Step-by-step Guide to Mastering Pop Music | Are You Listening? Season 6, Ep 5

Learn how to master a pop song from start to finish in this step-by-step mastering guide. In the fifth episode of Season 6, professional mastering engineer and Berklee professor Jonathan Wyner teaches you how to master a pop song with iZotope Ozone, covering key aspects of pop music like level and low end before diving deeper into limiting, automation, dynamics processing, and stereo imaging. By the end of this video, you’ll be able to confidently master a song with a commercial pop sound.

Chapters
00:00 - Intro
00:29 - Mastering in genres
01:33 - Prepare your track for mastering
04:04 - Listen to your track
06:54 - Validate your decisions with visualizer
13:11 - Using the Master Assistant
17:30 - Start by adjusting for tone
23:26 - Setting the limiter
26:33 - Automation for emotional impact
30:01 - Dynamics processing in mastering
35:53 - Excitation in mastering
37:48 - Stereo imaging in mastering
38:27 - Final thoughts

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#iZotope #AreYouListening #Mastering

[jayburd]

"Tickle the threshold with that long release time... " this is a life lesson.

[statespace]

Excellent idea to put on a limiter first and find out the problematic areas before any processing. Wow! Thank you for that guys

[skymakai]

I love this series and really appreciate having Johnathan provide so much wisdom. I'd really like more 'electronic', 'dance' and 'bass music' examples. Maybe it's just me and that these genres are 'less difficult' to master, but it's the genre I'm most involved with.

[KingGrio]

It's hilarious. At 7 mins or so he basically explains in very polite and professional terms that modern pop music is basically bass drones and sub-kick impulses with clicky robotic sampler style high hat hits, and a vocal. It's really devolved into the most minimal components. He also points out these high hats annoy the hell out of everyone hearing this come out of small speakers, or worse yet: crappy earbuds while riding the public transports. Verse is basically a telephone effect as the gimmick to contrast this chorus section, because honestly what else can you do that has less things happening than the chorus. I'm not even sure you can still talk about arrangement under these circumstances. And then he goes on to explain how he is going to master that.
He must be the most professional guy I've ever seen, for being able to express in such terms and while keeping a straight face that this is a cool tune that is interesting to master.
Don't get me wrong, I think Jonathan Wyner is great. But modern pop music ? I can't believe I was complaining about it in the 90s, it's become so much worse.

[kelvinfunkner]

really really awesome peek behind "the curtain" and I especially loved the thought processes behind the moves....having it "talked out" along the way in order to see the "why's" behind the changes was what made all the difference!

[joshuawallwork]

This guy's even cooler than I thought! He listens to Stromae!!

[baselinesweb]

I like the insight you give about the tool design. For instance, it was great to get the knowledge that the tube setting on the limiter has a long release time of 2 seconds. Well done!

[Reixmusic]

What a Masterclass!!! Thanks izotope!!🔥🙌🏻

[jamespingel]

It was really cool to see how you'd tackle a mix like this. As I was watching along I was thinking to myself "I wouldn't want a static EQ on that hihat because then the verses are going to be missing top end, so I would've reached for a dynamic EQ there", and then you go and automate the whole EQ out instead. It was a much more dramatic move than I usually make, but insightful. If it's not too much trouble I'd love to see more like this.

[rickbiessman]

5:58 Gotta give this video a like purely for the fade out already. Thanks a million times for that <3 =) Excited to see the rest of the video and learn more about mastering!

[itwontstopprods]

I use Partition too as a reference for how ridiculously heavy (sub) bass can be in a track! "Down to 30 hz or even all the way down to DC, in the center of the earth" 🤣🤣

[monkmusic]

Best and most informative/detailed mastering clip ever seen. Thank you.

[AutPen]

Another masterclass from Jonathan. Superb stuff.

[mrfrankdamsax]

Great series! Very informative. Thank you

[etcot]

I agree that low end bass is bit too wonky, glad you had the same observation roughly. Interesting video for sure, great content in other words, many 👍 thx for the upload

[waldemarvogel]

Great video. Thanks. Nice to see a professional engineer explaining the software.

[FusedMusic]

Great stuff, but I'd appreciate more an 'electropop' 'synthpop' example. So many tutorials lean into that base heavy hip/hop area, but a more pure electro 'pop' area would be really appreciated.

[angusbabb]

brilliant ! ..i learnt so much, thank you!😀

[Barncore]

Wow this was great. Super useful. Thanks

[GloveBunniesVideos]

I always wondered if it would make mastering easier to give the engineer stereo stems (drums, bass, vocals, synths, etc.) instead of just a stereo track, but that would most likely make the mastering process much, much harder. Great video!