GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING YOUR TRACK FOR MASTERING

This is a short but sweet explanation of the targets you should be aiming at when preparing your track to be sent for mastering. We offer this service if you don’t have the patience, monitoring equipment, or experience to be mastering your music yourself. On a side-note; before even considering mastering your should have a solid mix down in place. Check out our guide here for bouncing stems in preparation for mixdown.

Please read these guidelines before submitting tracks for mastering.. These guidelines are written with Ableton Live in mind, however the principles remain the same irrespective of your DAW of choice.

Get your tracks mastered by professionals! With over 25 years experience we will turn your track into its best self. We also do Attended Mastering Sessions where you can sit in and gain knowledge while we show you how we professionally master your tracks

BEFORE BOUNCING

• Mix-down the various levels of your track so that they are balanced and panned as you want them, leaving plenty head-room on the master channel.

• Ensure the project has enough "head-room" - when you listen back, the master channel should be peaking around -6db, with the fader at 0db. Don’t worry if there is an occasional small peak over -6db.

• Ensure that there are no active effects or devices on the master channel of your project. If you have put devices on the master please turn them off before bouncing.

• Leave at least 1 second of blank audio at the start and end of the track to ensure no initial transients or reverb tails are missed on export.

EXPORTING THE PROJECT

1. Once you are happy with your mix proceed to bounce the project down using the following settings;

• File Type – WAV

• Sample Rate - 44100 (48000 also accepted)

• Bit Depth - 24 (32 also accepted)

• Dithering - OFF (dithering is only necessary if sample rate conversion is taking place. If this is the case use Triangle or POW-r 1)

2. Send the files to decloak.mcr@gmail.com using wetransfer