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"In The Box" Mastering Session

"In The Box" Mastering Session

Let me walk you through one of my "in the box" sessions! In our studio, we usually use plugins in combination with our hardware (outboard) gear, but let's first begin with "in the box" mastering on this blog. Can we still achieve a great sounding master with plugins only?

Here is the chain we'll be looking into:

0. Before starting our chain: Izotope RX9 (Phase fixing)

1. Black Box Analog Design HG-2 (Saturation)
2. FabFilter Pro Q3 (Subtractive EQ)
3. Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor (Compression + Analog vibe)
4. Acustica Audio & Studio DMI Lift 3 (Additive EQ - low end)
5. Acustica Audio Ivory 5 (Additive EQ - top end)
6. SirAudioTools StandardCLIP (Clipper)
7. FabFilter Pro L2 (Serial Limiting - Transparent)
8. FabFilter Pro L2 (Serial Limiting - Final limiter)

Optional - Send 1: FabFilter Pro Q3 - Parallel EQ
Optional - Send 2: Sonnox Oxford Inflator - Parallel upward processing

Please consider that not a single mastering chain & settings within it will be the same for every track. Every single track is different and requires different treatment with different processors.

The chain I'm about to show is just one of many, so you can actually have a vision of how mastering works and how I personally think while mastering my clients' tracks. Do not copy any strict values.

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0. Before we start our chain: Fixing Phase

Izotope Ozone RX9 is a great tool for fixing phase.

A very first step when I'm about to master my or my clients' track is to run it through RX9 in order to check phase, clicks and some artifacts that I might want to either reduce or completely delete from that audio file. In this example, I used Phase Tool to balance the polarity of the mix on certain parts. This requires careful listening and actually looking at the waveform for potential phase problems. As you can see from the picture, I found a part that was -74 degrees out of phase, so I used RX9's Phase Tool to fix that.

Insert 1: Black Box Analog Design HG-2 (saturation)

De-clicking is also an optional step, depending on your recording.

In terms of saturation, I always decide which saturator to use depending on the track I'm working with. For this track, I decided to use Black Box HG-2 emulation in order to make the track feel more heavy and louder without increasing the peak level. You can experiment with Alt Tube setting if you want more edgy and drastic sounding saturation, but for this track I decided to stay with softer saturation.

Insert 2: FabFilter Pro Q3 (Subtractive EQ)

We placed tuning in optional for a very good reason.

Using FabFilter Pro Q3, I first narrowed the stereo image of my low end with a side channel's low shelf filter. Yes, you usually see engineers doing this using High-Pass filter, but that shouldn't be always the case. Mastering is all about listening, so in this example, a very gentle side channel's low shelf filter worked just fine.
Next, I liked the punch of the track, but I wanted to amplify it slightly, so that's why I used a bit steeper bell filter to amplify around 83Hz. First I wanted to use this filter on my Mid channel only, but it sounded better in stereo for me.
To create a perception of brightness without actually boosting the top with this EQ, I attenuated gently around 220Hz using my bell filter.
Finally, I used my bell filter again to gently amplify the track around 2.9kHz to my taste.

Insert 3: Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor (Compression + Analog vibe)

From all the mastering compressors, this one is by far my favorite.

When it comes to mastering using Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, I personally like to use it on 2 ways. One way of using it is to just run your audio signal through this compressor to pick up the colouration and vibe without actually compressing the signal. Another usage (which I did in this chain) is using it to gently compress and tighten the track with Discrete (VCA) mode only. Yes, Opto & Discrete work nice combined, but I'm sticking with Discrete only for this track. I selected Nickel mode (least amount of saturation), dialed my release to faster settings, my attack to the slowest setting and in terms of gain reduction, I'm doing only 1-2dB max.

Insert 4: Acustica Audio & Studio DMI Lift 3 (Additive EQ - low end)

Acustica Audio & Studio DMI Lift 3 - Insane plugin.

Thanks to Acustica Audio, I'm able to access their awesome products & processors such as Lift 3. As you can see, I'm using only one of many functions it offers. I usually use it in my chain, but for this track, I really liked how it sound on low end, so that's why used a low shelf filter to gently amplify it. I noticed that Acustica's plugins sound so good on low end for some reason, and that's why I prefer using them on my low end, but there are also some that really give some nice top end (next insert). You'll see me talking about Lift 3 in the future, so don't worry! This plugin is a beast!

Insert 5: Acustica Audio Ivory 5 (Additive EQ - top end)

Acustica Audio Ivory 5 - Mastering Equalizer that offers great sound and flexible controls over your work.

If you're familiar or ever heard of Maselec EQ, Ivory 5 is a great emulation that offers a great sound. I'm using this mastering trick to implement a very old trick (12kHz, 1dB boost) which sounded very nice to me in this case. The thing with Ivory 5 is to actually pressing the "IN" button below the band you want to affect so you can actually affect the signal. Also, make sure to select "PRE-IN" so you can get the sound of this great emulation!

Insert 6: SirAudioTools StandardCLIP (Clipper)

Notice how I'm not adding any gain. I'm only aiming for clipping!

StandardCLIP is one of my favorite clippers, so that's why you can find me using it very often in my chains (even when I'm working with outboard gear). The way of me using it is only pulling down the clip fader so I'm actually clipping the signal until I notice distortion. Then I back it up a bit until it sounds good. By doing this, I'm rounding the peaks and preparing my track for limiting. There are various usages using this clipper, but this is only one of them. I used 4x oversampling and soft clip mode.

Insert 7: FabFilter Pro L2 (Serial Limiting - Transparent)

I usually go for different modes since I like to experiment, but for this purpose, I needed transparent mode first.

To limit this track, I used serial limiting since that's the way of achieving more natural and loud limiting. The way of using it is actually splitting the gain reduction (for example 2dB) between two limiters (one will take 1dB and another one 1dB for example). I'm keeping almost all the settings at default.

Insert 8: FabFilter Pro L2 (Serial Limiting - Final limiter)

There countless limiters that I like to use as my final limiter, but for the purpose of this blog post and easier understanding, I'm going to stick with FabFilter Pro L2 again!

As my final limiter is going to push the track to the loudness I aimed to achieve (around -8 LUFS and 4-5 RMS) I first selected the Punchy mode, kept the default settings except channel linking settings. I adjusted the transient setting closer to 0 and slightly reduced release. With this limiter, I'm doing only around 1.1dB of gain reduction which worked absolutely fine in my case.

Send 1: FabFilter Pro Q3 - Parallel EQ

This parallel EQ is optional and highly depends on the track you're mastering. I personally like to isolate for example either mid range or high end and then maybe process even more on my parallel channel so I can later blend it in with my original signal to taste. However, as mentioned, this is very optional.

Send 2: Sonnox Oxford Inflator - Parallel upward processing

As in the send 1, I'll create a send 2, insert my Linear Phase EQ to isolate my mid or high range frequencies so I can put Inflator after and introduce some upward processing on that frequency range. Finally, I'll blend my parallel channel with my main channel. This is an awesome trick for sure!

Conclusion:

As you can see, there's a lot going on in this chain, but that's not always the case. As mentioned many times in my posts & work, none of this is a must & strict to have in this chain, so have that in mind.

Not a single chain will be the same, so have that in mind too! This chain was one example of how I personally processed just one of many masters I did in my studio. Every chain is different and each setting will be different too.

If you want to share your mastering chains with us, or you have some recommendations that you want to tell, feel free to reach to us on social media or via e-mail address provided on our site.

Filed in: Mastering, Mastering Chain
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