How To Master A Song In FL Studio

Mastering is the final step in music production. It’s a process of improving the sound quality (if possible) of your song using a set of such tools as equalizer, compressor and limiter. It’s also preparing a song for the proper medium. After mastering, your song should be ready to go public.

Keep in mind that mastering goes hand-in-hand with mixing. The truth is, if your song is mixed poorly, most likely amateur level mastering isn’t going to do any good for it – in fact, it propably makes it even worse.

So before starting to experiment with mastering, you need to learn to mix. Your song needs to sound as good and balanced as possible before going to the mastering stage.

The thing is, professional mastering makes great sounding mix to sound outstanding.

Lot of producers and professionals say that mastering should be left to mastering engineers and that you shouldn’t master your songs by yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing. I agree, because mastering engineers have the skills, professional equipment, right kind of listening environment (which is ESSENTIAL), trained ears and usually a years of experience so they pretty much know what can be done (if any) to enhance the quality of your mix (check the bottom of this article for links to good quality and affordable online-mastering/mastering services).

You should also know that I’m NOT a professional – I’m just an average hobbyist so what I’m writing here may NOT be the best practice. If you are serious about mastering your song, I STRONGLY advice you to contact a professional mastering engineer.

However, the aforementioned shouldn’t stop you to TRY to experiment with different plugins and settings to see if there’s anything you can do by yourself to make your mixes sound better.

Mastering Tools

There are a wide range of VST plugins that can be used for mastering: brickwall limiters, single band compressors, multiband compressors, equalizers, stereo enhancers etc. and there’s even a bunch of presets to get you started. I have to say though that there really isn’t a “one button solution” or “setting that fits for all” -quick fix for mastering. Each mix is different and that’s why the mastering tools needs to be chosen and tweaked according the situation – everything depends on the audio material you have and what you wan’t to achieve with the mastering. That defines the tools and settings you need to use. Sometimes, you may just need a little help of a limiter in the master channel to do the job for you and if you can make your mix sound good with it, it’s ok. The thing is, you just need to learn to use your ears.

With all that said, I am now going to introduce to you a one possible method and set of plugins in FL Studio that can be used to master a song. The settings and plugins I’m using here is tweaked to work with my example song, so the exact same settings (or plugins) won’t propably work straightly with your mix so you just need to adjust them.

At the end of this tutorial I’m also sharing the FL Studio Mixer State file where I’ve set the plugin FX chain and parameters so you can start to play with it right away and even though the settings are adjusted to work with my example song, you can start with it and tweak the parameters according to your own needs.

I should also emphasize that this is NOT a definitive guide for mastering as there is a lot more to it than just throwing a bunch of plugins to the master channel – rather this is like a starting point and introduction to a method and set of tools that CAN be used for this final processing – just to get you going and it might come useful to you as you start to experiment and learn what the different plugins and settings do to your sound to get the results you are after for.

Okay, let’s begin!

Preparing The Song For Mastering And Getting Down To Business

There’s actually two ways to master your songs in FL Studio: 1.) You can master the song while you’re mixing it or 2.) you can export the song to a WAV file, create a new empty project and import it back to FL Studio and then master it.

I personally like to keep mixing and mastering as a separate projects so I’m using the method 2. and this tutorial will focus on it.

So here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Export your mix to WAV.

Before you export your mix, it is recommended to drop the master mixer track volume level to around -6.0dB – -8.0dB. This is to avoid the appearance of clipping from the exported WAW.
HOWEVER, if you decide to use 32 bit floating point format, you don’t have to worry about the clipping.

Also, it’s best to not to use any compressor or limiter in the master mixer track when you are exporting.

Use the highest possibly quality for rendering. Here’s the settings I’m usually using:

2. Create a new empty FL Studio project, and open your song in Edison. Cut the unnecessary silence at the end or beginning of the song (if any). Check the pic below:

3. Create a very short fade out at the end of the song (if needed). That’s just to avoid the song to be cut abruptly as there might be a tail of reverb or delay effect still playing after the actual song has ended. Check below:

4. Normalize the WAV file.
Normalizing increases the amplitude of the waveform so that the loudest peak is at 100% maximum possible level. This maximizes the volume without clipping. Save the changes to a WAV file.

