Hi! This is Jooyoung Kim, mixing engineer & music producer.
Before, we talked about hardware. Today, I’ll begin by introducing mastering. This article is based on my book, Basics of Mixing, published in South Korea.
Let’s dive in!
What is Mastering?
Why do we master audio?
The loudness of mixed music is too low
So gain more volume for the mixed music, maintaining the instruments’ balance
Of course, mastering involves many aspects. You can easily understand mastering with the two sentences above.
Simply put, mastering is the final step in music production. It can also be described as packaging the mixed music. The package does not change after mastering.
Room acoustics are the most important factor in building a mastering studio. Also, great quality ADC(Analog-Digital Converter)/DAC(Digital-Analog Converter), speakers and hardware are necessary too.
Building a mixing studio is also expensive. However, in mixing studio, audio hardwares take quite large volumes-they make room acoustics worse.
A desk with hardware may look good and fancy, but it takes up a lot of space. This can lead to comb-filtering effects. Removing the desk is a great solution, but as you know, it’s easier said than done..
One more thing, a mixing engineer listens to a song too many times, making it hard for them to recognize problems. Therefore, when you need to master a song or an album, I recommend hiring a mastering engineer.
Nevertheless a mixing engineer should provide a louder monitor file to clients than the mixed file. Due to budget constraints, mixing engineers sometimes have to master their own files.
In this chapter, for those situations, I’ll talk about the process and concepts about mastering.
Since I first started diving into audio engineering head-on, I’ve gone through countless books and resources. One of the biggest frustrations I encountered was the lack of educational materials available in Korean. As I continued my studies, I made a promise to myself that I’d one day write a book on mixing.
After finishing the manuscript, I sent it to several publishers, but many found the content to be too complex. While navigating those hurdles, I discovered the POD (Print on Demand) service offered by Kyobo Bookstore in Korea, which allowed me to publish the book online. Although it’s a bit limiting, the book can now be purchased through Kyobo’s website.
I’m deeply grateful to my mentor, Director Yongsoo Choi, and Professor Minho Jang from my university, for reviewing my manuscript. I’m also honored that the renowned engineer, Director Jongpil Koo from Klang Studio, read the book and wrote a recommendation for it. There are so many people to thank for their support and encouragement throughout this process.
To be clear, I’m not claiming to be an expert or someone with an extraordinary career. But I’ve worked hard to organize and share everything I know in the most comprehensive way possible. While the content isn’t exactly easy, I believe it’s worth the effort.
Since this blog is mostly in English, I know most of you won’t be able to read the book. However, if you have any questions about its content, feel free to reach out to me at joe1346@naver.com, and I’ll be happy to respond.
(If you purchase through the links above and below, I receive a small commission, which helps support the blog. Thank you! ^^)
As I mentioned in my previous post, these plugins are not resource-heavy on your computer. They’re affordable, high-quality, and come with a clean, intuitive UI, making them a solid option if you’re considering basic third-party plugins.
Lifeline Expanse is also being reviewed with NFR (Not for Resale) codes provided by Plugin Boutique.
Let’s dive into Lifeline Expanse!
Lifeline Expanse includes five modules: Format, Dirt, Reamp, Width, and Space.
The Lo and Hi options in Expanse are simple cut-off filters, so I’ll skip explaining them.
The waveform on the left shows a de-esser-like effect where high frequencies are attenuated based on the incoming signal, while the shield in the middle acts as a limiter.
Unlike Console, Expanse doesn’t add various types of saturation, but even with the filter range maxed out, it still introduces tonal changes. Now, let’s take a closer look at the individual modules.
This plugin adds a characteristic digital distortion to your source.
In the Advanced window, you can split the frequency range into three bands, adjust their volume, and even add noise. The Smooth option can make the changes less harsh.
Other key controls include Crush, which adds the distortion, and Tone, a tilt EQ centered around 650Hz.
There are four modes:
Degrade: Reduces the bit depth of the incoming audio, creating digital distortion.
Resample: Lowers the sample rate of the audio, adding digital artifacts.
Washed: Simulates the sound of a degraded, low-quality MP3, creating an underwater-like effect.
