Mastering Essentials Part 4 - Mastering EQ: Balance, Don’t Match

Part 4. Mastering EQ: Balance, Don’t Match

EQ will make or break your master. It's the single most important factor in mastering, once you've decided the loudness. In Part 4 of his series for SOS, mastering engineer Ian Shepherd shows how to sculpt the perfect EQ balance for your masters, using the plugins or hardware you already have.

ABOUT THE SERIES
Mastering Essentials: The SOS Techniques Guide
In this six-part series, produced in association with Steinberg, well-known mastering engineer Ian Shepherd takes us through his approach to mastering. Whether you’re polishing individual tracks or assembling EPs or albums, Ian will explore the tools, skills and decisions that can help you achieve great-sounding results.

1. What Is Mastering?

2. The Three Ms of Mastering

3. How Loud Should You Master?

4. Mastering EQ: Balance, Don’t Match

5. Compression & Limiting In Mastering

6. Final Delivery: Requirements & Specs

More parts coming soon, make sure you subscribe to the SOS channel to be notified.

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[dylanhughes]

The change on the 2nd track just from those subtle EQ moves is ridiculous

[opacus]

Great series so far. Amazing how subtle the changes are in the mastering process compared to mixing, yet make quite an overall difference.

[QuaverloveStudio]

"It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it... and that's what gets results"

[farithj]

As a Mastering Engineer Assistant for Bob Katz, Loudness is crucial. The listening sweet spot and great speakers which Bob uses M5P Dynaudio is phenomenal. Thank you for the Videos! I personally like the Maselec MEA-2 but I am currently experimenting "in the box" with AUD plugins.

[kevinmccarthy]

Thanks, Ian. Great series, glad I came upon this.

[hgerry]

I'm blown away but how much detail you (and the commenters) can hear in the music. Admittedly I am listening on relatively cheap headphones, not monitors, but I really struggle to hear the difference resulting in these EQ changes.

[Kazemijazi]

This mix and your processing sounds so good.

[MikeHeebz]

Another great video & the most important to improving the overall sound/balance & volume of my tracks...Thank you Ian! =)

[FlashyLight]

Just made it to part 4, can't wait for part 5! This series really is helping me improve the overall sound of my songs :)

[paulwoolfries]

Great lessons, all very usefull and will be a great help in improving the mastering I'm currently doing. Thanks!

[Bluelagoonstudios]

It's remarkable that people, only gets one track to work with, and create a great master. It's a gift? Metering is okay for me, but doing such a job. I must say big respects. I'm not sure I could do this. I mix and send over at least group tracks to the mastering engineer to Delta Music here in Belgium.

[antjone]

Thank you for this series Ian, which is interesting and relaxing while I do my home gym.
My only thought on this video is that for us home recording superstars, wouldn't we be fixing EQ problems in the mix?
Wouldn't it be easier just to go back to the mix and put the kick up a dB.
And I'm guessing you don't think putting high and low pass filters on is worth it to filter out the inaudible?
And finally, can anyone recommend a good tutorial on EQ in mixing to avoid mud and the like?

[yellowmonkee]

Is it just me or does the masterRig plugin transitions between the on/off, like slowly fading between?

[projectffo]

Fantastic video Ian Shepherd :) i am actually applying some of those techniques shown before, such keep in mind -11 LUFS and now in this EQ move, very interesting. I was wondering if in this EQ balance if you use reference track the same to see if you are in the right spot? I am very curious to know how the next stage with compressor looks like. That frequency 8 bands is very cool (i have this in Cubase pro ). Question: Did you apply EQ directly as in INSERT or it was in output (post)? Thanks. Cheers

[bobarnott]

Hi Ian, I increased gain using the maximum peak level function in wavelab to get peak to -1db. Is this ok? I did it on one track and the resulting VU was too low. I then added compression to try get the VU up to -11 and smooth out the peaks. I'm I doing the right thing here? Cheers

[ChickyNYC]

is it just me, or does that "Turn Back To Spring" song (the "indie" one) have some phase issues in the mix? In mono, it loses so much.

[forbesmackay]

I have yet to find any of these series of tutorials with music that I would want to listen to. It all seems so generic.

[Aviorrok]

If I made a mix and mastering for myself why I need EQ on mastering? I fix all issues in the mix