I study youtube so much, and yet this is still the greatest mastering informational that exists for experienced engineers

I’ve been reading your articles online for a while now and so glad to know that you have a channel 🦉

I find this channel extremely helpful .

One of the Best Channels when it comes to Plugins, Mixing and Mastering advices :-) *thumbs up*

Congrats on the 10k!!! I am so glad that I discovered your channel some months ago. EVERY video is just a banger. I instantly knew that this channel gonna blow up and I am glad that i found it before the 10k mark ✌

amazing ! just let us compare the plugin bypassed A/B a little longer. it's hard catching the difference the very first time. great stuff!

One of the best KZfaq channels for tutorials for all kinds of audio pre/post-production. Thanks for sharing your experience

Best KZfaq channel ever for mastering no doubt.

Thanks for sharing all the sauce and breaking down the signal flow. Love your vids 🤟.

tnx alot this is my best thing that id watched about mastering

the Oxford inflater def gave it a greater low end presence !! great job !!! AS ALWAYS !!

Thank you! Love to watch this type of videos. Very clear and pleasant presentation. This chain seemed very same as my go to. I just love izotope a bit more than ff, so ozone eq (sometimes paired with dyn) stays mostly at first. Same with last limiter. I use combination of weiss & ozone, most of the time. People complaining about price of soothe should try Dseq from tbpro audio, its very close but half the $. When it comes to weiss, its just worth everything.

Instant like - always learn so much from you guysv💪🙌❤️🙏

I was waiting for this one... finally got this❤️

This channel is killin it as far as info goes... well done

it´s just great, i´m learning with every video, thanks.

Amazing sound. Good job.

Fantastic Job. Also a great track

this is an awesome mastering chain, works great for me!

Sage is doing the most

Thanks for this man. Very informative!

SOUND AMAZING THIS SONG

Thanks, similar chain here together with some analog warmth.

Very helpful video. I love it!

Thanks for this.

awesome vid man :)

Thank you 👍🏼

Exaggerating the effect like you did with the inflator, then pulling it back helps a lot (for me anyway) to tune my ears to what the plugin is doing-- great video!

Great video! thanks!

The best channel. If you could put a subtitles in spanish you will take more spectators. Just advice😂 thanks for everything.

I loved ❤

Although the actual plugins are still evolving, my chain is similar to yours, effect per effect, maybe because I learned to master with your videos. However, and likely because I don't have vocal with words in my songs, I don't have a de-esser. I'm currently mixing a metal song for friends and I'm de-essing directly in the vox bus, but I guess it's another one of those mix related things that you don't have the chance to deal with before hand. In this mix I also tested Slate Digital's software and the Virtual Tape Machines brought tears to my eyes. It's so sweet. I have not had good results with two or more limiters yet though. I think it's related to the actual plugins, since all I have access to is quite transparent. One thing you didn't mention and that I have used in the past is a slight reverb to add a bit of life and cohesion to the track. If my memory serves me right, I only did this once, but the result was good. A suggestion: although it is "yet-another-mixing-thing" I'm having issues with vocal pops, the Ts , Ps and Bs kind of thing.

Great, nice song!

I really love the oxford stuff

Another Sonnox fan! I’ve been using their limiter for ages, I just like what it does. I’ve tried to switch it out for others (Fabfilter, Ozone, DMG etc) and there’s just some barely perceptible thing about it I like. Guess I’m just used to how to get what I want from it

nice,nice,i like it

Great

Goat

Those are good choices of plugins for ITB mastering of this song. If this were EDM or rock, your Mastering chain could be very different. If it works and it sounds good, it's the right tool, until you find something that works better. That said, I think most of the plugins you showcase are a safe bet for someone wanting to get a good toolbox of mastering plugins. For limiters. I would suggest owning several others in addition to the ones you show. Those could be Elevate, L3-16, and Limitless. Limitless is a bit advanced for the novice though, so maybe learn with something simpler like the Pro-L or Ozone Maximizer. You already replied to my comment about limiters on your other video of limiters, so no need to revisit what I said there, so I'll add that this chain you're demonstrating is good for "this" song, but for any other song, different plugins may work better. I'm surprised you didn't mention Clipper plugins. I would not use a clipper on this song, but clippers are such a great tool in the mastering chain. Anyway, I'm not here to educate anyone. Fantastic job!

Niceeeeeee

It’d be great to see an example of a chain for indie folk/rock or similar genre please🙏

i love this channel

Great video! thank you for sharing the information. Quick question, instead of using Soothe 2 as the second insert, wouldnt be the same or similar to use Fabfilter Q3? for those we dont have Soothe? Thanks man!!

As always, great video. Interesting reasons behind saturating after "deharshing". I usually saturate first to bring out detail and tame some dynamics (though not always - depends on the song) and drop BX refinement in to tidy up some nastiness. Love that Sonnox is getting a mention, seriously underrated and still great plugins. Inflator is a bit of a beast really. What's your take on console emulations in the chain for some subtle flavour?

Great video. But if it doesn't hurt, could you level match before and after plugin inserts?

Sonible Smart Limit is an excellent new Limiter

Hey, love your videos. I am wondering why you don't choose to use multiband compressor in the chain to flatten the peaks or let some transients out from the low end? I saw some mastering engineers do that in order to crane more volume to the song. Are there any reasons you don't do that?

Hi there! Great video!! Any recommendation for alternate plug ins on Weiss stuff? A little bit out of my price range. Thanks ahead of time

nice example of overprocessing

In a past video I remember you saying to watch out for using the Ozone stereo imager because it can cause problems due to its multi band imaging vs. other plugins that can add width. Can you explain the danger of using it again?

