If you're struggling to figure out whether your mix is ready for mastering, then I'm happy to give you three simple things to check off your list before you send your mix to mastering.

If you want to do it yourself, scroll down to the end of this email for a great way to learn to do it yourself. 

1. Level Check

Give the mastering engineer some room to work with. It's not the end of the world for him anymore if your track is too hot. He'll simply turn the gain down. But for best practice purposes, leave some headroom on the master fader.

2. Clean up your master bus

Don't leave your Ozone mastering plug-ins and buss compressors on the master bus when you bounce your mix down to a stereo track. Leave that processing up to the mastering engineer.

3. Mono?

As a last run-through, check your mix in mono to make sure everything sounds the way it should. You don't want to be caught off guard with a mastered song that has phase issues and vanished instruments because you got a little heavy handed on the stereo processing.

4. Conversation is King

Create a relationship with your mastering engineer and let him know exactly what you hope to get from him. There are different ways of mastering a song or an album, so make sure you communicate your needs clearly.

Even if you can't explain exactly how you want your songs to sound, a good mastering engineer is great at extracting meaning from your mess of an explanation.

Or maybe you want to do it yourself?

If you master your own mixes but don't really know if you're doing it right, I recommend checking out the newest course from Justin Colletti, Mastering Demystified.

Plus, as an Audio Issues subscriber, you can get 20% off when you use the coupon code 'audioissues' when you check out.

Justin has outdone himself this time and created your one-stop-shop to learn everything you need to know about mastering.

In Mastering Demystified, you'll get 4+ hours of in-depth training to teach you how to take your mixes and transform them into professionally mastered records.

If you want to consistently get great-sounding masters every time, Mastering Demystified is for you.

Whether you’re mastering your own music, mastering for others, or even just working with a professional engineer for the first time, this course will take your skills to the next level so you can create a polished and professional sound for all the music you're working on.

Through this course you will:

• Learn the entire mastering process from beginning to end
• Discover a fool-proof way to make better mastering EQ decisions
• Know exactly how much (or how little!) you should compress and limit each track.
• Learn how to use advanced mastering tools like stereo wideners, multiband compressors and even mid/side processing
• And last but not least, know how to make you masters loud enough to compete with any commercially released track without making it sound squashed and small.