[0:00] Cuz I' been in my head and I don't want
[0:02] to run. Been through this before my
[0:04] heart in the underground.
[0:07] [Music]
[0:08] I don't want to run out of love. If
[0:11] you've ever wondered how your favorite
[0:12] songs sound louder, clearer, and just
[0:14] more professional than yours, chances
[0:16] are the problem's been your master. So,
[0:18] to make this easy, I simplify mastering
[0:19] into three core steps. And I only use
[0:21] stock plugins so anybody can follow
[0:23] along at home. You guys have been
[0:24] asking, so I finally delivered. And if
[0:26] you guys want to see the full mix for
[0:28] this as well, also using stock plugins,
[0:30] just let me know down below. All right,
[0:31] let's get into the master. We're going
[0:32] to be mixing an alternate version of
[0:34] Deéja Vu by Geom Mafia. It's an old
[0:35] unreleased song. And normally with
[0:37] traditional mastering, you're not using
[0:38] stems. This is not stem mastering. This
[0:40] is mastering. Play the most loud part of
[0:42] your track. That's going to be the hook
[0:43] for me right here where the uh drop is.
[0:45] So,
[0:48] first thing you're going to want to
[0:49] start with is a parametric EQ. We're
[0:51] going to use this to shape the tonal
[0:52] balance of the entire track. Let me
[0:54] explain. So, generally audio is made up
[0:56] of your lows down here, your mids right
[0:58] here, and then your highs up here. Tonal
[1:00] balance just means having the right
[1:02] amount of each. Think of it as adjusting
[1:03] the shadows and the highlights like with
[1:05] your uh photo app editor. Right before
[1:07] that, the first thing we're going to do
[1:08] is we're going to add a low cut. Come up
[1:10] to this purple band right here, drag
[1:12] until it looks just like that. And then
[1:14] this right here, you're going to pull
[1:15] that down until you see four squares.
[1:17] That's as sharp as it's going to get.
[1:18] And then you're going to come over here,
[1:19] last step, use your scroll wheel, and go
[1:21] one notch down. Play your track. in my
[1:24] head and I don't want to run alone. Been
[1:26] through this before my heart in the
[1:28] underground.
[1:32] We're going to cut off up to about 25
[1:33] hertz right here. You can do up to 30
[1:35] because then you're going to cut out the
[1:36] actual sub itself. This keeps your sub
[1:38] clean. Sometimes when you do this on
[1:40] trap beats like this, it does have some
[1:42] weird artifacts just because of the way
[1:44] the parametric EQ works. Use a wide bell
[1:46] right here and we're going to pull down
[1:47] just a little bit and correct any weird
[1:49] volume changes at the low end.
[1:52] want to run. Been through this before my
[1:54] heart.
[1:56] You can see how much you're reducing by
[1:58] looking up in the top leftand corner.
[1:59] We're going to move it down like I don't
[2:00] know maybe a dB and a half. All right.
[2:02] Next, let's move on to the mid-range. If
[2:03] your track sounds unclear or muddy, it's
[2:05] living in this range right here from
[2:08] about right here all the way to about
[2:10] right here. So, just to enhance this
[2:11] clarity, we'll take band number four and
[2:13] we're going to do a couple dB reduction
[2:14] there as well. Make sure to use really
[2:16] wide bells, some nice broad reduction.
[2:18] If you boost it, you can kind of hear
[2:19] what you're reducing. my head and I
[2:22] don't want to run. So that's that boxy,
[2:24] you know, muddy sound that I was talking
[2:26] about earlier.
[2:27] I don't want to run.
[2:30] My heart.
[2:35] Next, we're going to grab band number
[2:36] five. Ultimately, the end goal with
[2:38] mastering is you want to be able to turn
[2:39] it up really loud and it shouldn't hurt
[2:41] your ears. If it does hurt your ears,
[2:42] probably because you have some really
[2:44] harsh top end and generally that's going
[2:46] to live right around here in the high
[2:47] mid to the present section. This track
[2:49] does have a lot of that.
[2:52] [Music]
[2:59] And then let's bring down those high
[3:00] highs just a bit just to clean up the
[3:02] top end some so it's not too hissy.
[3:05] [Music]
[3:07] Remember these changes are going to be
[3:08] very minimal and they're going to add up
[3:09] a lot over time. And you'll see how
[3:11] drastic of a change it's going to be as
[3:13] we finish up. Next thing we're going to
[3:14] need to do here is add a surgical EQ.
[3:15] Now, this is where you get to go crazy.