Hey, what substitutes for the Weiss EQ1 and Saturn would you go with? Thanks

Solid techniques, and really inspiring chain. However some constructive feedback for videos like these would be to level-match your plugin chain. The before and after is really misleading. For all the viewer knows it's just louder.

So, what was your headroom when you started this mix (or any mix)? By the time I get to the final limiter plugin, I'm still hovering around -18dB.

amazing..............what would your alternative for inflator be ?

I master with T-Racks, the vintage mastering chain, and honestly, it sounds pretty much like this, what are your thoughts about that program?

lol I read this as "Best Mastering Chair" And saw the chair in the thumbnail thinking like wtf are u serious haha

I've been watching a good number of your videos. May I bother you to clarify something? In other videos you emphasize the importance of setting a limiter's release to around 30-50 ms to help prevent possible distortion and/or unwanted artifacts. In the example in the video, you have the Oxford set at 7.34. I am not at all trying to point out inconsistency. I am only seeking a better understanding. Thanks for your videos. They are very helpful.

Is there any chance you could do updated version of this chain? Thanks

Wish i had the budget for soothe ... :( one day.

Uad Tape Ampex ATR-102 best tape emulation period. Plugin Alliance bx limiter has many opinion to sweeten the master.next time try it.👍

thank you, if i had to buy a hardware stuff to complete or replace one of this plugin, what will be your choice ? i'm looking to add some analog feeling to my masters

Is that your studio at the end of the video? If so, why did you not use any of that wonderful analog gear in your mastering chain?

I got a goldmine here!

😍😍

What's the point of bypassing if you're not going to gain match so that we can actually HEAR the differences between the A/B, and not just be enamored by the change in level? And like another comment suggested, A/B the exact same parts of the song. Otherwise, this was a pretty dope 4K video with a great selection of plugins. Sage Audio has excellent blogs as well.

Some good tips for each plugin, but if you needed all these in one mastering chain, I would talk to the client and suggest they sack the mix engineer. Over the years, from when I first started mastering, I went from an EQ, compressor and limiter (in the early 90s thru 2000), to a ton of plugins I probably didn't need in my chain through the 2000/2010s, through until a few years ago where I am back to an EQ, maybe a compressor if it really needs it, and a limiter (maybe stacked if I need a lot of gain).Keep it simple.

HI Sage! I have a question I cannot get a clear answer to. I noticed that you didnt use multiband compression in your chain. When should you and shouldnt you use multiband compression in a master?

If I bounce it to mp3 still don't need a dither? (Working on 24 bit) thanks!

Remember that if mastering sub-heavy music like modern hip hop or edm, tape on the master is a bad idea cuz it rolls off at around 50Hz

Are you using master for iTunes app to create an AAC file?

Best mastering chain - only limiter in chain)

Aint Logic 32bit/64bit float processing? I think you should use dither when printing after processing 32bit/64bit float to 24bit fixed. There is an audible difference in many ways!

The thumbnail has an arrow pointing just slightly above the chair and I read "Is this the best mastering chair?" 😂

Некоторые говорят, что Soft Tube MK3 не подходит для громкой, танцевальной музыки в качестве мастер компрессора.

I literally do the direct opposite in my chain . I clean with eq and processers then decorate. You decorate then clean

Coulda sworn I thought it said "Best Mastering Chair"

Hy Sir sir plzz give any vocal song without processing of high quality mic plzzz i want to do practice

I liked a lot the video, but why so short times in the "listening scenes"? I would like some more time to compare the plugins when activated and bypassed and listen more closely to what they are doing, but the short times makes it kind of impossible. I mean, I loved the video and how you explain why are you using them and how are you using them, but with almost no time to listen I cant tell what are they doing, and we are talking about mastering, small moves, very subtle changes and flavors... Im trying to be constructive. Dont take it wrong :)

can anyone tell me whats that console shes using at 0:55 please

👍🏿

Thanks for the video. I have a question regarding streaming services. So I know streaming services target the -14 lufs level. However when I pull audio files off of these services some register as much as -5 lufs. How is this possible when anything over -14 gets compressed to that level?

Why pro-Q3 in natural phase instead of linear ?

This is similar to my chain, except i set the loudness first and then do the rest

Only criticism would be that you should show the differences in the exact same part of the song, not let the song play and bypass the plugin at random times.

My eternal problem. After Saturn your focussed sound turns into a fat phasy bottom. Maybe it sounds more groovy, but it lost focus on girl and solid of song. Or maybe I cant understand how it must sounds today. Every time I do this, I turn off a lot of stacks back.

you can make a video tutorial EDM 128 bpm

Links to these plugins?

Where can I find the full song

What about a hybrid mastering chain?

Why are you working on audio channel instead of master channel ? Thanks

hey sage audio check out tbproaudio dseq 2 it's better than soothe2 and it has A.I

Why so much processing? Quite a big difference, almost like there was too many problems with the mix

Thought it said mastering chair 🪑 lol

I use all plugins in masterchain and my CPU almost explode. Very heavy masterchain. But a greit sound, tray to not use oversampling.

if only the weiss plugins were not so expensive 😭😭😭

I wish you guys would level match. It's something I've noticed with your masters that you ceaselessly promote.. they're very loud comparatively. Loud is not always better and I'd appreciate being able to hear a level matched comparison to hear what you're really doing to the audio signal as I'm not convinced by some of the moves as a lot of the mastering examples on your site sound very harsh.

Dear Santa . . . . .

Ok so imma supposed to put all of these into my mastering?????

WTF 🤬 10 plugins with an EQ after a Maximiser????? Ok it did sound pretty good, but an EQ after a Maximiser!?! I thought Maximisers sit at the end of the chain before the Limiters...... really confused now 😕

3 saturation plugins? No thank you. This is how you smear the original signal.