How to know if your mix is ready for mastering
Almost every week, I get a mix that's hitting 0 dBFS. And every time, it's the same avoidable back-and-forth: as long as the track is slammed against the ceiling, there's nothing I can do with it, no room to work. "Ready for mastering" doesn't mean your track already sounds loud or finished. It means you're leaving me something to work with. Here's what I see most often, and how to skip the detour.
1.The mix that hits 0 dB, the one I send back
The last mix someone sent me, I loved it. Well-produced hard techno, exactly my thing. Except it came in at +0.5 dB True Peak. And at that point, short of working in 32-bit float, there's nothing I can do with it. Nothing. I was genuinely gutted, because the track was good and it was a mistake you fix in ten seconds inside the session.
The moment the signal hits or goes past 0 dBFS, we already know nothing can be done, and that first round-trip was for nothing. Here's exactly what I tell the artist in that case:
- Turn off the processing on your master bus. Clipper, limiter, maximizer: remove anything capping the signal at the end of the chain.
- Pull all your tracks down at once. Cmd+A on your whole session and bring the overall level down. You don't touch your balance, you just lower everything together.
- Send me a mix with headroom. My reference is often −6 dB. But honestly, as long as your mix never touches 0 dBFS, I can work.
That one reflex before exporting saves the whole round-trip. On the meter side, aim for a True Peak between −3 and −6 dBTP: inter-sample peaks often sit a dB or more above what your DAW's basic meter shows, and they're what distort on conversion and on the platforms. A mix at −5 dBTP isn't "too quiet", it's well prepared.
One nuance, because it matters: I'm not against all processing on the master. If you built your track around a light bus compression, a colouring EQ or a saturation that's part of the sound, keep them. That's part of your artistic intent, and I master with it. What I block is the limiter or clipper stuck at the end of the chain just to "get loud". That one leaves me no headroom, and nothing left to optimize.
2.Control your dynamics (and discover the clipper)
The thing I hate receiving most is a mix with uncontrolled dynamics. Everyone slaps on a compressor, but let's be honest: almost nobody really knows how to use one.
My advice: actually learn it, and discover a tool that isn't popular enough for my taste, the clipper. It's dead simple, and it's drastic on fine transients. No attack, no release. I like to say it works like a ninja's sword: it cuts clean anything that sticks out. Honestly, it's ten times easier to get to grips with than a compressor or a limiter, and it works wonders.
Concretely, those stray peaks trigger my mastering limiter too early, and I can't push loudness any further without saturation and artefacts. Tame them at the source, with clean clipping or compression on whatever's causing it (nine times out of ten, the kick). A dense, coherent mix with no uncontrolled peaks is one more chance at a master that ends up loud and clean.
3.The loudness race
On a techno master, I aim for around −6 LUFS short term in the drops. That's my reference. The problem is producers are on a permanent hunt for volume, and I often get pushed well past it.
The loudest masters I've done sit around −3 LUFS. I even spotted a track at −1 LUFS on SoundCloud. Honestly, I find that insane, and I'm not convinced it serves the track: louder doesn't mean prettier. Past a certain point, you crush the track instead of showing it off.
4.Check your low end in mono
Techno lives on big club systems, and most club subs sum to mono. If your sub or kick is out of phase between left and right, it can partly cancel and disappear the moment the system folds to mono, right where it should hit hardest.
Keep the low end (roughly below 120 Hz) mono or near-mono, and check the phase correlation before you export. Stereo width is for the mids and highs, not the sub.
5.Get the tonal balance in the ballpark
Mastering fixes small tonal issues, that's part of the job. What it won't rescue is a badly unbalanced mix: a muddy low-mid, harsh piercing highs, or a mix so dark it has no air at all.
Compare your mix's broad shape against tracks you use as references in your style. You're not chasing an exact match, just making sure nothing's badly off before it reaches mastering.
All five tests, automatically, right in your browser. Nothing leaves your computer.
Analyze my mix →The mistakes that cost the most
- Exporting at 0 dBFS "to be safe": zero headroom, and the master ends up fighting your ceiling.
- Leaving a limiter on the bus: the number-one reason a mix comes back "not masterable as-is".
- A wide, stereo sub: huge on headphones, gone on the club rig.
- Judging loudness instead of balance: loudness is my job; yours is a clean, balanced, dense mix.
Nail these five and your master will come back the way you imagined it, because I had something to work with, not a brick wall to undo.
Let's talk about it
Tell me where your track is at, its style and what you want from it. I reply fast, and we'll figure out how to take it all the way.
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