The Mastering Engineer's Handbook 5th Edition

THE

MASTERING

ENGINEER’S

HANDBOOK

BOBBY OWSINSKI

FIFTH EDITION

The Mastering Engineer’s Handbook

by Bobby Owsinski

Published by:

Bobby Owsinski Media Group

4109 West Burbank, Blvd.

Burbank, CA 91505

© Bobby Owsinski 2024

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For permission to use text or information from this product, submit requests to [email protected].

Please note that much of this publication is based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although the author and publisher have made every reasonable attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this Guide, they assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Also, you should use this information as you see fit, and at your own risk. Your particular situation may not be exactly suited to the examples illustrated herein; in fact, it’s likely that they won’t be the same, and you should adjust your use of the information and recommendations accordingly.

Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms.

Finally, nothing in this book is intended to replace common sense, legal, medical or other professional advice, and is meant to inform and entertain the reader.

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Table of contents

Introduction

Meet the Mastering Engineers

Part I: The Mechanics Of Mastering

The Essence of Mastering

Why Master Anyway?

From Vinyl, to CDs, to MP3s, and to Streaming

The Difference between You and a Pro

Takeaways

Digital Audio Basics

Sample Rate

Bit Depth

Standard Audio File Formats

Data Compression

Takeaways

Prepping for Mastering

Mixing for Mastering

Takeaways

Monitoring For Mastering

The Acoustic Environment

Let’s Fix Your Listening Area

The Monitors

Listening Techniques For Mastering

Takeaways

Mastering Tools

The Compressor

The Limiter

The Equalizer

The De-Esser

Saturation

Convertors

Consoles/Monitor Control

The Digital Audio Workstation

Other Tools

Takeaways

Metering Tools

The Peak Meter

The RMS Meter

The Phase Scope

The Phase Correlation Meter

The Spectrum Analyzer

The Dynamic Range Meter

Dynamic Ranges of Different Genres of Music

The LUFS Meter

Takeaways

Mastering Techniques

The Basic Mastering Technique

Creating A Loud Master

Frequency Balance Techniques

The Mastering Signal Path

Adding Effects

Editing Techniques For Mastering

Parts Production

Multiple Masters

Mastering Music For Film And Television

Takeaways

Dedicated Mastering Plugins

Dedicated Mastering Plugins

AI-Assisted Mastering Plugins

Where To Insert A Mastering Plugin

Takeaways

Online Mastering Services

Pro Studio e-Mastering

Automated Online Mastering

Takeaways

Mastering For Online Distribution

Data Compression Explained

Creating Files For Streaming Services

Submitting To Online Streaming Services

Creating A FLAC File

Apple Digital Masters

Other High-Resolution Platforms

Takeaways

Mastering For Vinyl

A Brief History Of Vinyl

How A Vinyl Record Works

The Vinyl Signal Chain

How Records Are Pressed

New Advances In Vinyl Technology

Tips For Ordering Vinyl Records

Takeaways

Mastering For CD

CD Basics

How CDs Work

Mastering For CD

Delivery Formats

How CDs Are Made

Takeaways

Immersive Mastering

The Immersive Audio Backstory

An Introduction To Dolby Atmos

Sony 360 Reality Audio

Takeaways

Part II: The Interviews

Maor Appelbaum

Eric Boulanger - The Bakery

Colin Leonard - SING Mastering

Pete Lyman - Infrasonic Mastering

Ryan Schwabe

Ian Shepherd

Howie Weinberg

Bob Ludwig - Gateway Mastering

Doug Sax - The Mastering Lab

Glossary

About Bobby Owsinski

Bobby Owsinski Bibliography

Bobby Owsinski LinkedIn Learning Video Courses

Bobby Owsinski Online Courses

Bobby Owsinski’s Online Connections

Introduction

It ’ s already been 23 years since the first edition of The Mastering Engineer ’ s Handbook came out, and to say that things have changed is a major understatement. It ’ s safe to say that there ’ s been a continuing revolution in the mastering world, with old technologies replaced and revived, and new ones constantly evolving. Gone are the days of tape machines (for the most part), and soon even the CD might be a thing of the past (although the format continues to defy predictions and survive).

