Welcome to the video default mastering chain it's time to demystify the mythical art of mastering. As a modern day producer composer, you are oftentimes required to wear every hat engineer hat producer mastering engineer hat. It just is what it is. This video was designed with you in mind. I want to help you simplify mastering what is mastering. According to my mentor, Gary Gray.

A traditional definition of mastering is the final step of the production process used to increase the volume and quality of the mix. The modern definition is any adjustment made at any time during the process of mixing. That raises the volume level and quality of your mix to commercial standards. Here's some suggestions. For your default mastering chains gain an EQ to remove unwanted frequencies. compressor and or multiband compressor.

Another EQ to add subtle boost. This next one I call my secret sauce, subtle cuts saturator slash exciter. limiter and of course the proverbial reference level meters. Why would you want gain as your first choice in the chain? Let's say your mix was coming in too hot. Well then you can use this as a safety measure to keep things in line.

And as we've talked about before, I also like to automate my volume using my game plugin and not the actual volume of the Track. Take a look at my game plugin. It's at negative four dB. I want you to listen to the song. The reason I made this choice was because as I started adding more plugins, the overall gain of the tracks started to increase. And so I was able to keep my song in check using the game plugin.

I'll let you listen to the song for about 30 seconds or so, and then we'll break it down Now I'm going to remove the rest of the plugins in the chain. And let's talk about EQ. This is a trick that if you learn properly, will make you better instantly. Here's what you do, you surgically remove any unwanted frequencies from your entire mix, but you do so in a very subtle fashion. These are very minor cuts and boost. I like using fabfilter to do this because I can isolate and audition specific frequency spectrums and perform surgical EQ in a meticulous way.

I'm going to isolate the frequency spectrum and you'll hear how it's negatively impacting the track and then I'll bypass the entire plugin so you can see how it controls tributes in a positive way take a listen. This is a very bacey just washy sound and you won't be able to hear it unless you have good speakers. Very warble. This is an unwanted very high frequency. The only positive boost in this song is right here. And really the only reason I did that was because the guitars were in that space so I wanted them to Just jump out of the mix a little bit more.

So now listen to the entire song with and without this technique, here's with almost like the song is just coming together a little bit more. The more you do this, the better you will get at it. And the more refined your ears will become. Remember be subtle, you can see that most of these cuts are, you know, very small reductions a one point 35 db, one point 58. This one is negative 348 db, and this one's negative two dB. Let's move on to compression, the compressor can be used to elevate and control the mix, while the multiband compressor can be used to elevate or suppress the dynamic range of certain frequencies.

Here I use the compressor to basically just just bring the song together and and allow it to to elevate a little bit more. So let's bypass it and let's listen. We're looking it's almost like the song becomes more real. It's like using special effects in in the movies you know that it just gives it a an authenticity moving on to eat Subtle boost, you can look at my setting right here, notching off at 48 hertz, increasing it a bit here at 85. Let's bypass and turn it on listen. This really does clean up the bass.

I would say the role of this specific EQ is to control the bass and get it to where you want it to be. So the second EQ in the mastering chain can be used for subtle boosts, especially when it comes to the bass department. Next is what I call my secret sauce. I like to use two plugins. One is called tone Lux tilt By you ad and there are other manufacturers that produce it. And and the point is here that we just cut out a little bit of the high end you can see that the adjustment that I've made is at 16 kilohertz so it's very slight.

And then what we do here with sooth is we basically round out and polish the entire mix. So let's bypass and add both of these amazing plugins. Check it out. So the tone Lex is hitting a bit of the higher end, okay? And now this one is my secret sauce. Listen It's just so much by way of making it sound so much more professional and really bringing it up to commercial standards.

One of my favorite things about this plugin is you see here where it says when you can attenuate the level and just find that right spot that works for your song, I highly recommend this plugin by Oh ek sound called sooth. From there, I like to add a saturator or an exciter. In this case, we're going to stick to the saturator. Let's listen bypassed This can be used to bring some warmth some grit to the mix you know what almost feels like a like the cherry on top of the mix and lastly we go to the limiter you can use any limiter they all have their own particular features. I love the logic one, but for this song I especially like the PSP Xenon listen to how rich and and how explosive this mix becomes a bypass at first Really is the the last Polish of the next couple of pointers I like to use levels by mastering the mix and reference.

Let's bring those up. And for TV standards, I like to have the dynamic range between 810 12 Let's see where it is right now. Not a bad idea during the verses it's around 12 and then during the hooks it can be around 10 or nine listen is definitely working for this track will probably even push it a little bit more on the limiter, or you can increase the game. One of the things I like to do to increase the the impact of a song is I like to automate the game during the courses or at least just the end like I've done here. So listen to it when we get to this part of the song and how it elevates Two to 10 so that's a really good sweet spot I wouldn't go past a unless it was very heavy song, the songs a bit more chill wave.

So this is a good place for it here. The limiter acts as the final component in your chain. Its main purpose is to bring your tracks overall loudness to a competitive level. You don't want your tracks to be too quiet or too loud and too squashed. a rule of thumb is to bring out the ceiling down by about point three so as to increase your gain up until you get your songs dynamic range loudness right where you want it to be. So it's easier to explain if I use this plugin.

You want your out ceiling to be at around negative point three and then use your reference plugins to make sure this is between 810 12. Use this chain as a starter and I'm sure you'll begin to build several mastering chains over time. These will serve you In your music making process. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you on the next video.