Mastering Deliverables: GAIN STAGE U IDIOT! WHAT PART OF -6db DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

So, your mastering engineer hates you.....why could that be?

Well, let's have a look-see at your mix, you know the one he refuses to have his name associated with

Wait....your looking to hit -1DB with all that master bus processing to produce MASTERING DELIVERABLES?

You've got the L1 scraping at -1db on a system that is NOTORIOUSLY INACCURATE when it comes to master fader metering.

Guess what people, that DAW you work on, is only accurate within 10% of what is REALLY happening on your 2-bus

The absolute MAX you should be hitting is -3 really if you want your metering engineer not to hate you try -6

And make sure you've death with any spikey quick transients, as in THERE SHOULDN'T BE ANY!!

Here's a pro tip for you: You know those spiky bits of the waveform? the skinny ones that just up out of nowhere? Almost to the top of your screen?

THOSE MEAN YOU HAVE ZERO HEADROOM.

Listen, kids, listen close and understand what I'm saying, in this era of music produced visually, there's really no excuse for delivering unmasterable crap to your mastering engineer.

So, I've put together a little pre-mastering checklist for you, make sure everything on this list is taken care of BEFORE you submit the record for mastering OK? It will save you time and your label money, that means there will be more to spend on your promotional budget, that means you are a rockstar sooner and banging groupies poolside at an earlier date. So just shut up and do it.

1. CHECK YOUR MIXES RMS AND PEAK LEVELS- They should be consistent track to track, RMS is the AVERAGE loudness and peak is, well, if you can't figure that out then....anyway, try and keep no more than 6db difference between the two  (you can break this rule based on artistic needs but this is a reference to get you started) this will generally mean you've mixed the song well as long as you have....

2. SOMETHING CLOSE TO A "DISCO SMILE" EQ CURVE WHILE CHECKING YOUR MIX IN AN ANALYZER. The disco smile concept is simple and it's about frequency distribution. The lows should have definition points for whatever instruments are pumping out low end (Bass synth Kick drum, Bass guitar) after that as you move into the low mids the level of the frequencies in that range should dip a little, Mudd lives here and generally should be less emphasized that the other frequencies of your mix. It should start to rise to a level even greater than your lows starting at about 70-800hz. So what does that look like? LIKE A SMILE! Now go listen to some disco.

3. ONE COMPRESSOR ONLY ON THE MASTER BUS, -3 DB OF COMPRESSION MAXIMUM
That's right, no more dicking around with plugins after the fact to get that "Insta-hit" sound, that's not your job. Tickle your Master with a compressor if you must but don't ever get more than -3 DB gain reduction. THAT'S NOT YOUR JOB.

4. IN TOTAL THE PEAK LEVEL OF YOUR TRACK SHOULD NOT EXCEED -4, That means those spikey snares trying to push their way through the roof of your mix? You need to do something about it, or your headroom will be gone and your mastering engineer WON'T BE ABLE TO MAKE YOUR MIX LOUD

There short and sweet, just enough info for you to stop screwing yourself over.

Now lets see if you do.