The primary reason to reduce your masters output is to ensure that the encoding process doesn’t alter the amplitude enough to cause clipping or peaking distortion. If you’re uploading your master online, there are many good reasons why you should reduce the output of your master. Get a FREE Mastered Sample of Your Song Why You Should Reduce the Output of Your Master These settings do have some disadvantages so listen carefully when using them. True peak detection automatically reduces the output by the needed amount to avoid clipping distortion. Lookahead measures the incoming signal ahead of time, allowing the limiter more time to react. Oversampling avoids both aliasing distortion and clipping distortion. Oversampling creates more accurate quantization, resulting in less overs or peaks that go above 0dB. To avoid distortion when pushing the signal, use a combination of 3 limiter functions: The best way to avoid distortion when limiting is to use oversampling, true peak detection, and the lookahead functions. When using a limiter, keep in mind that you’re pushing the signal into a brick wall ceiling – this can easily create unwanted distortion in a myriad of ways. Otherwise you may accidentally create some unwanted clipping distortion somewhere in your signal chain. It’s important to monitor both the input and output when possible.ĭespite this, it’s good to get into the habit of carefully measuring your signal to avoid going over 0dB and leaving enough headroom for the next plugin to perform its processing. Most plugins use 32-bit or 64-bit internal processing, meaning that the signal can go above 0dB without clipping, so long as it’s reduced to below 0dB before the output. Monitoring your signal within the plugin shows how it’s being altered. If you’re mastering with plugins and you want to monitor your processed signal, it helps to use ones with both input and output meters – this way you can measure the amplitude of the signal both before and after processing. We’ll master it for you and send you a free sample to review How to Monitor Your Processed Signal When Mastering If you have a mix that you need mastered, send it to us here: If you’re running into distortion when mastering, you need more headroom. If you had 6dB of headroom and your saturator or EQ amplified the signal by 2dB, you’d still have 4dB of headroom, meaning you could continue processing without introducing clipping distortion. 3 to 6dB of headroom is a good range to start with when mastering. If you started with 1dB of headroom, and your saturator or EQ amplified the signal by 2dB, you’d end up with clipping distortion. This ensures that you have enough headroom to perform your processing. This may change based on your preference, but 3 – 6dB is enough headroom when mastering. ![]() When you’re mastering it’s important to have roughly 3 to 6dB of headroom In other words, the maximum peak of your signal in a digital system should be somewhere between -3dB and -6dB. How Much Headroom Do I Need When Mastering? ![]() If you’re gain staging your master it also helps to reduce your limiter’s output before uploading it to a streaming service. Gain staging your master includes leaving enough headroom for your processing, monitoring the input and output of your plugins, and knowing how to limit without distorting the signal.
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