Top Signs Your Mix Isn't Ready for Mastering | Are You Listening? Season 6, Ep 4

How do you know when your mix is ready for mastering? In the fourth episode of Season 6, professional mastering engineer and Berklee professor Jonathan Wyner shares what to watch out for when preparing your mix for the audio mastering stage, including reference mixes being too loud, unbalanced tracks, transients affecting headroom, and more. By the end of this video, you’ll have a solid checklist that you can use to prepare your mix for mastering.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:51 1. Your references are too loud
01:39 2. Your lead is inconsistent
02:59 3. Your tracks are unbalanced
04:23 4. It doesn’t sound good loud
05:29 5. Your transients affect headroom
06:55 6. Your tracks are too divergent
08:49 7. There’s too much high-end
10:02 8. There’s too much low-end
12:01 9. Your low-end is unbalanced
13:47 10. You didn’t listen for issues
14:30 Outro

#izotope #AreYouListening #Mastering

SYNC ID: MB01P1NHZG16LT4

[jayburd]

This is great. The idea of comparing Lufs to rms is gold.

[cccchristo]

This video is not about mastering, it’s a mixing bible. Top notch content guys

[AutPen]

There are lots of wannabes and so-so mixing/mastering tutors on YouTube, but this guy is the real deal. He has the knowledge, but is also a great sharer of that knowledge. A brilliant teacher!

[dom._t]

Studied with John in college, one of the most insightful audio minds I’ve ever come across. Always a treat to learn from him!

[GloveBunniesVideos]

That momentary/RMS LUFS comparison tip is really, really helpful. Thanks so much.

[dilemmaEDM]

wow. This advice was pure gold. Brilliant and extremely eloquently put. Especially the bit about comparing LUFs to RMS and the transient-sustain relationship in the low end.

[nethercords]

most of these problems can be addressed with a compressor on the master bus, the caveat here is, you need to know what youre doing with the the compressor levels and presets otherwise you can easily do a homerun and end up at first base again. done correctly, you will finish off with a much more balanced mixdown.

[werkdatdancefitness]

I like the series but it would be great if we were shown examples of him mastering a track with the tips he's describing.

[TarasKuznetsovMusic]

This is extremely helpful!
You can basically write down all these key points and turn them into a roadmap of mixing! And don’t touch the mastering until you’re through all these checkmarks!
Great great advice! Thank you guys!❤

[kelvinfunkner]

every single point was absolutely "on point" and golden. not one of them was "filler" or peripheral....really solid advice!

[tekis]

While I've heard some of these points before, this video is very well organized and has zero hyperbole. I'm bookmarking it for reference.

[gisellechacon]

These have all been very helpful! Being an engineer/producer, I find I often need to "boost" a track to make it sound right to clients. But knowing a little about mastering, I feel more confident that I'm not destroying the mix we worked so hard to create. Thanks, Jonathan!

[SiQuemaCuhh]

Measuring the sub sonic information with insight was something i never knew to get better tonal balance. Great video

[OilRacki]

Finally, someone who explains everything in plain English. I'd love to have Jonathan Wyner as a teacher.. very detailed, but easy to follow what he's saying.

[hayden_hanna]

God, these videos have been so helpful. Just finished up my ep, and have used these videos in assistance to mixing and mastering it myself!

[ghfjfghjasdfasdf]

One of the best audio resources online imo - absolutely stellar knowledge being shared with the community here… all for free.

🤟❤️🤟

[AcousticWisdom]

Such a wonderful series! love it. It may seem basic, but a subject often overlooked is just a track with acoustic instruments or maybe only guitar and voice. The dynamic range and LUFS are different and from the tonal balance measurements I’ve done with my favorite recording they can be really different . Would love to see a video dedicated to mastering just Bluegrass, folk, solo singer songwriter and things of that nature that don’t use drums or electronic instruments.

[ansoncheong]

The concept of combining Lufs and RMS is so

[shizumaruofficial]

Good timing as I am mixing a new song! <3

[nethercords]

high frequencies can be safely cut at 10k hz during mixdown, and other more problematic sounds may require more cutting, by the time it gets compressed side chained and mastered it should sound very clean :-)