5. Create another empty FL Studio project and import the WAV to a Playlist.

6. Load the mastering plugins.

Open the Mixer and add these plugins in a following order to the Master mixer tracks FX slots:

Fruity Parametric EQ 2 for cutting unwanted frequencies.
Fruity Compressor to make sure that the dynamic range of the whole mix is balanced so that there isn’t too big gaps between the loudest and quietest parts.
Fruity Multiband Compressor for fine tuning the volume level in areas that are still too loud or quiet in the mix (if any).
Fruity Parametric EQ 2 for boosting frequencies.
Fruity Limiter for maximizing the volume of the whole mix.

Basically, this set of plugins should be enough to master your song satisfyingly.

Now, few words about the order of the plugins in the FX chain: it might be a good idea to put the eq that you use for cutting, before the compression and eq you use for boosting, after the compression. Why? Because the eq settings affects a bit how the compression behaves. For example, if you boost some low fequencies before the compression, you raise their peak level and compressor will most likely rea-act to these peaks by trying to attenuate them.

However, like always in audio production, there shouldn’t be too much do’s and dont’s: in some situations the aforementioned can be exactly the effect that the you are after for, but in a normal mastering situation, cutting frequencies might be best to be done before and boosting after the compression..

Below is a pic of the mastering fx chain:

7. Fruity Parametric EQ 2 for CUTTING.

This is the eq unit that is BEFORE the compressors. Use it for cutting the low frequencies around 30Hz using high pass filter with steep filter slope and also cut around 20kHz with low pass filter. Those are frequencies that can’t be heard through most of the speaker systems, but they just add unnecessary energy to your mix and makes the mix sound louder (not in a good way) than it really is. It’s like leftover noise that needs to be cleaned. Check below:

Note about the low frequency cut: some producers recommend to cut the low frequencies starting from 20Hz instead of 30Hz. This is because if the song is played in the clubs and large PA systems, with 30Hz cut you might loose too much of the low end response.

However, you should know that not nearly all of the large PA systems are able to go down to 20Hz, most will actually roll off the 30-40Hz, so if your mix has a lot of energy in the 20Hz region, it will just uselessly waste headroom. With that in mind, setting the cut to 30Hz will give you a chance to use the larger headroom to tighten up the mix and make it louder.

Also, remember this: if the PA system has been setup poorly, there’s always a risk that sub-bass heavy tracks may blow up the system – even though that’s not your fault, it’s still worth considering.

I have to say that I’ve personally found that cutting the 30Hz range removes the unnecessary rumble clearing up the mix nicely and gives quite a lot more headroom, so that’s why I’m recommending it. But it’s really up to you and what you’re planning to do with your song. You may actually end up to not use the cutting eq at all.

Note about the high frequency cut: if you feel like it you may also like to try start rolling off the high frequencies already from 16kHz to eliminate more high end transients and distortion. Cutting the high frequencies at 16k hz will help to reduce the occurance of ear aching high end on large PA systems.

Now, to the compression.

8. Fruity Compressor.

Fruity Compressor is a single band compressor and it’s useful in mastering fx chain for evening out the dynamic-range variations in your mix. Compressor is great for “geling” different sounds in the mix together – to tighten up the mix.

Let me explain the idea of compression a bit more:

Basically, compression is a process of making sure that there isn’t too much difference between the loudest and quietest parts. It’s like controlling the volume automatically so that the quiet parts are louder and the loud parts won’t cause clipping. It reduces the gain of the peaks and you can set the level where this reduce is happening and how. It is much like automatically tweaking a volume controller so that the volume level is kept within a defined minimum and maximum range. This is to make sure your mix sounds dynamically balanced.

Here’s the most common compressor controllers explained:

Threshold sets the signal level (in dB’s) at where the compressor starts to kick in.
Ratio sets the amount of compression that will be applied.
Attack controls the time how quickly the compression starts to affect.
Release sets how quickly the compression effect will stop after the signal drops below the defined threshold level.
Knee sets at what rate the full amount of compression is applied. Decreasing the knee value lets the full compression to be applied more rapidly – as soon as the attack allows. This is the harder knee. Increasing the value makes the knee softer letting the compression kick in more gently.
Gain (make-up gain) is used to boost the compressed signal because the compression reduces the level of the signal quite a lot.

