Mastering EDM is a crucial part of the music production process. It ensures your track sounds polished, professional, and cohesive across different playback systems, whether it's blasting on large club speakers, streaming through headphones, or playing on a car stereo. Mastering involves optimizing the overall sound, dynamics, and clarity of your track while maintaining its energy and impact.
Here's a step-by-step guide to help you master your EDM track:
1. Finalize Your Mix
Before you begin mastering, make sure your mixdown is as polished as possible. A great master starts with a solid mix. Ensure the following:
- Balanced Levels: All your elements (kick, bass, lead synths, vocals, etc.) should be in proper balance. The low end should be tight and punchy, and the high end should have clarity without being harsh.
- Headroom: Leave around -6 dB to -3 dB of headroom on the master bus (not clipping). This allows room for mastering processing.
- No Clipping: Ensure that no individual track or the master bus clips during the mixdown. This will result in distortion that can’t be fixed in mastering.
- Stereo Imaging: Make sure your stereo image is wide and coherent, with low-end elements (kick, bass) centered and high-end elements panned appropriately.
- Mono Compatibility: Check your mix in mono to make sure your track doesn’t lose important elements when played on mono systems (especially in clubs or through single-speaker setups).
2. Preparation for Mastering
Before you start the actual mastering process, ensure your session is properly set up:
- Bounce/Export the Track: Export your track in 24-bit WAV or 32-bit float resolution at the highest sample rateyour project was created in (usually 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz). Avoid exporting in MP3 or other compressed formats at this stage.
- Track Length: Ensure that the track has appropriate fade-ins and fade-outs. Avoid abrupt endings unless stylistically required.
- Reference Track: Import a reference track from the same genre, which sounds professionally mastered, into your session for comparison purposes.
3. Equalization (EQ)
The goal of EQ during mastering is to balance the frequencies and ensure clarity across the entire frequency spectrum. You can make subtle adjustments to fix any frequency imbalances or enhance specific areas.
Steps:
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Low End (20-80 Hz): Ensure the sub-bass and bass frequencies are present but not overwhelming. You may need to cut unwanted sub-bass rumble below 30-40 Hz if it’s muddy. For a punchy low end, you might add a slight boost around 50-60 Hz (this varies by genre).
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Midrange (200 Hz-2 kHz): The midrange is critical for clarity and intelligibility. Avoid excessive buildup around 500 Hz to 1 kHz, as it can create boxiness. If the track feels thin or lacks warmth, try gently boosting around 150-250 Hz.
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High Mids (2-5 kHz): These frequencies are important for presence and definition, especially for vocals and lead sounds. If the track sounds dull, a slight boost here can add brightness and clarity. But be careful—too much boost can make the track sound harsh or sibilant.
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High End (5-20 kHz): Boost around 8-12 kHz for air and brilliance, especially if your track feels lacking in sparkle or openness. Be careful with sibilance (excessive high frequencies in vocals or hats) and use a de-esser if needed.
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Low-Mid Build-Up: Use a notch filter or a gentle cut (e.g., -2 to -4 dB) around 150-250 Hz if you feel the track is too muddy or congested.
Tip: Use a linear phase EQ for transparent adjustments when boosting or cutting, especially in the low frequencies.
4. Compression
Compression controls the dynamic range of your track, ensuring that the quieter parts are more audible and the louder parts don’t become distorted or overpowering.
Steps:
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Multi-band Compression: For EDM, multi-band compression allows you to apply different compression settings to specific frequency ranges. You can compress the low end (kick and bass) separately from the midrange (synths, vocals) and high end (hi-hats, cymbals).
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Kick and Bass Control: Apply subtle compression to tighten the low-end, ensuring the kick and bass sit together without clashing. For EDM, you may use light compression with a ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 for the low frequencies.
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Overall Track Compression: After working with individual frequency bands, apply gentle overall compression to glue the track together. Use a ratio of 1.5:1 to 2:1 for transparent compression. Set a medium attack (10-30 ms) to allow transients to pass through and a medium release (50-100 ms) to keep the dynamics smooth.