[3:17] We're going to be doing exactly what we
[3:19] just did except with tighter notches and
[3:21] a lot more of them. So, you want to do
[3:22] the bulk work and then finetune. I'll
[3:24] put a massive cheat sheet on the screen
[3:25] that has pretty much every single
[3:26] frequency range defined as a term, but
[3:28] the main things I'm hearing here are
[3:30] just a little bit of boxiness and some
[3:32] harshness up in the top end. So, my
[3:34] strategy here, take a really narrow band
[3:36] with your scroll wheel and boost it. Any
[3:38] frequencies that are really loud in
[3:39] volume, turn it down a little bit. Don't
[3:40] go too crazy with this because you might
[3:42] actually turn down a frequency that's
[3:43] helping the track. If you can try to
[3:45] hear out which frequencies you like and
[3:47] which ones you don't like. Just go with
[3:48] your gut.
[3:50] [Music]
[3:52] All right. You hear that? 650. I hate
[3:54] that frequency so much. So, what I'm
[3:56] going to do is notch that and turn it
[3:57] down some.
[3:59] [Music]
[4:01] All right. Let's do it again.
[4:09] I generally don't like that frequency,
[4:10] too. There's a bunch of them here that
[4:11] are just kind of right next to each
[4:12] other. Uh 650 8,000 1100 1250
[4:17] [Music]
[4:22] to the shut it down. I don't want to run
[4:24] out of love and so long.
[4:32] All right, perfect. Find some low mids
[4:33] now.
[4:35] [Music]
[4:46] All right, last one. Let's do one more
[4:48] up here in the top end.
[4:50] [Music]
[4:57] Yeah, there's a whistle right there. So,
[4:59] let's turn that down some. Uh, I'm not
[5:00] going to do too much. Just like I said,
[5:02] maybe a dB reduction max. This is all
[5:04] going to be amplified as we move on
[5:05] here, but try not to do anything crazy.
[5:08] Maybe 4 dB max over here if you're in
[5:10] really bad shape. But generally, if
[5:11] you're having to do stuff like this
[5:12] right here, you're going to want to go
[5:13] back and reevaluate your mix. Is it
[5:15] really ready for mastering or do you
[5:16] need to work on it some more? All right.
[5:17] Now, the final step of the cleanup
[5:19] process, midside EQ. In general, this is
[5:21] what a midside EQ is. Editor, flash it
[5:23] up on screen for me, man, cuz I'm too
[5:25] lazy to explain it. But yeah, we're
[5:26] going to use this to add a little bit of
[5:27] width, clean up some muddiness, or, you
[5:29] know, make everything clearer. Open up
[5:30] patcher. I love patcher so much, dude.
[5:33] There's so much stuff you could do with
[5:34] this plugin, man. I swear to God. I
[5:35] really advise everybody check out the
[5:37] presets in here. I mean, you're going to
[5:38] find some really awesome [ __ ] We're
[5:39] going to head straight over to the
[5:40] filter section and click midside EQ.
[5:42] It's going to open up two EQs right
[5:44] here. One of them is the side and one of
[5:46] them is mid. Close those out for now.
[5:47] Grab onto this little yellow dot and
[5:49] unlink the side. So this way we're only
[5:52] hearing the mid frequencies for now. Get
[5:54] rid of a little bit more of that
[5:55] harshness that I was telling you guys
[5:56] about earlier. It's going to live right
[5:58] up here.
[6:00] [Music]
[6:04] All right. And then we're going to do
[6:05] the same thing we did earlier and scan
[6:06] for boxy frequencies.
[6:09] I don't want to.
[6:12] [Music]
[6:15] All right. Once I found two like that,
[6:17] another trick I like to do is just take
[6:18] another band on top of it and do like a
[6:20] wide sweep just to kind of reduce both
[6:22] of those. Like there two little teeth
[6:23] sticking out.
[6:26] [Music]
[6:28] Okay. So, let's relink the side. And
[6:30] then we're going to unlink the mid.
[6:33] A good trick to add width to your track
[6:35] is to add some shimmer to the side. And
[6:38] then we're going to knock all those
[6:39] lows. Use your scroll wheel to make a
[6:40] less harsh slope there. We're just going
[6:42] to roll them off.
[6:46] All right, relink it.
[6:48] [Music]
[6:52] Nice. Okay, now before we move on to the
[6:54] next step, it's always a good idea to
[6:56] reference. Now, what's a reference in
[6:58] the most simple terms possible? It's
[7:00] basically a track that you're comparing
[7:01] to your own when mastering or mixing.
