How to Professionaly Prepare Your Tracks for Audio Mastering

1. Perfect Your Mix

The quality of your mix directly influences the final master. Your mix should sound as close as possible to how you want the final track to sound, minus the overall loudness and polish that mastering will provide.

• Balance: Make sure the levels of all elements are well balanced, and that no particular instrument or frequency band is overwhelming the others.
• Clarity: Every element should be clearly audible and have its own 'space' in the mix.
• Dynamics: The dynamics of the mix should be well controlled,
• Panning: Proper use of the stereo field can bring your mix to life. However, be cautious not to pan too drastically, which can cause an imbalanced stereo image.
• EQ: Carefully use EQ to clean up any muddiness and to allow each instrument to shine in its own frequency range.

2. Mind the Headroom

Leaving adequate headroom in your mix is useful for mastering. This is the space between the highest sample peak and 0 dBFS, the full-scale limit for fixed-point digital audio.

• Peaks around -6 dBFS can be a useful starting point, but there is no universal required peak level. Follow your mastering engineer’s delivery specifications and avoid clipping.
• A mix peaking above -3 dBFS does not automatically need remixing. If more headroom is needed, reduce output gain without changing the balance, and check that no earlier processing is clipping.

3. Check Your Phase Relationships

Phase issues can severely degrade the quality of your audio and cause problems during mastering.

• Use tools like phase correlation meters to spot any phase problems, and correct them at the mix stage.
• If you are using a stereo widener, be sure to check the phase relationship between the left and right channels. If the phase correlation is too low, it can cause mono compatibility issues.

4. Keep Processing to a Minimum

Avoid using any mastering specific processors like a limiter or loudness maximizer on your master bus.

• These are tools that a mastering engineer would typically use, and they can restrict what can be done at the mastering stage.
• Keep mix-bus processing that is important to the sound of your mix. Consider bypassing final loudness limiting, and provide a limited reference if it helps explain your intent.

5. Export the Correct Format

Export your pre-master in a high-resolution, lossless audio format such as WAV or AIFF.

• 24-bit or 32-bit depth is recommended. This provides a high level of detail and dynamic range.
• The sample rate should be the same as your project's sample rate. Common sample rates are 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, or even higher.
• If you are exporting a stereo file, be sure to export it in stereo. If you are exporting a mono file, be sure to export it in mono.

Conclusion

Taking the time to prepare your tracks for professional audio mastering can significantly improve the outcome of the final product. A well-crafted mix, sufficient headroom, proper phase relationships, minimal processing, correct export format, and clear communication can all contribute to a successful mastering process and ultimately, a superior sounding track.