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Real Time Mastering a Demo
🕑 Added 2025-12-22 08:50:22 +0000 UTCThought it'd be good to throw on OBS for mastering a demo I was working on and show my real honest workflow on finishing up a "V1" playable master version.
Admittedly a bit tired and not my sharpest but felt like you'd want to see me walk through actually working on getting this done :)
I cover tonal balance, clipping, limiting, and my mindset with how to approach mastering - traditionally mastering is something you'd pay for not because you can't do it yourself, but because the outside perspective is key to making sure you "fit in".
There is an inherent bias when you're working on something for hours versus someone who's never heard the track before, for sure - and that is what you're really paying for (for the most part).
That said, here's my take on how to approach it if you want a club playable version of your song in around 10 minutes of work :P
Plugins I recommend:
MLoudnessAnalyzer - Free and good for measuring LUFS. Minimeters is good also but not free.
Spectre for EQ boosts on the master. I think it sounds better in a lot of cases (but not always)
Kirchhoff EQ or Pro Q for dynamic bell cuts and linear phase shelves to lower the low end. Both are good, pick which you like more.
One or two solid limiters- Ozone IRC 3 has been king for me lately, second place Pro L 2. There is no "best" though, that's just what sounds good on my music.
SPAN Plus. I can't live without this thing. There are alternatives, I've tried them all - but SPAN is the one for me.
Comments
Don Skotnicki
cheers. typically speaking, no multiband on my master. localize as much shit as you can. the more plugins on my master, the worse i did on the mix and i'm compensating :) i use the pro DSP DSM as a form of multiband on my synth bus and that sounds good for the dance music multiband thing (gives the synths a sense of cohesion, balance) and doesn't fuck with the phase since it's FFT based. i don't like multiband compression like that on the master 9 times out of 10, it's too heavy handed. don't like what it does to drums and phase. once in a blue moon if i'm looking to glue the master a bit, i'll do a shadow hills compressor w HPF set to 350hz so it only compresses the mids/highs. this is nice on vocal tunes, but works 1 out of 10 times and is quite subtle.
Curtis Kennedy
insane game as per usual man! any reason you're not using any multi-band comp on master? if its not needed, its not needed. would you use it in any other case?
