How to master a track, step by step

Mastering goes wrong when it starts before the mix is finished. Everything below assumes the mix is done — not perfect, but done.

If you are unsure what the stage is for, start with what is mastering.

Step 1: prepare the mix

• Remove any limiter from the master bus. You are about to add one.
• Leave headroom. A few decibels below the ceiling. See what is headroom.
• Export at full resolution. 24-bit, project sample rate, no dither yet.
• Check the start and end. No clicks, no truncated tails.
• Sleep on it. A day between mixing and mastering is worth more than any plugin.

Step 2: set up references

Load two or three finished tracks in the style you are aiming at, on a channel that bypasses your master chain.

Then level-match them to your track. This is not optional. Every comparison made at unmatched level teaches you the wrong lesson, because louder always sounds better.

Listen for four things:

1. Overall tonal balance — brighter, darker, fuller?
2. Low-end weight and where it sits.
3. How much the track breathes versus how solid it stays.
4. How forward the vocal or lead is.

You are not copying their sound. You are calibrating your ears against something finished.

Step 3: listen before touching anything

Play your track through once without adjusting a single control. Write down what you would change, in words.

“The low mids are heavy.” “It gets harsh in the chorus.” “There is not enough weight below the bass.”

If you cannot name anything, you may be finished already. That happens more often than people admit.

Step 4: broad EQ

Small, wide moves. A shelf, a gentle bell, a decibel or two.

Master-bus EQ affects everything, so a 3 dB cut at 250 Hz thins the bass, the snare, the guitars and the vocal together. That is why moves stay small here and why anything precise belongs in the mix.

If a single element is the problem, stop — that is a mix fix. See fix it in the mix or the master.

Step 5: dynamics

Gentle compression, if the track needs it. A decibel or two of gain reduction, slow enough to move with the music rather than with individual hits.

The question is not “should I compress the master” but “does this track hold together”. If it already does, skip it. Detail in what is a compressor.

Step 6: saturation or clipping

Saturation adds density and perceived loudness without raising peaks — see what is saturation.

A clipper removes the sharpest transients so the limiter has far less work to do, which is the difference between a loud master that stays punchy and one that pumps. See what is a clipper.

Use small amounts of either. On the master, everything is cumulative.

Step 7: the limiter, last

Nothing goes after it.

• Set the ceiling slightly below full scale for encoder safety.
• Enable true-peak detection.
• Raise the drive slowly, watching gain reduction rather than the loudness number.
• Stop when transients start disappearing — usually earlier than expected.

Then level-match against your reference and ask whether yours sounds better, not louder. If matching your reference’s loudness costs your track its punch, the answer is in the mix, not in the limiter.

SPC Limit Breaker covers this stage with visible true-peak behaviour so you can see how hard it is working.

Step 8: check everywhere

• Mono. Does anything disappear or thin out?
• Small speaker. Is the bass still perceivable?
• Headphones. Any harshness or sibilance you missed?
• Quiet. Does the balance still work at low volume?
• Loud, briefly. Anything that becomes fatiguing?

Full checklist in what to listen for when mastering.

Step 9: export

• 24-bit WAV at the project sample rate for distribution.
• Dither only if reducing bit depth, and only once, at the very end.
• Trim silence at the start; leave the tail intact.
• Name the file so you can identify it in a year.

Step 10: listen tomorrow

Play the exported file on your phone, in the car, on a laptop, before you send it anywhere. Problems that were invisible in the session are obvious on a phone speaker, and a day’s distance costs nothing.

The honest summary

A good master on a good mix is a handful of small moves and a lot of checking. If your mastering session is long and full of large adjustments, the session is telling you the mix is not finished — and that is useful information, not a failure.