5. Stereo Imaging
The stereo width of your track is essential in EDM, as it creates space for individual elements and gives the track a larger-than-life feel.
Steps:
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Widen High Frequencies: Consider widening the high frequencies (synths, vocals, effects) slightly using a stereo imager, but keep the low-end elements mono to ensure phase coherence.
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Mono Bass: Ensure your bass frequencies (sub-bass and bassline) are kept in mono to maintain a solid center. Use a low-pass filter below 100-150 Hz to clean up the low end and ensure the bass remains mono.
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Check Phase: Always check your track in mono after widening to make sure there are no phase issues. Some stereo widening tools can create phase problems that affect your track’s clarity on different systems.
6. Limiting & Maximizing Volume
Limiting is the final step in mastering that ensures your track is loud enough for commercial standards without causing clipping or distortion.
Steps:
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Peak Limiting: Use a brickwall limiter to increase the track’s overall volume to commercial levels. Set the ceiling of your limiter to -0.1 dB (this prevents clipping) or -0.3 dB.
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Gain Staging: Make sure the track isn’t too hot before applying the limiter. The track should be peaking around -3 dB before the limiter so that the limiting doesn’t introduce distortion or pumping.
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Threshold and Output Gain: Set the threshold of your limiter to allow enough gain reduction for a loud, punchy track. Aim for about 2-4 dB of gain reduction during the loudest parts of the track.
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Avoid Over-limiting: Be cautious not to over-limit, as it can result in a flat, lifeless sound. Always compare the track with and without limiting to ensure that the dynamics are still intact.
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Maximizing Loudness: Use a loudness meter to check if your track is at competitive loudness levels for streaming platforms, with LUFS (Loudness Units Full Scale) generally around -6 LUFS for EDM. This can vary slightly depending on the style, but ensure you're not clipping the track.
7. Final Checks
Once your track is loud and polished, it’s time to give it a final listen:
- A/B Comparison: Compare your track to reference tracks in your genre to make sure your track is competitive in terms of loudness, balance, and clarity.
- Test on Different Systems: Listen to your track on various sound systems, such as studio monitors, headphones, car speakers, and consumer-grade devices (smartphones, laptops). This will help you identify if any elements need adjustment.
- Check for Distortion or Artifacts: Listen carefully for any unwanted distortion or artifacts introduced during the mastering process (e.g., from over-compression or limiting).
- Take Breaks: Mastering requires fresh ears. Take regular breaks to avoid ear fatigue and make objective decisions.
8. Exporting the Final Master
Once you're happy with the sound of your track:
- Export the final version in 24-bit WAV or 32-bit float for the best quality. For distribution, you can later convert it to MP3 (at 320 kbps) for streaming services.
- File Naming: Label the file appropriately (e.g., “TrackName_Final_Master”).
Bonus Tips for EDM Mastering
- Use Reference Tracks: Always compare your track with commercially released tracks that match your style for an objective benchmark.
- Automate EQ and Compression: Don’t be afraid to automate certain parameters like EQ or compression throughout the track, especially if the dynamics change drastically.
- Be Subtle: Mastering is about subtle adjustments. Avoid making drastic changes to the overall mix unless necessary.
- Use Meters: Rely on loudness meters (LUFS, True Peak) and dynamic range meters to ensure that your track adheres to industry standards and doesn’t lose important dynamics.
In Summary: Mastering EDM
- Ensure the mix is solid: Balanced, clear, and with proper headroom.
- EQ: Adjust the low, mid, and high frequencies to ensure balance and clarity.
- Compression: Control dynamics with subtle multi-band and overall compression.
- Stereo Imaging: Widen high frequencies, keep low end mono, and check phase.
- Limiting: Maximize loudness without over-limiting, aiming for competitive loudness.
- Final Checks: Compare, test on different systems, and ensure clarity and balance.
- Export: Export the track in high-quality WAV format for distribution.
Mastering is an art that involves fine-tuning the final product to make it sound its best across all playback systems while retaining the emotional impact and energy of the track. Take your time and trust your ears, and your track will sound ready for release.
By the Stealify Team!
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