[7:03] This could be a Spotify song you
[7:04] downloaded. This could be one of your
[7:05] own tracks that you already love to mix
[7:07] on. Drag it into your DAW and you uh
[7:09] swap back and forth until the one you're
[7:11] working on sounds as good as the one
[7:12] that you're reference. And now that AI
[7:14] is becoming really sophisticated,
[7:15] there's a platform called Master Channel
[7:17] that I've been using that has two great
[7:18] AI powered engines. AI mastering used to
[7:20] be horrible, man. It's gotten so good so
[7:22] I actually use it as a reference point
[7:24] to see if what I've done or what I'm
[7:26] doing was actually good. Let me show you
[7:28] exactly how I do this. We're going to go
[7:29] to master channel.ai. And you can see
[7:31] I've already uh run a master on it right
[7:32] here. But we have the AI mastering and
[7:34] the Wes Clark AI. The Wes Clark AI is
[7:37] exactly what it sounds like. It's
[7:38] modeled after the famous engineer Wes
[7:40] Clark. And then you have the AI
[7:41] mastering over here, which is obviously
[7:42] the original mastering engine. So, we're
[7:43] going to do both. Grab our mix file. And
[7:45] as soon as you upload this thing, it'll
[7:46] give you a finished sounding master in
[7:48] under a minute. So, if there's any
[7:50] blaring issues that I'm not hearing,
[7:51] this will expose that for me. So, let's
[7:53] also upload to Wes Clark just to have
[7:55] that processing in the background as
[7:56] well. All right, they've both finished.
[7:58] So, click play and then go to Wes Clark.
[8:00] Click play. And here's a standard engine
[8:02] master
[8:11] [Music]
[8:12] and I can't seem to find no luck. I
[8:14] can't seem to get no [ __ ] And then
[8:16] let's take a listen to the Wes Clark AI.
[8:21] [Music]
[8:26] [Music]
[8:30] Personally, the Wes Clark AI is the
[8:32] best. So, I recommend that model the
[8:33] most. Download that one. Drag it in.
[8:35] Turn the gain down just a bit. And we're
[8:37] going to listen to what we have here and
[8:38] compare it to our master just to see if
[8:40] there's anything that sticks out that I
[8:41] missed.
[8:44] run. I've been through this before. My
[8:46] heart in the underground. I run to the
[8:49] stop and shut it down. I don't want to
[8:51] run out of
[8:53] Okay, so there's definitely a little bit
[8:54] more body in here. So, what we can do is
[8:56] go back to our patcher and we'll go to
[8:58] the mid section and we're going to boost
[9:00] some of the low mids just to add a
[9:01] little bit more body back into this
[9:02] vocal.
[9:05] [Music]
[9:09] run to the shut it down.
[9:16] Awesome. Yeah, that is perfect. And hey,
[9:18] if I already got your track sounding
[9:19] better than it was, it always helps to
[9:20] push the video if you subscribe and
[9:22] leave a comment down below, especially
[9:24] if it's a question you have to ask me.
[9:25] I'm always very happy to answer those.
[9:26] Appreciate it, man. All right, now on to
[9:28] the cool stuff. Next up is peak control.
[9:29] To briefly explain, peaks are these
[9:31] things right here. You see how it's a
[9:33] bit higher? Right here, right here,
[9:34] right here, how there's a spike right
[9:36] there in the waveform. And if you have
[9:37] anything sticking out like that, it's
[9:39] going to stop the track from getting as
[9:40] loud as it can be. Mostly your 808s,
[9:42] your kicks, and just your bass in
[9:43] general. And the goal here is to tame
[9:45] those and push those down just a little
[9:47] bit, right? And let's break out Fruity
[9:48] Limiter. I'm so serious. Fruity Limiter
[9:50] is the goat if you know how to use it.
[9:51] Let me very quickly explain this. You
[9:52] have the attack, release, and sustain.
[9:55] Here's what those do just so I don't
[9:56] have to explain them anymore. So, let's
[9:57] start by setting the attack to between
[9:59] 10 and 20 milliseconds. You can see how
[10:00] many milliseconds you're at by looking
[10:02] at the top left corner over here. I'm
[10:03] going to do probably about 10
[10:04] milliseconds just to start out with. The
[10:06] release time should be between 100 and
[10:08] 200 milliseconds. So, let's move that to
[10:09] about 150 right in the middle. No need
[10:11] to really mess with the sustain for now.
[10:13] And then we're going to use a
[10:14] compression ratio of 3 to one. Okay.
