difference when the volume is level matched from the mastered to unmastered... :/

Thanks Ian for showing use your mastering process for this mix, I did notice every change you made (maybe because I'm listening on headphones). I wanna ask you two questions, not about your technique but about the plugins you use (sorry if you feel annoyed): 1) Why didn't you use a Linear Phase EQ? This comes to my mind because I'm actually subscribed to your e-mail series "Mastering with Plugins", and in the Part #5 about EQ, you say that we should use Linear Phase EQ always in the mastering process (I'm actually not very sure about this because Linear Phase EQ it's usually used when phase shiftes cancels some frequencies from other tracks). 2) What do you think about Tokyo Dawn Labs (TDR) plugins? They're very transparent and high quality in my opinion.

off topic but has anyone got experiance with Mackie ProFXv2. mixers? Im not fussed about the built in fx or eq's unless they good. I want it to group compress (elysium Mpressor i hope) and add analogue flavour and summing. Ive seen a 8 channel for £169 and its ranking better then the more expensive AllenHeaths and Yammaha, seems to match Soundcraft too

How would u take the vocals clicks out ?

Would it be same thing if you used one fab plugin to do the subtractive Eqing. And open another eq for adding eqing ? Instead of all the eqing on one plugin ?

Question about that automation: If I hear Ian well it is pre plugins chain, not after, right?

Tx Warren & Ian for this Great Video !!

very interesting

a black art for ears better than mine

I'm confused a little bit, can you maybe explain Warren, is he actually getting his volume from the gain plug-in not the limiter? I've always been taught to use the limiter to increase the volume. If so if I'm mastering in Pro Tools using something like Ozone what do you suggest using to increase the level? Would appreciate your advice, thanks for all you do friend

The good 'ol Klanghelm VUMC! The final EQ curve looked almost like a tilt EQ centered at about 5k. DO Mastering Engineers ever use tilt EQs?

I can't hear anything he does :( I am so sad.

can I still download these files to mix?

What do you listen on?

What's the name of this song?