Best Mastering Chain

[Music] welcome back to the sage audio channel today we'll delve into what might be the best plug-in based mastering chain available we'll cover the eight inserts used in this chain explain what they're doing why they're in this order and listen to how they impact the sound of the music step by step so if you're looking for a great signal chain or you simply want to compare yours to another like the video subscribe to the channel and stick around for the full video but first if you're an artist engineer or producer and you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at sageaudio.com we'll master it for you and send you a free mastered sample of it all you have to do is set up an account upload the song and we do the rest right off the bat it's important to recognize that there is no absolute best mastering signal subjective as well as multiple technical factors like genre frequency response the mix's dynamic range and a lot of other variables will affect how to master a track however there are some signal chains that work incredibly well and can be adjusted to fit just about any circumstance the signal chain that i'll be describing here is one of if not the best plug-in signal chain that i've come across after experimenting with various plugins collectively and in this particular order the tone impressiveness balance and overall enjoyability of the music is increased dramatically in my opinion so with that said let's start off with our first insert which is the fabfilter pro q3 used for subtractive equalization [Music] the fat filter pro q3 allows for subtle colorless equalization this makes it a great first insert in a mastering signal chain with it you can decrease the amplitude of various aspects of the signal to balance it out before any amplification occurs because this plug-in is mid-side you can attenuate some of the side image to cut out low frequencies and make them mono furthermore you can cut out some of the mid frequencies below 15 hertz to give yourself some more headroom lastly i used a narrow dynamic band to attenuate some of the sibilance of the vocal these settings in combination with a natural face setting gave me a great foundation for all of the subsequent steps let's take a listen to it [Music] the second insert is soothe 2 which i used for de-essing and compression sooth 2 is an interesting and unique plug-in it attenuates frequencies dynamically and based on the incoming signal this can be used during mastering to control sibilance and other harsh frequencies in an incredibly accurate way whereas a multi-band compressor would attenuate unrelated frequencies as would most de-essers suit 2 attenuates just the relevant parts of the signal using its eq-like display i limit the processing just to the higher aspects of the frequency spectrum i use the soft setting as well as limit the amount of attenuation occurring furthermore i used two times over sampling and the ultra mode to minimize phase cancellation and aliasing lastly i increased the sharpness to make the attenuation more precise now i use this plug-in before saturation or distortion to ensure that i'm not increasing the perceivability of some of the more aggressive frequencies of the signal so let's take a listen to this plug-in plugin [Music] [Music] insert 3 is the fabfilter saturn 2 which i use for saturation and harmonic distortion [Music] saturn 2 is an amazing plugin for saturation and harmonic generation one of its presets has been a go-to for me for years the tube offers unique and powerful harmonic distortion and compression what i like to do is split the processing into three bands to give myself some more control when the highs are a little harsh i'll use warm tape saturation to keep them present but to a lesser extent similarly if the lows are weak i can use the gentle saturation algorithm to make them more aggressive in this case i stuck with the warm tube setting now another thing to note is that when you divide the signal you're no longer affecting all bands in a similar way the modulation and filters created by the preset remain on the middle band and don't transfer over to the low or high bands i find that this works pretty well since the settings are best suited for affecting the mid-range of a master lastly the linear phase option makes the distortion more accurate or in other words with less unwanted artifacts high quality introduces over sampling to avoid aliasing let's take a listen to this plugin [Applause] insert four is soft tube tape which i use for saturation stereo widening and gentle equalization [Music] there are a lot of tape plugins out there but this one i found subtle enough to work well for mastering with just a little bit of saturation at tape type 2 i found that this master filled out nicely furthermore i increased the tape speed to 30 inches per second for a cleaner sound with slightly attenuated lows this setting worked well for this mix but i found that it's worked well for a lot of masters in the controller section i boosted the high slightly and very subtly increased the crosstalk this introduces mild phase cancellation between the left and right channels that spreads the signal further into the stereo field let's take a listen to it [Music] insert five is the oxford inflator which i used for loudness enhancement and harmonic distortion the sonix oxford line of mastering plugins have been around for a little while impressively they still hold up to this day this is especially true