8 Essential Tips for Mastering in FL Studio

So you've mixed your latest production and it's time to master it? While mastering engineers are often the best option, if you want to master your own tracks in FL Studio here's 8 essential tips.  

Gary Hiebner is an enthusiastic South African Sound Designer and Apple Tech Head! Gary has been involved in the South African music industry for the decade, and in this time has also been involved in the sound design and music production for many advertising agencies and media houses. Gary is a devoted Logic and Ableton user, but he al... Read More

Discussion

Juan
When mastering, do you apply the adjustments to the master in the mixer? or do you individually set each channel according to what it needs?
RMCM
I don't wish to hate, but I think constructive criticism is necessary here.
I believe when writing for a big website such as this one, it's very important to be accurate, as people can get stuck with "tips" on the net for a long time, delaying their production skills.
This article really misinforms readers, and here's why:

Tip 1: Cutting below 40hz is barbaric in many genres.
Not only can we hear downwards of 25 or even hear 20hz, many headphones and good speakers will have a frequency range travelling well below 40hz.
On top of this, the parametric eq in the picture is cutting valuable frequencies even above the stated 40hz and is even slightly affecting up to 130hz, which is nonsense.

Tip 3: Dynamic range compression and lossy compression are 2 completely different things, you won't lose high end freqs from dynamic range compression, and even if you did, this parametric EQ would not help recover these frequencies, because they're not there and you'd only be boosting the slightly lower ones.

Tip 6: Fruity Limiter has an unprofessional algorithm that causes a lot of pumping, even if you increase attack and release times, and can't apply in awful lot of gain.

Delete this comment if you like, but that doesn't rid the problem.
Syko
I don't think your criticism is particularly constructive.

It's quite normal to cut out frequencies below 40Hz. It's completely irrelevant to the fact that humans can hear down to 20Hz and all to do with the effect that the cut actually has on the sound. Any sound below 40Hz is difficult to hear and cannot be distinguished as a note. In a song written for a diatonic scale it makes absolutely no sense to have any sound coming from these frequencies. It is only ever detected by human hearing as very deep noise, if it is detected in the first place. Cutting these frequencies out adds clarity to the music as humans can't recognise harmonics in this range.

Your dislike of the Fruity Limiter is also quite irrelevant. This is an article about mastering in fl studio. Of course you're not going to double the gain or drop the threshold to nearly nothing, that's not mastering. For the size of the edits that were made, Fruity limiter is perfectly adequate. It also comes with Fl studio so it makes sense that he mentions it.
De Keyz
Re Tip 2 (Multiband compression): As a note, careful attention should be paid when setting the low-pass filter's (crossover) slope that separates the lows from the mids. Maximus only offers two slope types: 12dB & 24dB per octave. Using a 24dB slope on a mix can result in low-end disintegration & badly defined lows, as the filter is way too steep to allow for a nice, gentle split. I generally prefer to go with 12 - which offers a more transparent result. Of course, it still boils down to one listening & paying careful attention to see which one does the job best.
Cool Daddy the pro
Hi guys i just wanna share some skills that i have been using on fl studio and it worked for me. After mixing your beat export it into wave at 24bt and import it back into fl, use parametic EQ2 select cut 40hz then choose multiband comp. Select mustering
Thorium
You should never cut out 40Hz range. Human hearing range has a minimum of 20Hz, If you cut at 40 you will ruin a mix. 40Hz is a D# in the first octave. This could easily be an 808 in trap music or what gives you kick substance in an EDM song. Also using a high pass is removing sound from higher frequencies near 40hz that are also important for your mix.
JOSHUA CHISANGA
I have a problem with making my music louder while mastering. I have learnt that in the master channel / fader on the mixer, that's where I add the limiter or maximas. Then in either of these two, I raise the gain button. My problem is that when I take this track to play them on another pc they still sound flat. Please help.
Raw_Jal
Hi,

I;m hoping to get a recommendation on where to add these plugins after you bounce the .wav file and import it into a new project, you then adjust the tempo and send your mixed track into which mixer channel? and do you apply those plugins at that same channel or on the mixer master channel?? Please clarify this is critical. Thank you

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