Bram Fidder Secrets of Pro Mastering [TUTORIAL]
Total runtime: 2hrs 58mins
Ableton Live
Learn from one of the best pairs of ears in the business as Bram Fidder shares his expertise in mastering techniques, demonstrating how to achieve a clean and polished EDM track.
The Dutch EDM maestro boasts a prolific career with over 1,000 dance hits released with artists such as Ferreck Dawn, Shermanology, Justin Mylo, GATTÜSO and hundreds more on top labels like Virgin, Sony, Universal, and Spinnin’ Records.
In this extensive course, Bram places a strong emphasis on establishing solid foundations through meticulous stem listening and edits. He underscores the significance of integrating a master chain and constructing it in a purposeful way to match with reference tracks.
Throughout the course, Bram will expertly guide you through his mix-preparation and mastering process. By skillfully applying dynamic EQ, subtle compression, saturation, harmonic excitement, and imaging techniques, he preserves the authentic essence of client stems, often recorded on-the-go using less-than-ideal headphones like airpods, and due to artists’ busy lifestyles he provides the necessary additional set of professional critical ears. The result is nothing short of a larger-than-life, competitive industry track, bearing Bram’s signature touch of expansive and impactful mixing and mastering.
Bram operates within Ableton Live, showcasing an all in-the-box workflow replicating his use of high-end outboard gear for present and dynamically tamed mixes and masters. Relying on iZotope’s Ozone and Neutron suites, along with FabFilter plugins, oeksound Soothe 2, and Sonnox Oxford Inflator, plus a whole range of Ableton’s stock plugins, Bram shapes the stems into his powerful signature sound.
Across eleven insight-packed chapters, Bram rejects heavy-handed mix techniques, advocating for a less-is-more approach. Leveraging subtle dynamic EQ band boosts, stereo image shaping, phase cancellation, and harmonic excitement, he ensures elements find their space and breathe within the mix. In his mastering process, Bram recreates his outboard approach, acknowledging the ease of achieving punch, analog character, and loudness with physical gear but showcasing that a digital approach can come close, delivering industry-competitive masters.
Optimize your mixing workflow and integrate Bram’s professional knowledge into your workflow. This course will equip you with the knowledge to work with top-quality stems, will reshape your perspective on stem treatment, and will guide you to make processing decisions only when essential.
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