0:27

Hey , inside the Mix podcast fans . It's Mike and Naveena

0:30

here . Follow me on the Master your Mix

0:32

podcast or learn more at masteryourmixcom

0:35

. Now you're listening to the Inside the Mix

0:37

podcast and here's your host , mark Matthews

0:39

. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix

0:41

podcast . I'm Mark Matthews , your

0:43

host , musician , producer and mix

0:46

and mastering engineer . You've come to

0:48

the right place if you want to know more about your favorite

0:50

synth music artists , music engineering

0:52

and production , songwriting and the music

0:54

industry . I've been writing , producing

0:57

, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years

0:59

and I want to share what I've learned with

1:01

you . Hello , folks , and welcome

1:03

back to the Inside the Mix podcast

1:05

. If you are a new listener , please do

1:07

hit that subscribe button and if you're watching

1:09

on YouTube , also hit the notification

1:12

bell as well , so you can get notified of new

1:14

episodes . Returning listeners , a

1:16

big welcome back . Now

1:18

. This is a celebratory episode

1:20

. It is the 100th episode of the Inside

1:23

the Mix podcast , which is amazing . So

1:25

this podcast started two and a half years ago

1:27

and I started out with episode one interviewing

1:30

Zach Vortex , a producer from Bristol

1:32

who's been on the podcast a couple of times

1:34

, and at the time did I think we'd reach 100

1:36

episodes ? I wasn't sure I didn't know how the podcast

1:38

would pan out , but it's been amazing . It's been a fantastic

1:41

ride and I've met some incredible people and

1:43

made some amazing friends through this podcast , and long

1:45

may it continue . So a big thank

1:48

you to everybody who continues to

1:50

support this podcast and those who find

1:52

it and then join this amazing

1:55

community that we have . So a big

1:57

shout out to the producer , kick starters who've been on the

1:59

podcast , the amazing guests I've

2:01

had on the podcast , the producers

2:03

, pub patrons as well , who've been sharing

2:06

their music with this incredible audience

2:08

, and also the subscribers as well . So

2:10

the subscribers are amazing . They're

2:13

supporting me being able to grow this

2:15

podcast and if you want to join that group of people

2:17

, just hit the support the show button in

2:19

the episode description . A big shout

2:21

out to block house as well , to Nick , who

2:23

is the admin for the Facebook

2:25

community group . Go and check that out inside

2:28

the next podcast community on Facebook if you want

2:30

to join that group . Loads of great stuff going

2:32

on in there . And also the giveaway winners as

2:34

well . So earlier this year in 2023

2:37

, we were giving away mugs and t-shirts

2:39

and stuff , and that will come back at some point

2:41

. So a big shout out to those . So

2:44

amazing stuff . 100

2:46

episodes and long may continue

2:48

, folks , but today's episode

2:50

we're continuing with the mastering theme

2:52

. So what we're going

2:54

to be looking at today is how to set up a mastering

2:57

session and also how

2:59

to create a mastering template that you can use with

3:01

every session , and we're going to be using Reaper

3:03

for this . But you can take the idea and put

3:05

it into any DAW . But before we do

3:08

that , head over to synthmusicmasteringcom

3:10

and grab my guide to

3:13

the five essential free

3:15

mastering plugins . You can also find this

3:17

in the episode description . There are some

3:19

amazing plugins in there that I use in every

3:21

mastering session , so do go ahead and grab

3:23

that . So let's dive into this episode . Ok

3:26

, so let's dig into this mastering session that I've

3:28

got here . So I'm doing this in Reaper and I've used

3:30

Reaper for a long while , and I started using Reaper

3:32

for Mastery when I spent some time at Half-Odd

3:34

Mastering , probably about 10 years

3:36

ago , a great mastering house mastering

3:39

studio in Glamorgan , south

3:41

Wales , one of my favorite places . I had a fantastic

3:44

time living in Cardiff for three years . You can see

3:46

here watching this on YouTube . I'm going to describe this

3:48

for those listening . I've got my first

3:50

channel , which I've called Master Processor

3:52

and here on this channel

3:54

is where I'm going to put my mix . So

3:57

I put the mix on here and what I'll then do

3:59

is I've got these three sort

4:01

of markers that you

4:03

can add if you wish , and one is called Max

4:05

Short Term Luffs , one is called True Peak

4:07

and one is called Head . So the

4:10

first two are pretty self-explanatory Max

4:12

Short Term Luffs and True Peak . Those

4:14

are those values that I'm going to need when I'm doing mastering

4:16

. And if you're unsure what Luffs

4:19

are , do go and check episode 99

4:21

of the podcast where I go through that Allowness Units

4:23

, full Scale . And then I've got Head right