Couple of tips using single band compressor in mastering situation: use low ratio, long attack and release times for more transparent sounding results (transparent in this context means uncolored sound – keeping the audio as natural as possible). Transparency is needed for keeping the original feel of your mix.

However, every song is different so it’s impossible to give any exact settings, but you can start experimenting with these:

Threshold: -25dB
Ratio: 1.5:1 – 2:1
Attack: 50ms
Release: 150ms
Gain: 2-4 dB

If your mix starts to sound too squashed, or unnatural, try decreasing the ratio and experiment with different rhreshold/ratio combinations.

As a rule of thumb, use the compressor sparingly in a mastering situation to avoid squashing.

9. Fruity Multiband Compressor.

Multiband compressor is a great tool in mastering fx chain for fine tuning the volume levels even further.

Let me explain the multiband compressor a bit: normal single band compressor (like Fruity Compressor) affects to the whole frequency band, but multiband compressor lets you apply the compression to a chosen frequency bands – in this case, three different bands (low, mid and high). For each band you can set the filter cutoff point. That means you can define what frequency areas the band compressors will affect.

Multiband compression is very handy tool in mastering because, if you wan’t to compress (control the volume behavior) of just the low frequency range, you can do that without affecting too much to the the mids and highs and vice versa. For example, if you have loud peaks somehwere in the low frequency area, you can attenuate these without reducing the gain of the mids and/or highs.

Basically you can do this with an eq as well, but using multiband compressor here will give you a bit more transparent and organic results than eq. Of course, this depends on the plugins – some are more transparent than others. Also, what kind of sound you’re after for defines what tool should to used. But with the plugins I’m using in this tutorial, multiband compressor might be a better choise for fixing the gain behavior.

Here’s a quick introduction to different parameters in Fruity Multiband Compressor. Check the pic below (click to see it bigger):

What settings do I recommend to use with Fruity Multiband Compressor? It’s almost impossible to give any recommendations as it all depends what kind of mix you are mastering. You can START with these though, but the rest is up to you and your ears:

Limiter: 0ff
Filter: FIR

LOW BAND:

Threshold: -25.0dB
Ratio: 1.2:1
Knee: 0%
Attack: 3.3ms
Release: 62ms
Gain: -1.6dB

MID BAND:

Threshold: -9.0dB
Ratio: 1.8:1
Knee: 76%
Attack: 31ms
Release: 56ms
Gain: 1.6dB

HIGH BAND:

Threshold: -11.0dB
Ratio: 2.0:1
Knee: 76%
Attack: 3.6ms
Release: 48ms
Gain: 2.7dB

Now, to the boosting eq.

10. Fruity Parametric EQ 2 for BOOSTING.

This is the eq unit that comes AFTER the compression. What I like to do at this point is to slightly boost frequencies around 8-15kHz using peaking filter with a semi-broad bandwidth. This will add a bit of brightness to the whole mix.

The boosting could’ve been done with multiband compressor gain controls as well, but the eq is here for even more precise control over the frequencies. Like I mentioned in the multiband compression section above, it will give a slight different results than eq when dealing with the frequency adjustements.

Okay, check the pic below:

11. Fruity Limiter.

Fruity Limiter is what you use for maximizing the volume of the whole mix without distortion. The purpose of a limiter in a mastering situation is to limit the output level to a defined maximum level (usually o 0.0dB) to avoid clipping when you’re increasing the gain.

I’ll try to explain a bit how the limiter works:

Limiter is a close relative to compressor. It restrains the signal from going above a threshold value, just like compressor. If the peaks are trying to go above the threshold value, a gain reduction will occur.

However, in compressor, the gain reduction is applied in a more gentle way and it also affects to the quieter parts of the signal by making them louder, whereas limiter (at least brick-wall limiter) squashes the peaks that are trying to go above the threshold value and leave the quieter peaks alone. Limiters gain reduction is absolut and more aprubt than compressors. That’s the main difference.

