FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Stereo Mastering refers to the process of taking a single high resolution stereo track of your finished mix and preparing it for distribution. Once we receive the stereo file, we clean it up and process it through a bunch of mastering tasks in order to enhance the sound quality. Think of mastering as the last chance to fix any imperfection and apply luster to your track to make it shine. As soon as you receive the final master, it’s ready to be released on all major platforms like iTunes, Beatport, Spotify, etc. A mastering ensures that the track will sound the best it can on all types of audio devices. Ultimately, a mastering will create a clean and unified feeling throughout your song and more importantly, it will determine « the sound of your record ».

AUDIO REQUIREMENTS

• Export a single stereo track of your finished mix in WAV 24 bit with a sample-rate of 44.1 khz.
• Properly label your stereo track file with your name and song title.
• Leave at least -6 dB of Headroom on the master channel.
• DON’T use any compressors, limiters, EQ’s, stereo widening or any dynamic processing on the master channel.
• DON’T normalize and don’t use any dither.

TIPS

• The final stereo track is already suppose to have a proper mixing session before submitting. Remember, a mastering won’t make a bad mix sound good, it all starts with a great mix! If you struggle with your mixing game, we can help you with that to ensure that your song will sound to it’s full potential. If you only need a final professionnal touch on your mix, we recommend you to choose a STEM MASTERING. If you don’t know anything about how to properly mix a song, make sure to choose a MULTITRACK MIXING.
• We recommend to start your mix session without any processing on the master channel. In a case where you mixed your song against a master channel processing, it will usually need to be re-mixed to make sure it still sounds as intended before submitting.
• Once your mix is done, perform this final test before sending : Insert a limiter on the master channel and push it enough so that you hear a little bit of the limiter. This test is vital to make sure that all the elements blend well together when they are squeezed. After that, make sure to fix anything that sounds weird. Before exporting your final mix, it’s REALLY important that you remove completly the limiter from the master channel and that you still retain a -6 dB of headroom. We only use that limiter as the final test to make sure that your song will sound the best it can in mastering.

WHAT YOUR ZIP FOLDER MUST INCLUDE

• A stereo track of your song that meets all the audio requirements listed above.
• A reference song that has a similar desired sound. This is useful for the mastering engineer to give him an idea of the musical vision you want for your project. The reference track will be our guideline through the whole mastering session, so it’s vital that the file should be high quality (WAV file is recomended).

**If we find any problem in your files, we will tell you how to fix them and you’ll need to resend again.

A stem mastering is similar to a stereo mastering, except that it allows the studio engineer to have a lot more flexibility and get the best possible sound for your track. The idea behind a stem mastering is to split your final mix into multiple stems, where each of them contain group of instruments. The benefits to work with multiple stems is that we can set the right level balance and correct imperfections that we wouldn’t be able to fix in mastering. After that, we will attend the mastering session and process your song through a bunch of mastering tasks in order to enhance the sound quality of the final master. You’ll finally receive your song mastered with all the stems combined and balanced in a single high quality stereo master ready to be distribute through all the major platforms like iTunes, Beatport, Spotify, etc.

AUDIO REQUIREMENTS

• Export a single stereo track of your entire song in a 24 bit WAV with a sample-rate of 44.1 khz and properly label your file with your name and song title.
• Export all of your stems in 24 bit WAV with a sample-rate of 44.1 khz.
• Regroup all the elements in your mix into logical group of stems and properly label them with the group of instruments. As an example, a 8 stems project could be : (Kick – Snare/Clap – Percussions – Bass – Chords – Guitars – Vocals – FXs).
• Leave at least -6 dB of Headroom on the master channel.
• DON’T use any compressors, limiters, EQ’s, stereo widening or any processing on the master channel.
• DON’T normalize and don’t use any dither.

TIPS

• All of your instruments should already have been processed and mixed before sending. A stem mastering is a good option only if you want our team to apply some final professionnal touches to your mix in order to fix any imperfection that we can’t fix in mastering. If you really don’t know anything about how to properly mix a song, we can help you with that and we suggest you to choose a MULTITRACK MIXING.
• We recommend to start your mix session without any processing on the master channel. In a case where you mixed your song against a master channel processing, it will usually need to re-mixed to make sure it’s still sound as intended before submitting.

WHAT YOUR ZIP FILE MUST INCLUDE

• A stereo file of your song with the audio requirements listed above. This is only useful for us to hear if any instrument in the stems are missing.
• A folder containing all of your labeled stems that meets all the audio requirements listed above.
• A reference song that has a similar desired sound. This is useful for the mastering engineer to give him an idea of the musical vision you want for your project. The reference track will be our guideline through the whole mastering session, so it’s vital that the file should be high quality (WAV file is recomended).

Multitrack Mixing refers to the process of blending together everything you have recorded to complete your song into a high quality stereo file ready for distribution. During the mixing session, the arrangement is sculpted by processing each individual element of the song with state of the art techiques, to make sure they are in relation with each other while also adding final touches to stems to reach their full potential. After that, we will attend the mastering session and process your song through a bunch of mastering tasks in order to enhance the sound quality of the final master. You’ll finally receive your song mixed and mastered with all the stems processed, balanced and combined in a single high quality stereo master ready to be distribute through all major platforms. This way, you can basically only focus on creating awesome music and we will make your song sound professional.

AUDIO REQUIREMENTS

• Export a single stereo track of a rough mix of your entire song in a 24 bit WAV with a sample-rate of 44.1 khz and properly label your file with your name and song title.
• Each of your stems should be exported in 24 bit WAV with a sample-rate of 44.1 khz. Ensure everything is labelled clearly by the name of the instrument. (Example : 1.Kick, 2.Snare, 3.Clap, 4.Bass, 5.Piano, 6.Lead Vocal, 7.Back Vocal, etc.)
• TURN OFF all non-essential dynamic, frequency and placement process that you might have put on individual element of the mix, because they mostly can’t be reversed if they’ve already been applied. This may include compressors, reverbs, echos, limiters, EQ’s, stereo widening. You can leave other effects that have a musical value (flanger, chorus etc.). Keep all channel automations that have been applied as a creative purpose. If you feel that the processing is essential for the sound, feel free to just send over two versions of any given channel (dry/wet) and we will decide which one is best suited for mixing.
• At least -6 dB of Headroom on the master channel is required when all the stems are playing.
• DON’T use any compressors, limiters, EQ’s, stereo widening or any processing on the master channel.
• DON’T normalize and don’t use any dither.

TIPS

• KEEP IT SIMPLE. Make sure that every element of your song can work alongside one another and not against. You don’t want two instruments fighting for the same frequency zone. We always say : « less is more » to get a clean mix.

WHAT YOUR ZIP FILE MUST HAVE

• A stereo file of a rough mix of your song with the audio requirements listed above. This is useful for us to hear if any instrument in the stems are missing.
• A folder containing all of your stems that meets all the audio requirements listed above. Dry/wet versions only count as a single channel. Before sending, make sure that everything plays as it should when you combine all of your stems together and that ALL the channels you want are included in the project.
• A reference song that has a similar desired sound. This is useful for the mastering engineer to give him an idea of the musical vision you want for your project. The reference track will be our guideline through the whole mastering session, so it’s vital that the file should be high quality (WAV file is recomended).

Yes! When you choose our MULTITRACK MIXING service, we master your song for you as well!