4:25

at the beginning here and that if I zoom

4:27

in on YouTube you'll see . I'll give myself

4:30

a 0.3 millisecond

4:32

start because I don't want the music

4:34

to kick in immediately . This is a single

4:36

, so if it were an album it'd be slightly different . I might

4:38

have them go in and interweaving and fade in in between

4:41

each other . Let's see what plugins we've got on this

4:43

Master Processor channel . So I'm going to open the plugin

4:45

window and the first one I have is the TDR

4:47

Nova EQ right

4:50

at the beginning . I've then got the TDR

4:52

Katelnikov Compressor . It's not enabled . I

4:54

didn't use it in this session , but it's there as my template

4:56

. I then got the Unison

4:59

by Tone Projects . I love this compressor

5:01

, so a big shout out to Brian Azad of Color Theory

5:03

for putting me onto this compressor , and I think

5:05

I also heard Elaine Rassnick of

5:07

Daughterboard Audio on the Master Emix podcast

5:09

mentioned this as well , which sort of reinforced my decision

5:12

to purchase it , and it is a fantastic plugin , fantastic

5:14

compressor . And I found this recently

5:17

and I love this free plugin . This is

5:19

the Ignite Amps PT EQX

5:22

Poll Tech Emulation . It emulates , I'm led

5:24

to believe , three different Poll Tech , eqs or

5:27

Poll Tech , however you wanna pronounce it , and what

5:29

I find with this plugin a little goes

5:31

a long way . So when you're making changes

5:33

with regards to equalization using this plugin

5:35

, it's very noticeable , but I think

5:38

it is absolutely fantastic . So do go

5:40

and check that out . It's the Ignite Amps PT

5:42

EQX plugin . It

5:44

was free at the time of me getting it . I

5:46

don't know if it still is . And then I've got the

5:48

Shadow Hills Master Compressor . Now this here

5:50

. I am literally just using this to

5:53

run it through to get some sound

5:55

out of this , so it's not actually compressing anything , I

5:57

just want the sound of the nickel setting

6:00

for this particular compressor . Next , I've got

6:02

the Good Hurt Midside Matrix

6:04

, which is another free , fantastic

6:07

plugin that I do recommend going and checking out

6:09

. And then I've got the Blackbox Analog

6:11

Designed by Brainworks for some saturation

6:13

right at the end . So that's my master

6:15

process of channel . So , for the Reaper users out there

6:17

, I wanna make you aware of this amazing feature that I didn't

6:19

know existed until recently . And once again

6:22

, I think I got this from Elaine Rastnik and I listened to the

6:24

Master Emix podcast again . But

6:26

there's this feature at the top here in the plugin

6:28

window . If you're watching this on YouTube and it looks like a dial

6:30

and it's facing all the way right . If I right click on it

6:32

, I can delta solo . So it's the difference

6:35

between dry and wet . So I'm gonna turn that

6:37

on and what it will then do is it will allow me

6:39

to hear the actual sound

6:41

of the compressor . So this

6:43

instance here I'm using the Shadow Hills Industries

6:46

. I'm not compressing by any stretch , I'm

6:48

just using the nickel , iron or steel

6:50

sound of the compressor . So , using

6:53

this feature , I can hear what impact that's

6:55

having on the sound . So let's give that a go . So

6:59

that's nickel , that's

7:02

iron and

7:05

that's steel . So

7:08

I thought I'd just make Reaper users aware of that , if you're not

7:10

already . So that is in the top right and

7:12

it's this little dial next to the blue tick

7:15

and if you right click you can delta solo

7:17

the difference between dry and wet . Give

7:19

it a go . So this next part of my workflow I

7:21

have to give a shout out to Nick De Lorenzo

7:23

of Panorama Mixing and Mastering

7:25

, which is a fantastic mastering

7:28

house and Nick is an incredible mastering

7:30

engineer . Do go check out the YouTube

7:32

channel Panorama Mixing and Mastering , because

7:34

there is a wealth of free

7:37

mastering content on there and I

7:39

absolutely love it because Nick really drills

7:41

in to the science and physics

7:43

behind sound when he gives explanations , which

7:45

I think is incredible . So do go check

7:47

it out , and there's a few bits and pieces from my

7:49

mastering workflow that I've lifted or magpied

7:51

from Nick's workflows to do go check

7:53

it out . I think it's an absolutely fantastic

7:56

online resource . So my next

7:58

one is loudness compression and I'm using this

8:00

for upward compression or parallel compression

8:02

. So I blend this into the

8:04

mix because you can see in this example , if you're

8:06

watching this on YouTube , I've got this set at minus

8:08

15 . So it's just

8:10

adding a bit more body to

8:12

the quieter sections of this

8:15

particular mix . And here

8:17

, if I open the plug in window , I've got the

8:19

Contelnikov compressor again and

8:22

I've got standard clip after it as well

8:24

