You spent valuable time writing, recording, and mixing your song. The last step? Mastering. Mastering is the final crucial step in the music production process, where your mix is polished, balanced, and enhanced to sound its best on all playback systems. This guide will walk you through essential steps to get your audio ready for Aria to take it to the next level.
Reference your mix:
Referencing involves using a different song as a benchmark for various elements in your mix. Compare your mix to a song you like or a previous version of the same song.
Pay attention to aspects like frequency range, dynamics, and the levels of each element in your track.
Listen to your mix in different environments, such as laptop speakers, headphones, car, or home stereos, to ensure it sounds good everywhere.
Clean up your tracks:
Review every clip on your timeline and eliminate any extra noise.
Delete empty regions to remove hidden low-level sounds.
Disable any plugins that may introduce additional noise, such as those modeling analog gear.
Ensure your files are trimmed and faded as desired before mastering. Leaving some pre-roll/post-roll (space before and after the actual audio), around 100-200ms, is advisable.
Solo tracks and review edit points with headphones to detect any pops or clicks, particularly on prominent tracks like the lead vocal.
Leave sufficient headroom:
Headroom refers to the amount of space your sound has before it becomes distorted and compressed, and it's a critical aspect of achieving a great-sounding master. Uploading your track to Aria without sufficient headroom will result in a distorted finished product. Always maintain ample headroom to avoid a harsh-sounding master that may not please your listeners' ears.
Keep peaks around -10 dBFS and the body of your waveform around -18 dBFS.
Maintain headroom at busses and the master output for optimal results during mastering.
Choose a high-quality export format:
Select the appropriate sample rate and bit depth in your DAW's bounce dialog. Be sure to use the same sample rate at which you recorded your files. Opt for 32-bit if available, or 24-bit with dithering if not.
Export your audio as a high-resolution WAV or AIFF file for mastering.
Once you've prepared your track, upload it to Aria, choose your Mix Type, and let us handle the rest. Taking a little extra time to follow these steps will ensure that you achieve the best-sounding master.