Flatten: Combines gating and bitcrushing, reducing the resolution of the audio.
Let’s take a closer look.
This is Degrade mode, where reducing the bit depth makes the waveform appear choppy in the oscilloscope.
In Resample, harmonics reflect back at the Nyquist frequency, and those oscillations can be seen on the scope. It’s constantly in motion due to added frequencies.
Washed mode just smears everything.
Flatten shows harmonic reflections, indicating a resampling effect, combined with reduced bit depth, resulting in multiple distortions.
You can choose from four types: Tube, Tape, Rectify, and Fuzz. The controls are the same as in Format, so I won’t repeat the explanation.
All four modes emphasize low and mid frequencies while cutting highs. As the name “Dirt” suggests, pushing the Drive knob can make it act almost like a compressor or limiter at higher levels.
As the name suggests, Re-Amp is designed to simulate re-amping.
You can re-amp through small electronics, guitar cabinets, monitor speakers, or cassette recorders, with two speaker options in each category to choose from.
True to the re-amping concept, it allows you to adjust the distance of room and close microphones, and blend their sounds together.
Increasing the Age value causes the highs and lows to gradually roll off, eventually introducing wow and flutter effects.
The Drive knob adds harmonic distortion, while Bass Through prevents distortion from affecting the selected low-frequency range.
You can select from Haas, Mid/Side, Detune, and Mono modes.
The Haas effect, as shown in the image, uses time delays to create a stereo image. Mid/Side enhances the side channels, Detune creates a wider image through pitch modulation, and Mono narrows the stereo field, gradually converting the sound into mono.
The Stereo knob enhances these effects, and Bass Mono ensures that frequencies below a set threshold are converted to mono.
I’ll skip further explanation, as the rest of the parameters are the same as in Format.
You can choose from Hall, Plate, Spring, and Slap reverb types, all offering solid digital reverb sounds.
Slap, in particular, has a delay with a significant amount of feedback, making it quite versatile.
A unique parameter here is Duck, which reduces the reverb based on the incoming input signal. Other parameters are typical for reverb plugins.
Each of these modules is priced at just $11, making them very affordable. Plus, if you purchase any plugin from Plugin Boutique, you’ll receive either the Pyros distortion plugin or the Bloom Vocal Aether Lite plugin for free.
Thanks for reading, and see you in the next post! 🙂
Hello, I’m Jooyoung Kim, an engineer and music producer.
We’ve discussed various processors that control dynamics. Today, let’s talk about limiters and clipping.
Let’s dive right in!
Limiters
A limiter is a type of compressor. Generally, when the ratio exceeds 10:1, we call it a limiter. When it reaches ∞:1, it’s often referred to as a brickwall limiter.
Limiters are processors that aggressively compress sound to prevent it from exceeding a certain volume level. A simple example of this would be guitar effects like distortion or overdrive, which are types of limiters. In mastering, limiters are used at the final stage to ensure the volume doesn’t exceed a certain level.
Any limiter, when viewed on a waveform, shows the top and bottom parts being cut off. This truncation introduces strong harmonic distortion, known as clipping, which we can perceive as a distorted sound.
Distortion-type limiters result in noticeable clipping, producing a heavily distorted sound. To minimize such distortion, some compressors/limiters include a feature called soft clipping.
Clipping / Soft Clipping
Elysia Alpha Compressor with Soft Clipping Function
Soft clipping gently smooths out the sharp edges of clipping. When a sine wave undergoes limiting with soft clipping, the result is a waveform that doesn’t have the abrupt cuts seen in regular clipping.
While soft clipping still introduces distortion, the sound is smoother compared to hard clipping. Using limiters or soft clipping helps to increase the overall loudness of a track. The reason for boosting volume is that people tend to perceive louder music as higher quality. However, equal LUFS (Loudness Units relative to Full Scale) values do not always mean the perceived volume is the same. For example, in vocal music, if the vocals are prominent, the music may seem louder even with similar LUFS values.
Even if you’re not mastering your own tracks, considering these aspects during mixing can help you create better productions.
Next time, I’ll explore reverb effects like delay. See you then!
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