In a limiter, you set the level above which the signal will be limited by using the output Ceiling. Usually it’s set to 0.0dB. Now when you start to increase the volume by using input Gain, the limiter will squash all the signal peaks that are trying to go above the 0.0dB. So the more you are trying to maximize the volume of your mix, the more squashed it will sound. Try to be gentle here by not destroying your mix :)

Some limiters like Fruity Limiter has the attack and release controls as well. Attack controls how quickly the limiter responds to the signal peaks. The Release controls how quickly the signal will “recover” from the limiting.

Here’s some of the most important Fruity Limiter settings introduced:

What settings do I recommend to use with Fruity Multiband Compressor? It’s almost impossible to give any recommendations as it all depends what kind of mix you are mastering. You can START with these though, but the rest is up to you and your ears:

Limiter: 0ff
Filter: FIR

LOW BAND:

Threshold: -25.0dB
Ratio: 1.2:1
Knee: 0%
Attack: 3.3ms
Release: 62ms
Gain: -1.6dB

MID BAND:

Threshold: -9.0dB
Ratio: 1.8:1
Knee: 76%
Attack: 31ms
Release: 56ms
Gain: 1.6dB

HIGH BAND:

Threshold: -11.0dB
Ratio: 2.0:1
Knee: 76%
Attack: 3.6ms
Release: 48ms
Gain: 2.7dB

Now, to the boosting eq.
Fruity Limiter is what you use for maximizing the volume of the whole mix without distortion. The purpose of a limiter in a mastering situation is to limit the output level to a defined maximum level (usually o 0.0dB) to avoid clipping when you’re increasing the gain.

I’ll try to explain a bit how the limiter works:

Limiter is a close relative to compressor. It restrains the signal from going above a threshold value, just like compressor. If the peaks are trying to go above the threshold value, a gain reduction will occur.

However, in compressor, the gain reduction is applied in a more gentle way and it also affects to the quieter parts of the signal by making them louder, whereas limiter (at least brick-wall limiter) squashes the peaks that are trying to go above the threshold value and leave the quieter peaks alone. Limiters gain reduction is absolut and more aprubt than compressors. That’s the main difference.

In a limiter, you set the level above which the signal will be limited by using the output Ceiling. Usually it’s set to 0.0dB. Now when you start to increase the volume by using input Gain, the limiter will squash all the signal peaks that are trying to go above the 0.0dB. So the more you are trying to maximize the volume of your mix, the more squashed it will sound. Try to be gentle here by not destroying your mix :)

Some limiters like Fruity Limiter has the attack and release controls as well. Attack controls how quickly the limiter responds to the signal peaks. The Release controls how quickly the signal will “recover” from the limiting.
Here’s some of the most important Fruity Limiter settings introduced:

For recommended settings – it all depends on your mix again – but you could start with these:

Ceiling: 0.0dB
Gain: 4.0dB-7.0dB
Saturation: 0.0dB
Attack: 4ms
Release: 250ms
Attack Curve: 3
Release Curve: 3
Ahead: 9ms

Experiment with the input gain, but be gentle with it, to avoid squashing your mix. You know you’re putting too much gain when the song is starting to sound like stressed or like it’s in great pressure. Try to find a balance between maximum possible loudness and not letting your mix to sound overly squashed.

11. Export the song once again to WAV using highest quality settings (expect set the WAV depth to 16 bit).

That’s it. With a set of tools like these it is possible to master a song in FL Studio.

I admit, this whole mastering thing is not the easiest task. Personally, I’m always struggling with it as well. It takes quite a lot patience and bit of a trial and error. But experimenting is the best way to learn.

Sometimes, in the mastering stage, you may realize that you can’t fix something with the mastering tools. Then you might need to go back to the mixing stage and do the necessary adjustements there.

Remember also this: using compression in mastering isn’t necessity. If your song sounds good without compression, then don’t use it. It’s not something that is required for making a mix sound great. It’s just there to fix the dynamic range. Actually, EVERYTHING – be it eq, compressor or limiter – depends on the mix and what kind of sound you’re after for. Ask yourself: what do I want – and start from there.
I hope this tutorial helped you to start mastering a song in FL Studio.