Guide
How to master a recorded DJ mix
You recorded a mix and want to upload it. Mastering it is a smaller job than mastering a track, because every track in it is mastered already. Two things are left: bring the drops to one level, and set a final level that still sounds clean after a platform re-encodes your file. Here is how to do both by hand, in a DAW or in Audacity. If you'd rather not draw it by hand, KRATEO Setmaster does the same steps in the browser (see the end of this guide). Whether your mix needs it at all is a question of its own: Should you master your DJ mix?
What you need
- The recording in the best quality you have, ideally WAV or another lossless format, and optimally recorded with headroom, so its loudest peaks stay below 0 dBTP.
- An editor that lets you draw volume changes over time: a DAW, or the free editor Audacity.
- A loudness meter that shows loudness in LUFS and the true peak. Youlean Loudness Meter has a free version, as a plugin for most DAWs or as a standalone app.
LUFS measures perceived loudness, how loud music sounds to human ears. It is the unit loudness meters and streaming services use. The true peak, in dBTP, is the highest point the waveform reaches, including between samples. 0 dBTP is the top of the scale, called full scale.
Check the recording for clipping
Play the mix through the meter and look at the true peak. If it reads above 0 dBTP, the recording is clipped in places: the tops of the loudest peaks were cut off on the way in. Turning the file down afterwards does not bring those peaks back. You can still master the mix. Next time, record a little lower, so the loudest moments stay under 0.
Measure every drop
Find each drop and note its integrated loudness, the average loudness over the drop alone. A reading that runs across a break into a drop mixes two levels and lands somewhere in between. Don't go by the loudest moment either: in a long mix, the loudest few seconds, the highest peak and the loudest drop can be in three different places.
Write the numbers down. The gap between your loudest and your quietest drop is the job. In a recorded set it can be several dB, and you did not hear it while you played, because each drop sounded right on the system in front of you.
Level the drops with volume automation
Draw a volume automation on the recording and raise each quieter drop toward the loudest, by the difference you measured. Keep the gain flat across each drop and ramp it gently through the break before it.
A compressor or an automatic gain across the whole mix is the wrong tool here. Both react to whatever is loud or quiet in the moment, and a break sounds quiet, so they close the distance between breaks and drops that you built into the set. Drawing the gain yourself keeps the shape of your set: the drops come to one level, and the breaks stay where you put them.
When you are done, measure the drops again and correct any that still stand out.
Set the final level: the peak at -1 dBTP
Now move the whole mix up or down as one, so its highest true peak sits at -1 dBTP. In Audacity this is Normalize, which sets the peak of a selection. Check the true peak on the meter afterwards: it can sit a little above the peak an editor shows, because it counts the waveform between the samples too.
Why -1 and not 0: platforms re-encode your upload to a lossy format, and the encode can push peaks higher than they sat in your file. A master at -0.3 dBTP can stay under full scale as a 320 kbps MP3 and go over it as a 96 kbps AAC. -1 dBTP is the safety margin for that.
How loud the mix is at this point is not a number you pick. It follows from the distance between your peaks and the rest of the music. Why is my DJ mix so quiet? explains it, and what helps.
If you want it louder, clip the peaks instead of limiting the mix
If the mix is too quiet at -1 dBTP, the usual tool is a limiter. On a mix of finished tracks, a clipper does far less: it cuts only the few highest peaks, where a limiter turns the music down around every peak it catches. Should you master your DJ mix? explains what a limiter does to finished tracks.
Raise the level in small steps, let a clipper take the peaks above full scale, and listen to your loudest, punchiest drop at each step. Stop where the kicks start to sound harder or rougher. Compare at the same playback level, so you judge the sound and not the volume. Once your peaks go above -1 dBTP, you give up the safety margin for the re-encode. That is the trade.
Why normalizing alone doesn't level a DJ mix
Normalize moves the whole file by one amount, until its highest peak reaches the level you set. Every drop moves with it, so the gap between your loudest and your quietest drop stays exactly as it was. It is the right last step, not a way to level a mix. The same goes for normalizing to a LUFS value: one amount for the whole file. If the value you ask for is louder than the mix can go, its peaks end up above full scale, so check the true peak afterwards.
Mastering a DJ mix in Audacity, Ableton, FL Studio or Logic
The steps are the same in every editor: a loudness meter on the playback, a volume automation on the recording, one change of level for the final peak. In Audacity the volume automation is the volume envelope that every track has, and the final step is Normalize. In a DAW, put the meter on the master channel and draw the automation on the volume of the track that holds your recording. On a two-hour mix this is slow work: every drop measured, every ramp drawn by hand.
Doing it with KRATEO Setmaster
KRATEO Setmaster does these steps for a recorded set, in the browser, with nothing to install. It finds the drops, measures each one and proposes a gain for every drop: the quieter ones lifted toward your loudest, ramped through the breaks. You can move every boundary and change every value, and you hear each choice before the master is made. You also choose how loud it gets: with the highest peaks at -1 dBTP you keep the safety margin, and up to 0 dBTP none of your music is cut. Above 0 dBTP, Setmaster clips the highest peaks. There is no compressor and no limiter. The first 60 minutes of a set are free, as MP3, without an account.