Small moves, careful ears
Most of the demos our A&R team hears are good ideas held back by the final step. The tips below are the ones we give producers most often. They work in any DAW and with any plugins, and none of them need expensive gear.
1. Prepare the file
- Bounce the mix with peaks between −6 and −3 dBFS.
- Turn off any limiter or clipper on the master bus before exporting.
- Export WAV or AIFF at the session sample rate, 24-bit or 32-bit float.
- Leave half a second of silence at the start and let the tail ring out.
2. Set up to listen
- Put the mix and two released reference tracks in one session.
- Match their loudness before comparing. Louder always sounds better at first.
- Listen at a moderate level and take a break every 30 to 40 minutes.
- Know your room: if the bass sounds huge in one corner, trust a spectrum analyser over your ears there.
3. EQ: fix first, then shape
Start with corrections. A high-pass filter around 20 to 30 Hz removes rumble you cannot hear but the limiter can. Look for one or two resonances that stick out and cut them narrowly by 1 to 2 dB.
Then shape with broad, gentle moves. If a boost of more than 3 dB seems necessary, the problem is in the mix, not the master. For techno, keep everything below about 120 Hz in mono so the kick and bass hit the same way on every club system.
4. Compression that glues
Mastering compression should be felt more than heard. Try a ratio of 1.5:1 to 2:1, a slow attack of 20 to 30 ms so the kick transient passes through, and an auto or medium release. Aim for 1 to 2 dB of gain reduction.
If the groove stops breathing or the hi-hats start pumping, back off. Compare with the compressor bypassed at the same volume to hear what it really adds.
5. Limiting and loudness
The limiter is the last plugin in the chain. Set the output ceiling to −1 dBTP so the track survives MP3 and AAC encoding without clipping.
Raise the input slowly and watch the integrated loudness. Streaming platforms play most music around −14 LUFS, while club techno is usually mastered much louder, around −9 to −7 LUFS. Stop when the kick starts losing its punch. That point matters more than any number.
6. Check it everywhere
- Studio monitors, headphones, a phone speaker and a car.
- Mono, to catch phase problems in the stereo parts.
- The first 30 seconds next to your references in a DJ player.
- The next morning, with fresh ears, before you send anything out.
Common mistakes
- Mastering on the same day the mix was finished.
- Stacking three limiters to reach a number on a meter.
- Boosting the low end on headphones that exaggerate bass.
- Fixing a clashing kick and bass in the master instead of the mix.
- Judging changes without matching volume first.
Check your settings against a second opinion
After you have mastered a track yourself, run the same unmastered mix through MUSIC PROMO and compare the two results. Their Techno preset works to a club loudness target, and the preview shows the numbers for the processed file, so you can see whether your own limiter pushed too hard or stopped too early.
Try the same mix with different tone and compression options and listen to how the low end and the hats respond. It is a quick way to train your ears on your own material, and the preview does not cost anything. If you prefer their version, you can download it and release it.
More on mastering
Read why audio mastering is important for the basics, and analog vs digital vs AI mastering to choose the right approach for a release. If you have received an offer from our A&R, send the mastered track back through the demo submission form.