How to check masters

Here’s how to accurately compare and evaluate mastered recordings. As you’re listening, it’s best to follow these guidelines before generating a creative note, or drawing any conclusions.

For more information on how audio mastering works, check out the Mastering Minutia series or the Greg Lloyd Mastering Studio FAQ.

Volume-match when comparing different masters to each other

In order to avoid volume bias creeping into your notes, make sure you compare masters from different studios at the same apparent volume, before deciding on which sound you prefer.

If one of your masters is a little softer than the other, just turn it up to match the volume of the louder one, before you draw any conclusions.

Listen on a variety of playback systems, and avoid built-in phone and computer speakers

Check your masters on at least 3-5 different types of playback systems, mixed between earbuds/headphones and speakers.

You don’t need to go super fancy: a nice, consumer-grade earbud like an AirPod, your home stereo system, and a high-quality set of studio headphones would all work great as your 3-5 different systems, when used in combination.

Before generating a note, check to see that what you’re hearing shows up consistently across all of your different playback systems.

Avoid using phone speakers or built-in computer speakers to generate a note. These tiny speakers can’t reproduce bass frequencies accurately, so any notes generated using them will be inaccurate as well.

The higher the quality of your listening environment and playback systems, the higher the quality your creative notes can be.

Don’t compare directly to the output of a streaming service

Many (but not all) streaming music services make adjustments to the loudness of your music after your music is submitted to them.

This means you can’t trust that what you hear as a music consumer will exactly match the sound of your music as it was delivered to you from the mastering studio. I wouldn’t worry too much about this: understanding these interactions is part of the job of the mastering engineer.

If you’d like to make direct comparisons to your favorite artists, use audio files, not audio streams. Download high-resolution audio files of any songs you’d like to compare your music to, then load them into a Digital Audio Workstation along with the masters you’ve received from your mastering engineer, for a more accurate comparison.