Most mastering engineers today don’t feel the need to invest in heavy iron customized outboard gear that used to be necessary for a high-quality mastering job, since much of that particular sound can now be duplicated in-the-box.

Even though the basic mastering tools are still the same, they’ve mostly moved into the world of the DAW, so even someone with the most entry-level system now has a set of powerful tools that only the top mastering pros had access to in the past. And maybe best of all, it’s now possible to prep just about any kind of audio for any kind of distribution (which is what mastering really is) at home in your personal studio.

Just like everything else in music and recording, some excellent mastering tools are available to anyone with a Digital Audio Workstation. That makes the process of mastering very inexpensive compared to previous generations of musicians and audio engineers.

But just because you own a hammer doesn’t mean that you know how to swing it. A lot of harm can come from misuse of these powerful tools if the process and concepts are not thoroughly understood.

And that’s what this book is about.

In it, we’ll take a look at how the top mastering pros perform their magic as they describe their processes in the interviews. Through this, you’ll develop a strong reference point so you can either do your own mastering (and hopefully do no harm to the material, just like a doctor) or know when it’s time to call a pro and properly prep the program for them to get the best results possible.

More so than any other process in audio, mastering is more than just knowing the procedure and owning the equipment. More than any other job in audio, mastering done at its highest level is about the long, hard grind of experience. It’s about the cumulative knowledge gained from 12-hour days of listening to both great and terrible mixes and working on all types of music, not just the type you like.

Among the many things this book will provide is an insider’s look at the process, not so much from my eyes, but from that of the legends and greats of the business.

My goal with this book is a simple one: first to show that there’s a lot more to a professional mastering job than meets the eye, and with that in mind, to help you do your own mastering if that’s what you want.

For those of you who have read my previous books like The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook and The Recording Engineer’s Handbook, you’ll notice that the format of this book is similar. It’s divided into two sections:

Part I: The Mechanics of Masteringprovides an overview of the history, tools, philosophy, background, and tips and tricks used by the best mastering engineers in the business.

Part II: The Interviews is a behind-the-scenes look at the mastering world through the eyes of some of the finest (and in some cases, legendary) mastering engineers in the world.

Along with this book, you might also want to take a look at my Mastering Audio Techniques course at LinkedIn Learning for a more visual approach to how mastering is done.

Meet the Mastering Engineers

Here’s a list of the mastering engineers who have contributed to this book, along with some of their credits. I’ve tried to include not only the most notable names in the business, but also engineers who deal with specialty clients. I’ll be quoting them from time to time, so I wanted to introduce them early on so you have some idea of their background when they pop up.

Israeli-born Maor Appelbaum has built a diverse international client base that includes Faith No More, Limp Bizkit, Sepultura to Eric Gales and Yes. Rob Halford, Yngwie Malmsteen, Dream Theater, and many more. He’s also designed several audio hardware devices and plugins.

Eric Boulanger is the founder of The Bakery mastering studio, as well as a professional studio violinist. A protege of legendary mastering engineer Doug Sax, Eric has mastered GRAMMY-winning or nominated projects for Green Day, Hozier, Selena Gomez, Colbie Caillat, OneRepublic, Imagine Dragons and more.

Pete Lyman is owner of Infrasonic, whose Nashville and Los Angeles locations provide services in archival, mixing, mastering, vinyl, immersive and more. Pete’s mastering career spans thousands of titles over the last two decades including Grammy-Award winning and Grammy-nominated albums for Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Sturgill Simpson, John Prine, Weezer, Panic! At the Disco and more. And yes, he still cuts vinyl.

Ian Shepherd has worked on thousands of CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays for all of the major record labels, TV stations and independents, including several number one singles and award-winning albums for artists like Keane, Tricky, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Deep Purple, The Orb,  Culture Club, Porcupine Tree, Andy Weatherall, The Las, Tentacles, New Order and King Crimson among many others. He’s also developed two mastering plugins, and is the organizer of Dynamic Range Day.

Ryan Schwabe is a two-time Grammy-nominated, platinum-certified mixing and mastering engineer. In 2020, he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album for Baauer’s Planet’s Mad, and in 2023 he was nominated for Best Sound Engineered Album, Non-Classical for mixing and mastering Baynk’s Adolescence. He’s also owner of the music production and engineering company Xcoustic Sound, the music technology company Schwabe Digital, and co-owner of the digital record label Rare MP3s. And he’s also the developer of the new Gold Clip mixing and mastering plugin.