, just to shave off any peaks

8:26

that are just a bit too

8:28

much and might have an impact on that overall

8:31

headroom . So the next track

8:33

is this . It is the actual

8:35

Mix Master track and it's titled

8:37

AA . Underscore song title

8:39

, underscore mix master . And

8:41

if I click on this , you'll see that I've got a gain

8:44

plugin on here . I've got standard

8:46

clip , I've then got ozone

8:48

and then I've got

8:50

ozone maximizer and

8:53

this , basically , is where I

8:55

am then using limiting to

8:57

get it to the perceived loudness

8:59

that I want to achieve . So

9:01

I've got my gain plugin , so I

9:03

use this . I'm gain staging throughout the

9:06

entire process of

9:08

mastering . So gain staging

9:10

, basically what I'm doing is making sure that

9:12

the level is at the optimum level , feeding

9:15

into the next link in the chain

9:17

. Okay , that is essential . What gain staging

9:19

is ? You're just making sure it's that the optimum level

9:21

to feed into the next link in the chain

9:23

, and that's why I've got this gain plugin here

9:25

, because I wanted to make sure . As you can see here

9:27

I've got set to minus 1.2 before

9:30

it then goes into standard clip . And

9:32

then I've got my ozone 10 and I'm

9:34

using the maximizer here and then

9:36

I've got a second maximizer after that . So

9:38

next I've got the final two

9:41

tracks in this five track mastering

9:43

template . I've got the fourth one

9:45

, which is my compare channel

9:47

or track , and here is literally just the mix

9:49

, the artists interpretation or

9:52

my original mix , if it's my own material , and

9:54

I'm going to use this to compare against my master

9:56

so I can see what changes have been made and

9:58

see if it still fits within

10:00

the desired created vision

10:03

of the mix itself . Then

10:05

I've got a reference track . So I

10:07

am a huge advocate of using references

10:09

, not only in mastering but in mixing and in songwriting

10:12

and production as well . That being

10:14

said , I'm being very hip hypocritical here

10:16

. I haven't used a reference because I'm

10:18

very familiar with this artists work and

10:20

at this point I didn't feel I needed a reference . So

10:23

call me a hypocrite , but otherwise this

10:25

is where I put a reference and I would AB

10:27

the master against this reference track

10:30

. So those are my five tracks that I use

10:32

in my mastering template and let's have a quick

10:34

look at signal flow and what's happening here . So

10:37

I've got my master processor track and if

10:39

I open the routing , you'll see that this is

10:41

rooted to the AA song title mix

10:43

master . There's also a send

10:45

going to the loudness compressor

10:48

as well , and they're both set at zero

10:50

dbfs . Then

10:52

I have my loudness compressor and that is also

10:55

rooted to the AA song

10:57

title mix master track as

10:59

well . And then I've got my AA

11:02

song title mix master here , which is record

11:04

enabled , so I can then record the

11:06

actual finished master when

11:08

I am ready . The compare is

11:10

just rooted to the master

11:12

send and so is the reference

11:15

as well . So it's some really quick

11:17

rooting in there . So that's

11:19

how I would root it , and you can do that with

11:21

any DAW . Everything I've showed you here

11:23

today is possible within any

11:26

DAW . However , if I have got

11:28

that statement wrong , please do let me know in

11:30

the YouTube comments or send

11:32

me a message on Instagram at

11:34

inside the mix podcast , and that is it

11:37

. Simple as that . That is a really basic

11:39

mastering template that you can use in any

11:41

DAW . So let's do a quick summary . I've got

11:43

my master processor where I'm

11:45

putting my mix and I'm doing the bulk

11:47

of my processing . I've then got my loudness

11:50

compression and that is parallel

11:52

compression in essence , and I'm blending that

11:54

in to the mix master . And then I've

11:56

got my master channel , which is where

11:58

I have my limiting and my clip

12:01

and my gain plugins as

12:03

well , and I'm going to use that and it's record

12:05

enabled so I can then record the track into

12:07

my DAW . You want some happy with the mastering

12:09

? Then I've got my compare , my compare

12:11

channel I'm using so I can compare my master

12:13

to the original mix , and then I've got my reference

12:16

channel so I can compare the master

12:18

to a reference track . It's as

12:20

easy as that . Once you have this template

12:22

set up , just go in and to

12:24

I'm sure this is the same with any DAW

12:27

and just put file save as template

12:29

. And I call this in brackets pre

12:31

, then after that master . Okay , folks

12:33

, give it a go , but before

12:35

you leave , do head over to synthmusicmasteringcom

12:39

and check out my guides to

12:41

the five essential free mastering

12:43

plugins .