Mastering is not "making it louder"
It is the last set of decisions before the track becomes permanent. The mix is a room full of instruments; the master is the room itself — how it translates through a phone speaker, a car, and a festival PA that costs more than the studio.
The chain, in order
- Reference — we line your track up against three records you already love, level-matched, so the comparison is honest.
- Corrective EQ — surgical, usually under 1.5 dB. If it needs more, the mix comes back.
- Compression — glue, not squash. The goal is that the song breathes as one thing.
- Limiting — the last 3 dB. Where taste lives.
- Translation check — phone, laptop, car, headphones. Always in that order.
If you have to turn it up to hear the emotion, the master failed. If you have to turn it down to survive it, the master failed differently.
Why loudness stopped being the point
Streaming platforms normalise playback. A track crushed to be the loudest gets turned down on arrival, and all you kept was the damage — the transients you flattened to get there. The record that wins is the one with dynamic range intact at the same perceived level.
So we chase translation, not peaks. You walk out with a master that sounds like your song everywhere, instead of a loud one that only sounds right in the room where it was made.