Atlanta-based Colin Leonard and his proprietary mastering technology has managed to convert many of music top mixers into fans. With credits that include Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, Bad Bunny, Migos, John Legend and many more, Colin is proving that there’s a new way to look at mastering that’s equally effective as the traditional techniques. Along with his custom mastering service at SING Mastering, Colin is also the creator of Aria automated online mastering, the latest trend in convenient and inexpensive mastering.

Howie Weinberg has 20 Grammy Awards and 76 Grammy nominations, 4 TEC awards, 2 Juno awards, 1 Mercury Prize award, over 200 gold and platinum records, an unbelievable 8,600 total credits that have accumulated 91 billion streams. His credits include some of the originators of hip hop like Kurtis Blow, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash and Public Enemy, to legends like U2, Nirvana, Sheryl Crow, The Clash, Madonna, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, John Mellencamp, Ozzy Osbourne – the list goes on.

I’ve also included edited interviews of some of the legends of mastering from previous books, since it’s useful to understand that mastering really hasn’t changed all that much in 50+ years.

Doug Sax. Perhaps the Godfather of all mastering engineers, Doug was the first independent when he started his famous Mastering Lab in Los Angeles in 1967. Since then, he has worked his magic with such diverse talents as The Who, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Kenny Rogers, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Earth, Wind & Fire, Diana Krall, Dixie Chicks, Rod Stewart, Jackson Browne, and many, many more.

Bob Ludwig. Bob is considered one of the giants in the mastering business, with 13 Grammy Awards and 22 other nominations coming from his more than 3,000 credits. Among his massive credit list include legendary records from Queen, U2, Sting, the Police, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Guns N’ Roses, Rush, MötleyCrüe, Megadeth,Metallica, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, the Bee Gees,Madonna,Elton John,and Daft Punk.

As a bonus, there are a number of additional interviews with mastering legends that you can access online at bobbyowsinski.com/mastering. These include:

Bernie Grundman. One of the most widely respected names in the recording industry, Bernie has mastered literally hundreds of platinum and gold albums, including some of the most successful landmark recordings of all time, such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Steely Dan’s Aja, and Carole King’s Tapestry.

Bob Katz. Co-owner of Orlando-based Digital Domain, Bob specializes in mastering audiophile recordings of acoustic music, from folk to classical. The former technical director of the widely acclaimed Chesky Records, Bob’s recordings have received disc of the month in Stereophile and other magazines numerous times, and his recording of Portraits of Cuba by Paquito D’Rivera, won the 1997 Grammy for Best Latin-Jazz Recording. Bob’s mastering clients include major labels EMI, WEA-Latina, BMG, and Sony Classical, as well as numerous independent labels.

Greg Calbi. One of the owners of Sterling Sound in New York City, Greg’s credits include Bob Dylan, John Lennon, U2, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Blues Traveler, and Sarah McLachlan, among many, many others.

Glenn Meadows. Glenn is a Nashville-based two-time Grammy winner and a multi–TEC award nominee who has worked on scores of gold and platinum records for a diverse array of artists, including Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Travis, Delbert McClinton, and Reba McEntire, as well as for multi-platinum producers such as Tony Brown, Jimmy Bowen, and Mutt Lange.

Bob Ohlhsson. After cutting his first number one record (Stevie Wonder’s Uptight) at age 18, Bob worked on an amazing 80 top ten records while working for Motown in Detroit. Now located in Nashville, Bob’s unique view of the technology world and his insightful account of the history of the industry makes for a truly fascinating read.

Gene Grimaldi. Gene is the chief engineer at Oasis Mastering in Los Angeles, and has a list of blockbuster clients that include Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ellie Goulding, Nicki Minaj, and many more.

David Glasser. David is the founder and chief engineer of Airshow Mastering in Boulder, Colorado, and Takoma Park, Maryland, and has worked for some 80 Grammy nominees. He’s also an expert in catalog restoration, having worked on releases by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the Grateful Dead, among many others.

