Audio Recording

One of the best ways to learn audio mastering is listening to the track before and after mastering. The track before mastering is the output of audio mixing process. The mixdown format before mastering should be: 24 or 32 bits audio WAV 44.1Khz or higher (up to 96Khz is fine). Bear in mind that for quality purposes, you should not mixdown directly to 16 bit resolution. Using your audio mixing software, you need to configure it so that it will give a mixdown of 24 bit to 32 bit resolution.

Also you should NOT be applying compression to the mixdown track. Compression and normalization are only done in the mastering stage. In this tutorial, you will be listening to sample audio tracks done before and after applying mastering process. This will be helpful to train your ears to spot obvious audio differences between mastered and un-mastered track.

Illustration 1: Below is an audio sample done before mastering.

Illustration 2: And below is the same track done after mastering

Observations: It is obvious that the major differences between a track done before and after mastering are the following:

a.) The mastered track sounds louder.
b.) The mastered track vocals and instruments sounds clearer than the raw mix output (before mastering). It is because all masking bass frequencies are removed.
c.) The mastered track hi-fi appear cleaner and sibilant as compared to un-mastered track.

Let’s listen to another sets of audio samples before and after mastering:

Illustration 3: Before mastering

Illustration 4: After mastering

Observations: Again you can clearly spot the audio difference between the two compared tracks above that is similar to the previous observations, in addition to:

a.) Strong “presence” of vocal and guitar frequencies for mastered track. This “presence” is essential for a produced track because you need to make sure that the vocals and other instruments will stand out from the track and not buried in deep bass.

b.) The kick drums sounds stronger in the mastered track. In general the deep bass is strong while not being too dominant to overcome the vocals and rest of the musical instruments. EQ balancing is important in mastering.

EQ Settings used (not exact settings, use your ear to adjust according to your mastering objectives):

Boost: +3dB 70Hz Q=1.0 (this will provide a strong and deep bass which will help kick drums and bass guitar).
Cut: -2dB 200Hz Q=1.4( (this will remove the masking bass frequencies).
Boost: +3dB 2500Hz Q= 0.7 (this is a wide boost to provide an overall strong “presence” of vocals and other instruments)
Boost: +3dB 12500Hz Q=1.0 (this will provide sibilance common in most produced track)

Note: Do not cut and boost more than 3dB in any frequency range.

Compression settings used: I use the compression settings discussed in this tutorial (refer to Step3): Mastering Audio using Adobe Audition.

Although I am using Adobe audition for mastering, you can as well use any good audio mastering software. The important is that; if you follow my compression settings; use L2 wave plugin. Make sure you are not overcompressing the material as it will not sound good. My rule of thumb is that if you compress using L2 waves, I set the average volume (SPL) to -12dB maximum, beyond that level (-11dB and beyond), it is already too loud. You can measure the average volume SPL by going Edit View –> Analyze –> Statistics if you are using Adobe Audition.

Audio samples for downloading: I provided a link where you can download the sample tracks used above. You can use this in your audio mastering practice. Take note that the song and sound recording is copyrighted and you can only use this for non-commercial purposes, please include credits when reusing this material:

Recording producer/Song and Sound copyright: Emerson R. Maningo
Artist: Jeanine Maningo
Copyright 2010

MP3 versions (right click then save as):

Illustration 1 MP3: Illustration 1 mp3
Illustration 2 MP3: Illustration 2 mp3
Illustration 3 MP3: Illustration 3 mp3
Illustration 4 MP3: Illustration 4 mp3

WAV versions (one audio sample provided at 32 bit float 44.1 Khz resolution, 30 seconds sample for practice purposes): 32 bit audio wav

How I produced the MP3 sample tracks above?:
Given 32 bit float (or 24 bits) 44.1Khz ==> Dithering => 16 bit 44.1Khz WAV ==> 320 Kbps MP3 Output

How to produce a red book audioCD out of your mastering work for replication/duplication?:
Given 32 bit float (or 24 bits) 44.1Khz ==> Dithering => 16 bit 44.1Khz Output

If you are using a sample rate other than 44.1Khz (for example much higher like 96Khz), then you need to do a sample rate conversion before dithering. One of the best audio sample rate converters is R8brain.

So the conversion process will be: Given 32 bit float (or 24 bits) 96Khz ==> Sample rate conversion (converting 96Khz to 44.1Khz) ==> Dithering (32 bit to 16 bit) ==> 16 bit 44.1Khz Output

Try downloading those sample wave files and check if you can make it loud and clear by applying the lessons above.