Continued from Modern Mastering Part 1
STEP 6: Multiband Compression
Add the Waves Linear Multiband processor to the track right after the REQ4. Click the Load button on the LinMB interface and choose Basic Multi from the drop down list. Play your entire track without stopping playback. You now have some numbers registered in the various boxes around the interface.
STEP 7: Initial Settings
At the bottom of each of the five bands you will see a value in the peak hold box (Figure 11). Enter the value from the peak hold box into the Thrsh row. Do this for all five channels, entering the values from the peak hold box into the Thrsh box (Figure 12). Next, set the Adaptive box to -12.00 (Figure 13).
 Figure 11 |
 Figure 12 |
 Figure 13 |
STEP 8: Eliminate Clipping
Again, play the whole track without stopping playback. Check the value in the Trim button (Figure 14). If it’s a positive number or 0.0 skip to Step 9. If it’s negative, adjust the gain slider to show the value from the trim box (Figure 15). This will eliminate any clipping in the output stage just like we did in Step 4 for the EQ.
 Figure 14 |
 Figure 15 |
STEP 9: Mega Crunch Time
Have a listen through your tune. Things should be starting to really sound nice at this point. In fact, if everything has gone well, we’re pretty much finished. The only thing left is to pump the levels up to be a little more uniform so we’re ready to put the track on a CD. If you stop now, you will have about 75% of the modern radio sound. Time to give it that last 25%.
Add the Waves L2 as the final processor on your track. Play the song through all the way without stopping so we can get the L2 setup. Once you’ve played it through you’ll see the peak hold boxes across the bottom showing some numbers (Figure 16). Find the highest number. We will choose -2.3 becuase it’s the higher of the two negative numbers. Subtract 6.0 from this number and put that value into the Threshold slider. After subtracting 6.0 from -2.3 to get -8.3 that value is entered in the slider (Figure 17).
 Figure 16 |
 Figure 17 |
STEP 10: Fine Tuning
Adjust the Out Ceiling slider of L2 to a value of -0.1 (Figure 18). Now play back the whole track and keep an eye on the Atten column (see Figure 19). Keep an eye on the peak box at the bottom of the Atten area. Ideally you want it to hit -6.0 exactly. If it hits below -6.0, then turn the Threshold setting up by the amount it’s under. For example, if it’s hitting -6.2, then turn the Threshold up by 0.2. If it’s hitting above -6.0 then turn the Threshold down by an equivalent amount. For example, if it’s hitting -5.7, then turn the Threshold down by 0.3. If you want to be picky, keep adjusting until you can play the song all the way through without touching anything and have the Atten peak hit exactly -6.0. You don’t really have to hit exactly -6.0 if you don’t want, you decide how close is close enough. I have decided for this example that -5.9 is close enough (Figure 20).
 Figure 18 |
 Figure 19 |
 Figure 20 |
Step 11: Conclusion
That’s it! You’re now done mastering. You can mix this whole processed file down to a new stereo file and use it to make CDs, mp3 files, or whatever you want to do with it! Listen back to the track and enjoy it. At this point, stop nitpicking. Just enjoy it for what it is and just pay enough attention that you hear any major flaws that make it sound like an amateur recording.
Plugins
Waves Platinum Native Bundle price check
Sample Songs
My Malhavok album was mastered using this technique. You can hear samples of the results on 
- Atrophy
- Choking
- Judgement
- User
- Never
After listening to the sound samples I hope you’ll agree that applying these techniques can make your home studio sound like some of the tracks coming out of some professional recording studios.
When I go to master my album 2 of the songs really starts distorting almost through the whole song, but the rest of the album is perfect. What could be going on? I have mixed all of thses songs in a template so they are all pretty much the same. Please help ASAP..
Thank you
This is where you have to get your troubleshooting hat on. It could be just about anything in your chain. One thing to be aware of is any amount of compression adds distortion. What happens if you have two distortion boxes one after the other? It gets more distorted. So it is possible that you have some distortion that is not audible on the master mix but is accentuated by the distortion added by the mastering compressor. Check everything in the chain from one end to the other. Also be aware that this mastering tutorial shows one approach to a process that is not a “one size fits all” affair. Experimentation is the key to learning!
Thank you
Perfect!!!!!
This truly helps me make the overall sound of each track better. However, the volume suffers tremendously. If I play a mastered version of my own next to another band, I have to crank the volume 20%. While this process truly does make each sound sound significantly and substantially better, we sacrifice volume. I imagine the fix is not too difficult, but what are your thoughts? Cranking the gain seems risky.
You must have missed something in the maximizer step. Following these instructions your mix should sound approximately 6dB louder than any typical non-maximized track. Go back and check your L2 settings and make sure you are hitting close to the -5.9 in Figure 20.
Why exactly should I set my ceiling to 0.1 under the max?
Is it just good practice to reduce any chance of clipping or is it some kind of a standard?
Remember that clipping can still happen “between” samples at the converters. I like to leave the 0.1 dB ceiling to help alleviate that problem, though it does not totally protect you (the spike between samples could still be more than that 0.1dB).
great tutorial!
thanx a lot!
These steps allow the mixture to -12 rms? Thanks
Hi Ben – I’ve really been enjoying your site and all the tutorials – thanks so much for posting them.
Can you please elaborate on the multi-band compression? What exactly are you achieving / looking for with it? (I have been using the LinMB with your suggested settings and digging it, I just want to know more about *why* I’m digging it.) Thanks!
The main thing you are looking for is to level out the different frequency bands in a pleasing way, independent of one another. The mids where the vocals are will compress with different characteristics than the lows and so on. You can use this to apply not only differing amounts of compression, but different character of compression. This technique can also be used to balance the different bands through use of make-up gain (cut or boost). For example, an overly bright mix could tame highs by compressing them a bit but then not applying much make up gain or even performing a cut in that band. You get the compression, but you keep the highs in check.
Hey Ben,
Just wanted to let you know that your tutorials here have improved my mixes and final masters by 110%…
Best most straight-forward eq/mixing/mastering advice on the net. Thanks again.
Dan
Nice tutorial mate!
Ciao, Badw
hi ben can u help im having trouble setting up dual tone on pod x3 live ,please explain the procedure, do u set up first tone then save it ,then go to the 2nd tone and save that or do u wait till u have both tones set up then save both .when i try to set up a dual tone im always left with just the first tone? please help ,!!!!