Dave Collins. Operating out of his own Dave Collins Mastering studios in Hollywood, Dave has mastered projects for Sting, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, and Soundgarden, among many others.

Eddy Schreyer. Noted veteran engineer Eddy opened Oasis Mastering in 1996 after mastering stints at Capitol, MCA, and Future Disc. With a list of chart topping clients that span the various musical genres such as Babyface, Eric Clapton, Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple, Hootie and the Blowfish, Offspring, Korn, Dave Hollister, Pennywise, and Exhibit, Eddy’s work is heard and respected world-wide.

While you probably won’t have access to the gear, playback systems, and rooms that the above engineers have, that’s okay because a great mastering job can be at your fingertips if you follow their advice and examples, and use the greatest tool you have available—your ears.

Part I: The Mechanics Of Mastering

1

The Essence of Mastering

The term mastering is either completely misunderstood or shrouded in mystery, but the process is really pretty simple. Technically speaking, mastering is the intermediate step between mixing the audio and having it replicated or distributed. Up until recently, we would define it a s follows:

Mastering is the process of turning a collection of songs into an album by making them sound like they belong together in tone, volume, and timing (spacing between songs).

That was the old way to explain mastering when the album was king. Since we live in a singles world today, the definition has to be tweaked for our current production flow. Let’s use this definition instead.

Mastering is the process of fine-tuning the level, frequency balance, and metadata of a track in preparation for distribution.

That first definition isn’t obsolete though, since albums are still around (and probably always will be), but the fact of the matter is that individual songs are always played in a collection at some point. The collection can be a physical album like a CD or vinyl record or, more commonly, a playlist where the song is played before or after someone else’s track on the radio, or on an online distribution service like Spotify or Apple Music. Of course, you want all of your songs to sound at least as good as the others that you listen to or the ones played before or after them.

I think that mastering is a way of maximizing music to make it more effective for the listener as well as maybe maximizing it in a competitive way for the industry. It’s the final creative step and the last chance to do any modifications that might take the song to the next level.

—Mastering legend Bernie Grundman

So loosely speaking, that’s what mastering is. Here’s what mastering is not—it’s not a tool or a plugin that automatically masters a song with little or no effort from the operator. All too often people have the misconception that mastering is only about EQing a track to make it sound bigger, but it’s really more of an art form that relies on an individual’s skill, experience with various genres of music, and good taste. In fact, it’s often said that 95 percent of all mastering is in the ears, and not the tools.

Mastering is about having a conversation with a person. It’s about me understanding the artist’s intent and trying to help them realize it to make their music the best it can be. It’s also about understanding that some songs are meant to be quiet, others loud, some meant to be angry even though they’re quiet, or fun even though they’re loud. Mastering is about grasping the emotion behind the music, and AI tools just aren’t there yet—and I’m not sure they ever will be.

—Ian Shepherd

The more work you do, the better you become at handling different situations, because mastering is a numbers game—the more you do, the more you learn.

—Maor Appelbaum

While the tools for audio mastering do require more precision than in other audio operations, the bottom line is that this is an area of audio where experience really does matter.

Why Master Anyway?

Mastering should be considered the final step in the creative process, as this is the last chance to polish and fix a project. Not all projects need mastering, especially if they’re not destined to be heard by the public, but here are a few instances when mastering can help:

If you have a song that sounds pretty good by itself but doesn’t sound as loud as other songs.

If you have a song that sounds pretty good by itself but sounds too bright or dull next to other songs.

If you have a song that sounds pretty good by itself but sounds too bottom heavy or bottom light compared to other songs.

A well-mastered project simply sounds better if the mastering is done well (that’s the key phrase, of course). It sounds complete, polished, and finished. The project that might have sounded like a demo before now sounds like a record because:

Judicious amounts of EQ and compression are added to make the project sound bigger, fuller, richer, and louder.

The levels on each song of the album (if there is one) are adjusted so they all have the same apparent level or have the same level as other professionally mastered songs in the same genre.

The fades aren fixed, if needed, so that they’re smooth.

Any distorted parts or glitches are edited out.

All the songs of an album blend together into a cohesive unit.

In the case of mastering for CD or vinyl, the spreads (the time between each song) are inserted so the songs flow seamlessly together.

