ONE THING THAT WILL x10 YOUR MASTERING RESULTS | Streaky.com

Small tweaks is what mastering is all about, here's one thing that you'll be happy you tried

▶ JOIN NEWSLETTER -

▶ 20% DISCOUNT ON MASTERING - Use Code: thanksforwatching


▶ LEARN MASTERING WITH STREAKY - “I Will Teach You To Master” Mastering Course


▶ STALK ON SOCIAL
Instagram -
Facebook -
Twitter -

▶ BUSINESS CONTACT

Streaky Ltd, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, SL0 0NH
Tel :  +44 (0) 207 458 4428

So this one thing. It's not EQ, it's not dynamics, it's not limiting. It's not anything like that. It's not processing. Now, that is the fun stuff, isn't it? Now that is the stuff that we all want to do, and it's like we think we're going to make a difference.

Now for years and years, that's all I used to do, I'd have everything in, I would be slapping this on, slapping that on, getting loads of different bits of equipment and trying different plugins all the time. But that wasn't my problem. My problem was, I couldn't hear what I was doing. The room sounded dreadful. And that's why I realised the number one thing, that has helped me more than anything, which is why I don't have masses of equipment anymore. I don't use loads and loads of plugins, because I don't need them. Because I realised that the secret to great mastering was having a room that I could hear what I was doing in.

So what I do is I spend a lot of my time trying to get my room sounding better, and trying to get it sound tighter, and just getting used to the sound of the room. Because for me, that is the fundamental basic of getting a good sound. Now I need to know that when I make a half a dB tweak, because that's all I'm doing at mastering levels, point three of a dbs. I can hear what I'm doing. I can hear that change. Because it was very easy for me before, to add one or two dB, at whatever place and I could only just hear it working, or I couldn't hear it working. So then I would add a bit more.

So really, you need to have your room so that it is absolutely as clean as a whistle. Now, if that means you need to use something like Sonarworks or Trinnov or one of these other room correction devices, to help you get there, because your room won't get there, because just fundamentals, there's some fundamental problem with the room, then by all means you should use that. You should just try and get your room as flat as you can. And try and get it ... You're never going to get it flat. There's no such thing as a flat room, whatever anyone says. I've worked in million pound rooms and I've worked in shoe boxes and they're probably as flat as each other.

So it's more about moving the speakers, getting those in the right positions. It's about reflection points. It's about trying to get some bass sucked out of the room so that you don't get reflection where you're sitting in the room, the speaker positioning. All these things having reflect your clouds over your head. It's about all these things and about the sizes of the speakers in your room. All these little basic things that are super important so that you can hear what you're doing when you're mastering. And the key then is to try and do as little as you can when you're mastering. And the reason why you can do as little as you can when you master, is because you can hear what you're doing.

Now I do far, far much less now and I get far, far better results. Because I can hear what I'm doing. I've got speakers, I can hear what I'm doing on. I've got the right size of my room. The room's a perfect size for me. I've got it soundproofed out. I've got all my reflection points covered off. So for me, I can hear those little tweaks. I can hear those little things. I don't have to do major changes on stuff. And it gives me that massive 10X results compared to other people that are slapping loads of stuff on, they've got reflection points all over the place. There's things going all over the room. They can't really hear what's happening. So they just put stuff on because they hope that will sound good, or they've seen somewhere that someone does that. And that's why they do it. They haven't actually listened for themselves and use their ears and made a decision whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Because a lot of the music then they've listened to on their speakers hasn't played back correctly.

So for me, that is the one fundamental thing that has helped me 10X my results and get a much, much better sounding record for people and far fewer people returning and saying they want tweaks and they want changes and that this wasn't right or added too much bass or added too much top. You just get all of that when the room's not right.

mastering engineer,how to master,mastering Q&A,mastering,how to master a song,music production,mastering tips,home studio,audio mastering,mastering tutorial,mastering for beginners,home recording,mixing & mastering,how to master music,mastering process,plugins,master,mixing,recording,mastering music,audio mastering techniques,mastering tips & tricks,music mastering,recording studio,tutorial,studio,warren huart,record producer,EQ,Streaky,pro tools,