Although i’m still in the tracking/production stage of my project, I wanted to start looking at some research to help give me a better understanding of how to prepare for the mastering stage. Ben Selway actually pointed this video out to me and it provides some great information with regards to headroom, input and output levels, gain structure and how to get the best out of your plugins, especially the analogue modelled ones.

James Wiltshire suggests that these days a lot of producers and mixers seem to think that the best way to mix a record is to make it as loud as possible and get to 0 on the digital full scale as quickly as possible. However, this can cause mixes to sound cluttered very quickly and can prevent them from sounding clear and solid, mainly because the plugins aren’t working to their maximum potential and there is a risk of digital clipping. For example, James tested out the Waves plugins and found that they work best at -20. The analogue modelled plugins will also run similar to this as their hardware predecessors will have required the correct amount of input volume for them to function correctly.

With K-Meter, it allows you to work towards a temporary 0 at either K-20, K-14 or K-12. Working to these levels will prevent you from running your plugins far too hot, prevent premature digital clipping and provide you with a good end level which can then be turned up as much as you’d like during the mastering process, especially if you are mastering yourself. If you are using a mastering engineer for your tracks it also allows you to send them a good level which they can comfortably worth with.

As I will be mastering the project myself, this is vital piece of information to understand so that I can master all of the final mixes as efficiently as possible.