for their inflator keeping the input and output the same i increased the effect of the plug-in to around 20 additionally i used band split since it preserved the high frequencies a little better to my ear now if you use this setting be sure to keep an eye on your output as it might cause increases to the amplitude and subsequent clipping for the curve i increased it very subtly to create a low frequency heavy tone but try negative curves for a more subtle effect with slightly more harmonic distortion i like using this plugin after my saturation plugins since it brings forward some of the harmonics that they created let's take a listen to it [Music] for insert six we have the weiss eq1 for additive equalization [Music] the weiss eq1 is a perfect addition to any set of plugins as a line for line recoding of the original hardware it's hard not to love how transparent this equalizer sounds i like using the linear phase mode for an incredibly clean and smooth tone then i'll subtly increase some of the lows mids and highs there's nothing too complex going on here we're just using a very nice equalizer to subtly increase what sounds good about the track let's take a listen to it [Music] for insert seven i used the weiss ds1 mark iii for compression limiting and stereo imaging [Music] like the previous weiss plugin this one is an exact model of the digital code used to create the hardware unit with the ds1 i'm going to use both compression and limiting for this i'm using safe limiting to avoid clipping and mid side processing to compress the mid channel in turn making the sides more pronounced and increasing the stereo width i achieve anywhere from 1 to 2 db of compression and 2 to 3 db with the limiter i also use automatic game makeup from the compressor which i find provides a really rich and full sound i keep my attack relatively quick at 20 milliseconds and the release between 40 to 100 milliseconds lastly i reduce the output gain because we have one more step to complete before the master is done and i want to avoid clipping let's take a listen to it [Music] our last insert is the fabfilter pro l2 or the oxford limiter used for limiting and setting the output although we've already limited with the ds1 i really like the sound of combining two limiters this way the processing can be split between the two and you can get the timbre of both i like the transparency of the fabfilter l2 for this especially on the modern setting which is a great option for avoiding distortion using a little lookahead over sampling true peak detection and lowering the plug-in's output to compensate for gain changes during encoding is also a good idea the oxford limiter on the other hand has a more powerful sound slightly warmer and a bit more pop-centric the enhancer slider sounds like the inflator and pulls some of the lesser herd details forward the autocomp ensures that clipping distortion doesn't occur but it doesn't hurt to lower the output level a little as well lastly i don't like to use a deter since it's really not necessary when using a 24-bit recording let's take a listen to it [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] an optional insert is the weiss de-esser which i used to control sibilance prior to distortion [Music] for this particular song i did use a de-esser however i'm showing it here after the fact because i don't think it belongs in every signal chain this mix in particular had some harsh sibilance that needed to be handled earlier on i put this plug-in prior to the soothe 2 to help control the high frequency range i used a quicker attack longer release and used only the high pass filter de-esser furthermore i kept the range smaller to avoid significant compression let's listen to this full signal chain from start to finish [Music] the possibility [Music] god if i told you i was living [Music] [Music] just because if you just [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] got a little lost [Music] me [Music] i thought again [Music] is [Music] so these are our thoughts on what might be the best mastering chain but what do you think there are bound to be some steps or plugins that you use which we didn't in this example so let us know what we missed in the comments section below also if you're an artist or an engineer send us one of your mixes at sageaudio.com we'll master it for you and send you a free mastered sample of it all you have to do is set up an account upload the song and we do the rest but thank you so much for watching we really hope you enjoyed it if you did please like and share this video with your friends this way we know if you'd like to see more videos like this one also you can subscribe to the channel we release three to four new videos every week and subscribing is the best way to stay up to date there's a comment section where you can leave your thoughts on this video or you can make a suggestion for a future video and again if you're an artist or an engineer and you have a mix that you need mastered send it to us at sageaudio.com we'll master it for you and send you a free mastered sample thank you so much for watching we'll see you in the next video

Channel: Sage Audio

Views: 83,464

Keywords: mastering music, best plugin chain for mastering, mastering, making music, best mastering chain, tape plugins, weiss ds1, tpa eplugins, mastering audio, sonnox oxford, Audio Engineering, inflator, how to master, fabfilter, audio

Id: jc6JZPMM65s

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020