Gazms Mastering A Mix Technique…

Special thanks to our member Gazm Wood for this great post in the group.

EQ
The tracks in your mix have already been mastered, so any EQ you decide to add should be very subtle. I roll off the low frequencies, anything below 30hz are inaudible but could be present for various reasons. The other thing is add a very slight increase to the high end frequencies (8-10khz) at just a couple of db. This will add a bit of ‘air’ to your mix which may have been lost in the recording process.

Compression
Used to reduce the volume of a signal when it exceeds a threshold, this will help “tame” those peaks and bring down the loudest parts of the mix. For DJ sets I usually stick to these settings:
Ratio – You need a fairly low ratio 2:1 will work well. This is the amount of gain reduction that is going to be applied when the signal exceeds the threshold. The higher the ratio, the heavier the amount of compression.
Attack and release – The attack is the time it takes before the compressor starts to work. For mastering, you will want a slow attack time, so 20ms will give you good results. For release set it to 200ms or if you can, put it on ‘auto’.
Threshold – The threshold will need to be brought down until you see only a small amount of gain reduction.

These settings are easy to remember if you think 2/20/200. Thats how I remember them 😊

Limiting
A limiter is to ensure that the recording has reached its maximum volume throughout the mix. To do this, find the loudest part of the mix and bring down the threshold until the limiter has applied a maximum gain reduction of 2db. Any further reduction of this will sound over compressed as the tracks are already mastered.

BAM!!! One mastered mix!

By Gazm Wood.