The songs destined for a CD or vinyl record are sequenced so they fall in the correct order.

ISRC codes and the proper metadata are inserted into each track.

A backup clone is created and stored in case anything happens to the master.

Any shipping or uploading to the desired replication facility is taken care of.

As you can see, there’s a lot more to mastering than meets the eye and ear when you really get into it. To better understand mastering, let’s see how it has evolved over the years.

From Vinyl, to CDs, to MP3s, and to Streaming

Until 1948, there was no distinction between different types of audio engineers because everything was recorded directly onto 10-inch vinyl records that played at 78 rpm. In 1948, however, the era of the mastering engineer began when Ampex introduced its first commercial magnetic tape recorder.

Since most recording at the time began using magnetic tape, a transfer had to be made to a vinyl master for delivery to the pressing plant to press records, hence the first incarnation of the mastering engineer was born. There was no concept of the process that we now consider to be mastering at the time though, so they were called a transfer engineer. (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: A disc-cutting lathe

© 2024 Bobby Owsinski

This transfer process was highly challenging because the level applied to the master vinyl lacquer when cutting the grooves was so crucial. Too low a level and you get a noisy disc, but hit it too hard and you destroy the disc and maybe the expensive ($15,000 in ’50s and ’60s dollars) cutting stylus of the lathe too (see Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2: A disc-cutting stylus

© 2024 Bobby Owsinski

In 1955, Ampex released tape machines that had a new feature called Selective Synchronous Recording, or Sel Sync, which gave the multitrack recorder the ability to overdub new tracks, thus changing the recording industry forever.

At this point there became a real distinction between the recording and mastering engineer, since the jobs now differed so greatly, although many were trained at both jobs (the EMI training program at Abbey Road made mastering the last job before you became a full engineer).

In 1957, the stereo vinyl record became commercially available and really pushed the industry to what many say was the best-sounding audio ever. Mastering engineers, who were now known as cutters, found ways to make the discs louder (and as a result less noisy) by applying equalization and compression.

Producers and artists began to take notice that certain records would actually sound louder on the radio, and if it played louder, then the listeners usually thought it sounded better (although they were speculating instead of using any scientific data at the time), and maybe the disc sold better as a result. Hence, a new breed of mastering engineer was born—this one with some creative control and ability to influence the final sound of a record, rather than just simply transferring the audio from medium to medium.

An interesting distinction between American and British mastering engineers developed though. In the U.S., mastering was —and still is— considered the final step in the creation of an album, while in the UK they look at it as the first step in manufacturing. As a result, American mastering engineers tended to have much more creative leeway in what they were allowed to do to the audio than British engineers.

With the introduction of the CD in 1982, the cutting engineer—now finally known as a mastering engineer—was forced into the digital age. Because of the limitations of digital storage at the time, they were forced to use a special processor and a modified video tape recorder called a Sony 1630 (see Figure 1.3) to deliver the digital CD master to the replicator. Even though the storage was digital, they were still utilizing many of the analog tools from the vinyl past for EQ and compression.

The 1989 introduction of the Sonic Solutions digital audio workstation with pre-mastering software provided a CD master instead of a bulky 1630 tape cartridge (see Figure 1.4). Now mastering began to evolve into the digital state as we know it today.

Figure 1.3: A Sony 1630

© 2024 Bobby Owsinski

Figure 1.4: A tape cartridge used in a 1630

© 2024 Bobby Owsinski

In the first half of 1995, MP3s began to spread on the Internet, and their small file size set about a revolution in the music industry that continues to this day. This meant that the mastering engineer had to become well-versed in how to get the most from this format, something it took many mastering engineers time to get the hang of.

In 1999, 5.1 surround sound and high-resolution audio took the mastering engineer into new, uncharted but highly creative territory, just like immersive mastering today. And by 2002, almost all mastering engineers were well acquainted with the computer, since virtually every single project was edited and manipulated with digital audio workstation software.

Nowadays a majority of engineers are firmly in the box unless given the increasingly rare 1/2- or 1/4-inch tape to master.

Today’s mastering engineer doesn’t practice the black art of disc cutting as much as was once required, but they are no less the wizard, continuing to