[10:16] Now, let's pull the threshold knob down
[10:18] just enough to catch those peaks. And
[10:20] you'll see it start to work right here.
[10:26] [Music]
[10:32] And mostly the 808 there. Just make sure
[10:34] you have the envelope settings set up
[10:36] right. And we'll go over to imaging and
[10:37] stereo enhancements. The method we're
[10:38] going to go with here is just some
[10:39] simple stereo enhancement. Stereo width
[10:41] in this case is referring to how wide
[10:43] your tracks feel. You know how much it
[10:45] fills up your headset. So let's add
[10:47] stereo enhancer. It's the easiest way to
[10:49] do it. No more than about 25%. And 25%
[10:51] is a lot.
[10:58] [Music]
[11:00] Yeah. So right about 18% sounds the
[11:02] best. If you made it this far in the
[11:03] video, let's confuse everybody else in
[11:04] the comments by commenting the word
[11:06] llama. As mentioned earlier, it's also a
[11:07] funny way to help push the algorithm.
[11:09] So, yeah. Okay, now we've reached the
[11:10] final stage. At this point, the goal is
[11:12] to get the track as loud as humanly
[11:14] possible. First thing to do here is
[11:16] control a little bit more of this low
[11:17] end. This master reference right here.
[11:21] [Music]
[11:23] It has way less bass and low end than
[11:25] ours does. And there's a reason for
[11:26] that. This master is very, very loud.
[11:29] Usually when you're struggling to get
[11:30] your track loud enough, it's because
[11:31] there's too much low end. So what we're
[11:33] going to do is we're going to roll a lot
[11:34] of that off.
[11:40] [Music]
[11:43] I think that's perfect. Mine still does
[11:44] have a little bit more, but like I said,
[11:45] I want to hang on to some of that. Open
[11:46] up a Maximus. This is going to be the
[11:48] last plugin. We're going to want to
[11:49] navigate to the clean master preset
[11:51] right here. This is a lot to look at, I
[11:53] know, but the first thing you're going
[11:54] to want to do is click on the bands tab
[11:56] right here. And you can see your lows,
[11:57] your mids, and your highs are split into
[11:59] three different sections. And you can
[12:01] view them each individually right here.
[12:03] Don't even worry about all this other
[12:05] stuff. All right. It already does a
[12:06] relatively good job at dividing the low,
[12:08] mids, and highs. So, we won't even need
[12:09] to adjust any of this right here. Click
[12:11] on the low tab right here. And you're
[12:12] going to mess with this knob right here.
[12:14] This is our stereo separation knob. This
[12:16] works with the stereo field. Now, lows
[12:18] on a track should always generally be in
[12:20] the dead center, just so it sounds
[12:22] cleaner on all speaker systems. So to
[12:24] the right is going to be more center and
[12:26] to the left is going to be more wide.
[12:28] Make sure to click solo so you can just
[12:29] hear the lows.
[12:32] All right. Next we're going to spread
[12:33] the mids out a little bit.
[12:37] Generally no more than about 50% but do
[12:39] what sounds good to you. It's your
[12:41] master. And we're going to leave the
[12:42] highs as they are unless you want to
[12:44] spread that out a little bit too. But
[12:45] okay. Now the master. All you're going
[12:46] to want to do is click on that enables
[12:48] all this stuff right here. Only two
[12:50] knobs you're going to want to mess with
[12:51] are the attack. I would lower the attack
[12:53] just a little bit and then just raise
[12:54] this knob up as high as it can go before
[12:56] it starts sounding like
[12:59] [Music]
[13:05] it.
[13:08] All right, cool. It's normal to have
[13:10] just a little bit of pumping, but try
[13:12] not to overdo it. So, this is this is
[13:13] too much.
[13:16] It's just a little bit too compressed.
[13:17] And like I said, if you're not happy
[13:19] with how loud it got, reduce your lows
[13:21] until you can get it loud enough. And
[13:23] then, as always, you can always go back
[13:24] and cross reference this to this just to
[13:27] see if you're on the right path. If you
[13:28] see anything that sounds too off, make
[13:30] sure to go and uh correct it in your
[13:31] original mix as well. So, yeah, once
[13:32] you're happy with your master, just go
[13:34] to file, export as wave file. And make
[13:36] sure to copy these settings right here
[13:37] and start. So, yeah, there's a full
[13:39] in-depth mastering process, start to
[13:40] finish using only stock plugins. I think
[13:42] it turned out pretty good. Let me know
[13:43] what you think in the comments and let
[13:44] me know what you guys want next. So,
[13:46] yeah, till next time.