How to master a song, by hand or with a service

What mastering does to a song

Mastering is the last step between a finished mix and a release. iZotope describes it as “taking a mix and putting the final touches on it”, and Abbey Road calls it “the final quality check in the recording process”. Apple’s guide for mastering engineers, Apple Digital Masters, names the tools: “The main tools used in mastering—equalization, compression, limiting, or combinations of these—are all different ways of controlling aspects of volume.”

Mastering a stereo mix works on one file, so it can’t turn the vocal up against the drums the way the mix could. If something inside the mix bothers you, fix it there first. Our mixing vs mastering guide covers what mastering can and can’t change. The sources on this page were read 2 November 2026.

What you need to master a song yourself

• A finished mix as a lossless file at the session’s own sample rate. Apple asks engineers not to upsample: “Upsampling won’t recover or add information to an audio file.” Our export guide covers the settings.
• A DAW or audio editor that runs plug-ins, with an EQ, a compressor and a limiter. A true-peak limiter, one that watches the level between samples as well as at them, is the kind to look for.
• A loudness meter that reads integrated loudness in LUFS and true peak in dBTP. Both measurements come from ITU-R BS.1770, the recommendation titled “Algorithms to measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level”; the version in force is BS.1770-5, from November 2023. Our free LUFS meter reads both in your browser, without uploading the file.
• Speakers or headphones you know well, played at one volume. iZotope’s tips for people who aren’t mastering engineers say “a fixed – or at the very least, repeatable – monitoring gain will help you make objective decisions”.
• A reference track or two: released songs in a style close to yours, to compare against.
• Time away from the song, so you hear it fresh when you come back to check it.

How to master a song by hand

iZotope’s tips give the basic chain as an EQ at the start, compression “in between the EQ and limiter only if needed”, and “peak limiting at the very end of the chain”, and warn that with much more “it becomes increasingly easy to overprocess your song”. They also suggest setting your level with the limiter before anything else, because “at louder levels we perceive more bass and treble”. So the steps below follow the chain, and you can set the limiter first. Go back a step whenever a later one shows you something.

Check the mix before you start

Listen for anything that belongs in the mix, then check the file. Our free mix check flags clipping, mono phase problems, low-end issues, DC offset and silence, measured in your browser. How loud should my mix be before mastering? gives the peak levels published guides recommend, and what to check on the mix bus.

Set up the session

Put the mix on a track in a new session at its own sample rate, with your reference on another track. Once the limiter has set your level, turn the reference down until it plays as loud as your master, measured on the meter: iZotope’s tips call this “Level match your reference track to your master”. Set your monitor volume once and leave it there.

Shape the tone with EQ

Switch between the mix and the reference and decide what, if anything, is out of balance: a heavy low end, harsh upper mids, a dull top. An equalizer controls “the volume of specific frequencies—such as bass and treble”, in Apple’s definition. If a move doesn’t improve the song when you compare at the same loudness, take it out.

Control the dynamics with compression, if the mix needs it

Apple’s guide says compression “automatically controls volume over time”: a compressor turns loud signals down, quiet ones up, or both. Compare with it bypassed at matched loudness, because compression can raise the level, and a louder version can win on level alone.

Set the loudness with a limiter

A limiter is “a fast-acting form of audio compression with a high ratio”, Apple says, used to hold back peaks so the whole track can be turned up. It goes last, because anything after it could push the peaks back over its ceiling.

How loud is your call. Spotify says: “Target the loudness level of your master at -14dB integrated LUFS”. With loudness normalization on, it plays louder masters quieter: “Negative gain is applied to louder masters so the loudness level is -14 dB LUFS.” Spotify adds that “The web player and 3rd-party devices (like TVs or speakers) don’t use loudness normalization.” Apple says that with Sound Check on, “songs that have been mastered loud will be played back at a lower volume”. Our loudness targets guide lists what each platform publishes, and which publish nothing.

Keep the true peak under a ceiling

A file stores levels at each sample. Playback rebuilds the waveform between them, and that waveform can rise above every sample. Apple explains that playback often oversamples “at four times the original sample rate”, and “If the original digital audio data is at 0dBFS, oversampling can result in undesirable clipping.” BS.1770’s true-peak measurement exists to catch that level.

Spotify asks you to “Keep it below -1dB TP (True Peak) max”, and “If your master is louder than -14dB integrated LUFS, keep True Peak below -2dB to avoid extra distortion.” Apple’s recommendation is “to leave at least 1 dB of headroom in order to avoid such clipping.” Set the limiter’s ceiling to the figure you choose, turn on true-peak detection if it has it, and measure the exported file, not only the meter in your session.

Compare the master with the mix at the same loudness

Turn the master down until it plays as loud as the mix, then switch between them. iZotope lists it as “Level match your master to your mix”. Without that, the louder one can win on level alone. Compare masters, our free tool, plays two files in sync and turns the louder one down to the level of the quieter one, so you can switch at matched loudness.

Listen on other speakers, and come back later

Play the master on earbuds, in a car, on a laptop. iZotope’s advice is to “find the average here and look for consistency, not perfection.” Then leave it for a while: if nobody else can listen, iZotope suggests “stepping away for a day and then listening fresh”.

Export the files

iZotope’s tip for the high-resolution file: “Hi-res masters should be 24-bits at the same sample rate as the mix.” A 16-bit file needs dither, which Apple describes as “a technique used when reducing a file’s bit depth (for example, from 24-bit to 16-bit)”. Apple’s guide asks, to get the most from its encoders, for “only 24-bit sources”, and DistroKid’s upload checklist starts with a “Final mastered audio file (WAV or FLAC recommended)”. Check what your distributor asks for, then run the exported file through the LUFS meter to confirm its loudness and true peak.

Mastering an EP or album by hand

Several songs on one release add a job: making them sit together. Abbey Road counts “Adjusting levels, pauses between tracks and fade-ins/outs” as part of mastering, and Apple’s guide says you might take the listener “on a dynamic journey through an album as a complete work”. That means judging each song’s level and tone beside the songs around it, and listening across the gaps between them.

Bounce Sessions masters each song on its own and does not balance songs as a record, so it doesn’t do this part. If your EP or album needs it, personal mastering with an engineer is the route here.

When a mastering engineer or an online service fits

Doing it by hand costs time, a meter and monitoring you trust, and iZotope names one more cost: “It’s tough to stay objective when you’re both the producer and the mastering engineer.” Its answer is to “‘deliver’ your master to someone you trust”.

A mastering engineer listens to your song, talks it through, makes revisions and can work across an album. Our automated or personal guide lists published rates from four studios.

An automated service runs software that measures your mix and processes it toward a target, with no engineer listening. LANDR, eMastered and Bounce Sessions each let you hear a free preview before you pay; what LANDR mastering costs and eMastered vs LANDR set out their published terms.

Nobody can tell you in general which of these will suit your song better, and that includes us. The useful test is your own mix: master it, then compare the result with the mix at matched loudness.

The same steps in our automatic chain

Our chain is published step by step on the mastering chain page. Here is each step above beside what it does, including what it leaves out.

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The preview is free and full length, with no card, and a free account gets 20 masters a day. A download costs $4.99 a track, or Unlimited is $15 a month for every master and the artist tools.