18/05/2026
Frequency Wise Mastering Techniques
Pt.3 Engineer Based Technique (also known as Ear Based Technique)
When applying this technique, you'll have to wear the shoes of an Audio Engineer rather than just a simple mixing or mastering engineer.
🤔Why am I saying this,an engineer focuses on sound as a whole, meaning every mastering plugin/effect must be calculated and carefully adjusted, rather than just copy and paste from another tutorial or someone you learn from (which is a good thing if you think about it, coz it builds progress)
Let's use a song titled "Tribal Soulwave (Bass Mix)" by me (available on major platforms), the song mix some of Tribal, EDM, Soulful House and Afro Tech House music,so tackling mastering becomes tricky when you don't note necessary information down,such as:
BPM: 118 beats per minute
Genre: Afro Tech House
Mood: Energetic
Note Ratios
But how does mastering actually relate to all of that 🤔
Before we proceed, let's start with the chain I've used during my mastering phase as I developed ear training over time
1️⃣ Meter (to monitor the overall sound, including loudness and peaks before any processing)
2️⃣ Dynamic EQ ( High pass extremely low inaudible frequencies and low pass extremely high frequencies,then load your reference track and further cut other frequencies based on the feeling of your song and reference track, but careful not to overdo it)
3️⃣ Peak Tamer Compressor (this is to catch major peaks of your song to prevent your song from clipping)
Attack: 0.1ms - 5ms
Release: Adjust accordingly using the formula I'll mention shortly
Ratio: 4:1 to 8:1
Threshold: Lower or increase accordingly until you see the -1dB to -2dB Gain reduction
4️⃣ Tonal EQ (this is where you boost certain frequencies based on the feel of your song and reference,this is done by ear, for example if the if it sounds to flat, boost a bit of highs for presence)
5️⃣ Glue Compressor ( this is to glue the dynamics of your song together to make sure they are stable)
Attack: 50ms to 100ms may do (this is to glue dynamics, not to tame them)
Release: we'll mentioned the formula at the bottom)
Ratio: 4:1 or value around it may do
Threshold: Adjust to get about -2dB to -3dB
6️⃣ Subtle Harmonic Distortion ( to create subtle warmth of the overall sound)
Ensure that the distortion is not audible, only warmth of its effect
7️⃣ Limiter
Attack: Something like 1ms to 5ms will do the perfect job
Release: We'll mention the formula shortly to ensure you're on the safe side)
Ratio: very high (♾️:1)
Adjust the threshold to get roughly -2dB to -4dB gain reduction
Output (Ceiling) : -0.2 to -0.1 may do the job
8️⃣ Meter
Aim for -8 to -9 LUFS for dance and electronic
If you're unsure, just aim for something like -12 to -14 LUFS, don't obsess about the exact number
💡Formula for calculating release time
(60 000 ÷ BPM of your song) × note ratio
E.g (60 000 ÷ 118) × 0.5 ≈ 254.24ms
Now for final one subtract the attack of your compressor, for example, on the Glue Compressor (Step 5 of the mastering chain,if we used the attack of 100ms,then final release would be 254.24 - 100 ≈ 154.24
You might ask, what note ratio are you talking about 🤔
Well, during mastering we target three main Note Ratios ,namely:
✅Half Note (multiply by 2) - best for smooth tracks, such as jazz, ballad etc
✅Quarter Note (multiply by 1) - best for keeping the compressor in sync with the song,e.g hiphop,trap, standard house song, drill etc
✅Eighth Note (multiply by 0.5) - best for fast songs (trance, techno, future rave etc)
🤔You might also ask, what is this 60 000 value, well, the compressor make use of milliseconds values, and your BPM is in minutes,so we first need to convert this minutes into milliseconds (1 minute = 60 000 milliseconds)
🎯Bonus Tip:
If your attack is fast, make release fast to avoid squashing the life of your song,if it's slow, make release mid or slow too to allow the compressor to catch the tails of dynamics.
❎ When making use of EQ, never boost frequencies by more than 2dB during mastering phase,as that signals as a problem within the mix and mastering won't fix that.
😔This is probably too much to grasp, but I assure you, it's gonna help you a lot when applied hand in hand with ear instinct and fine tuning, and I hope this has shed some light into your music production journey.
That's it for this tip,be sure to follow TJ Tunez Universe for more content like this
