Justin Colletti Mastering Demystified TUTORIAL
The ONE Mindset Shift You Need to Make to Get Your Music Ready for Release
Discover the 2-step Minimal Mastering method anyone can use to achieve a loud and dynamic sound even with stock plugins… and even if mastering is a complete mystery to you right now!
Does mastering intimidate you? It doesn’t have to be scary…
Dan here, founder of the Pro Audio Files.
If you’re like most producers and don’t have a ton of audio engineering experience…
Getting your music ready to release can cause some serious headaches.
And if you’re anything like me… You may know there’s this thing called “mastering”.
But the actual process? It was a mysterious “black box” to me.
So, you probably do what most people do:
Throw a limiter on your track to make it LOUD… and end up ruining your mix!
But if you don’t… your tracks sound too low, unfinished, and generally underwhelming.
Especially when you compare them to commercial releases. It’s like you’re driving a toy car… and you’re up against a monster truck!
The WORST thing you can do?
Slapping a maximizer on your 2-bus and cranking it up until your mix is MUSH.
Look, I get why people do this.
But the good news is, there’s a much “softer” approach that will actually get you better results—even if you’re using your stock DAW plugins.
I’ll explain.
First, let me quickly introduce you to my go-to “mastering guy” who will help you make sense of it all.
Mastering Used to Be a Mystery… Until I Met Justin Meet Justin Colletti:
Justin has been a professional mastering engineer for 7+ years.
However…
You may know Justin because, for more than a decade, he’s also been interviewing the top producers, mixers, and mastering engineers on the planet…dissecting their secrets…. and sharing everything on his site SonicScoop.
Mastering was always a complete MYSTERY to me.
Even after years of mixing.
It was weird, too.
As a producer and musician, I was familiar with…
EQs.
Compressors.
Limiters.
Just like you, right?
Here’s the Weird Part…
Mastering engineers also use…
EQs.
Compressors.
Limiters.
So, clearly, it’s NOT the tools that make the difference.
According to Justin, it’s not “experience,” either.
And sorry to burst your bubble, but…
After working on a super expensive hybrid analog/digital system, with all sorts of fancy high-end analog gear, Justin will promise you: it’s also not the gear.
So what IS it?
The Mastering Mindset: My Big Aha Moment
It makes a lot of sense when Justin breaks it down like this…
Mixing is all about zooming in:
Focusing on the little details of each individual track.
But mastering is about ZOOMING OUT.
Once I realized this, everything started to make sense! And my masters started to sound a LOT better too…
How do you “zoom out”?
There are a number of proven things you can do.
In fact, over the years, Justin has broken this down into a mastering system that anyone can replicate—no matter what tools or DAW they have access to.
How to Get a Grip on Mastering in 2 Simple Steps
What’s great about Justin’s Minimal Mastering Method is that you can use it to…
- Master your own tracks
- Master tracks for other people
- Decide when (not) to hire a mastering engineer
The method breaks down into 2 simple steps:
Step 1: Sweetening
This is where you add the “secret sauce.”
It’s the part of mastering that will GLUE your mix together and make it sound better.
It could be a small tweak to hype-up your chorus… or smoothing out the transients… or removing the unwanted resonances that are sucking the energy out of your low-end.
The good news is, there are only 5 main things you need to listen for—and decide if they need “sweetening.”
(How do you decide? You can use what Justin calls the “30 Second Bypass Rule”)
AND, you can use all the tools you’re already familiar with. You just need to think about them in a new way.
Then comes…
Step 2: Making it sound good on ANY system
This is the more technical part of mastering. But truth be told… It’s not difficult when you know a few tricks of the trade.
Once you make the shift—and apply this simple method Justin has professionally battle-tested for years—mastering is no longer a mystery.
It’s a structured, proven approach you can use to master any track, in less time.
More on the exact techniques below, because right now you might be wondering…
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