Release Time! Ep. 04:Technical best practices

This episode we’ll get briefly into some mastering minutia in the form of technical best practices for different media. A lot of times your mastering engineer should be taking care of these items for you.

As the artist, you want to have at least a basic sense of some technical best practices, so you’re not surprised during the creative recording process, and so that the creative choices you make can play best with the medium on which your music will be heard.

Streaming music best practices

-keep your peaks below -1 dBFS using True Peak metering.

-Streaming favors music with greater dynamic range, over highest possible volume. You really don’t need try to compete on loudness anymore, because most streamers use loudness normalization to even out the playback volume, after you submit your tracks. Instead, compete on musical impact and sound quality: this requires loud/soft contrast.

-Record in at least 24 bit when possible.

-You have some creative flexibility when it comes to big compressed bass moves in the mix.

-Quality can sometimes vary depending on your network connection or using a phone vs. a computer.

-Good mono compatibility is always preferable, but can be pushed a bit, i.e. the stereo image made wider.

-Make sure your mastering engineer knows about, and accounts for loudness normalization.

-Loudness normalization means that you often want to go for a master that is competitively loud but also sounds great, rather than the absolute highest level at all costs, because the streaming service will just turn it right back down if it’s super loud, and make it sound worse in doing so.

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If you want to have some fun, go into your Spotify settings, turn off loudness normalization, max out the quality slider, and go relisten to your favorite records.

Now you’re getting closer to what the masters sounded like when they were submitted by the artist. Using streaming platforms as a consumer, the volume of the track as it appears is different than what you hear when it was submitted by the artist.

This may strongly change your opinions on these records! I’m a big fan of loudness normalization, but it can result in some very noticeable (and generally positive) changes to the music.

CD best practices

-If you’re a very loud band, this medium gives you some flexibility to push the level even louder.

-Spending more for a DDP file (Red Book standard) makes a noticeable difference in quality and accuracy of the CD manufacturing process.

-16 bits maximum bit depth, so this medium often will require special masters that have been converted from higher bit rates, as budget allows.

Vinyl best practices

-Use a quality provider, and make sure your cutting engineer is competent. Ask your provider who they use, or hire your own cutting engineer to make the master cut, and deliver it yourself.

-A good vinyl master will often have much lower overall level when compared to a streaming master, greater dynamic range, and will avoid peak limiting.

-This medium isn’t as forgiving when it comes to extreme bass levels, extreme loudness, or a wider stereo field.

-Allow months for manufacturing time.

Cassette best practices

-A lofi, vibey medium.

-Not designed to be the most accurate and pristine audiophile listening experience, which is great as long as the artist is aware and accepting of these limitations.

-Certain styles of music may not be helped by the more compressed lofi vibe: some types of jazz and classical music could sound better on other mediums. This tends to be very dependent on the individual artist.

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