Mastering is the final polish that makes your song sound professional, balanced, and ready for release. But a messy mix never begets a good master. If the mix is too loud, too muddy, or full of clashing sounds, the master will only highlight those problems. Many beginners wonder how to prepare mix sessions so the mastering stage can truly bring out the best in their music.
You can take mastering as the coat of varnish on a finished piece of furniture. The importance of varnish is unquestionable. But, if the wood underneath isn’t sanded smooth, the varnish won’t make it look better. Rather, it will just make the flaws shinier. That’s why preparing your mix before sending it to any mastering device or tool like Remasterify is one of the most important steps.
Let’s walk through the essential things you need to do to make sure your mix is truly ready to master.
Table of Contents:
Steps to Prepare Your Mix Before Mastering
How to Use Remasterify After Preparing Your Mix
Steps to Prepare Your Mix Before Mastering
Before we jump into the steps, remember this: mastering isn’t magic. It won’t fix muddy bass or clipped vocals. What it can do is enhance a well-balanced mix, so it sounds professional and ready for streaming. If you’re a bedroom producer still learning the ropes, these steps will help you avoid the most common mistakes and prepare your song properly before mastering it.
1. Leave Proper Headroom
Headroom is the oxygen for your track. Without enough space, mastering has nowhere to breathe. If your peaks are already touching 0 dB, every limiter, EQ, or compressor in the mastering process will invite distortion and clipping. On the other hand, if your track is extremely quiet (≤-24 LUFS), the mastering engine will have to push it up so much that noise and imperfections also get louder.
That’s why most engineers agree that leaving around -6 dB peak level gives the perfect balance. This is loud enough to work with, but not so loud that it’s suffocating.
- Keep your loudest peaks around -6 dB.
- Don’t use limiters to force the track down, just lower the master fader.
2. Balance Instruments & Vocals
Mastering enhances what is already there. It doesn’t add any primary elements to the song. It doesn’t change the relationships between instruments. If the vocals are buried under the guitar now, they’ll be buried after mastering too, just louder. If your bass is overpowering, mastering might even exaggerate the problem. A well-balanced mix means the mastering stage can polish everything evenly instead of fighting unevenness. This is why your focus should be on getting every element to sit in its own space before sending the track off.
- Play your mix at low volume: if vocals, drums, and melody are still clear, your balance is good.
- Compare with a reference track to check if your balance feels close to professional songs.
3. Clean the Low End
The low end is where many mixes fall apart. Too much overlap between bass instruments (kick, bass guitar, subs, synths) creates a “muddy” wall of sound. Mastering can’t always fix that because once those frequencies are stacked, there’s no way to separate them cleanly. By high-passing instruments that don’t need bass (like vocals, guitars, or pads), you’re freeing up space for the real low-end heroes: kick and bass. When your low end is clean, your track instantly sounds tighter, punchier, and more professional.
4. Tame Harsh Highs
Bright, exciting highs can add energy. But you must understand that, if they’re uncontrolled, they become painful when mastered. That’s because mastering often increases overall clarity, which means any harshness in the 2 kHz–8 kHz range will suddenly feel even sharper. Listeners will feel ear fatigue quickly, and your track won’t sound enjoyable at higher volumes. Fixing it in the mix ensures the mastered track remains crisp and clear without crossing into piercing territory.
- De-ess vocals to handle sharp “S” or “T” sounds.
- Use EQ cuts, but keep them gentle to avoid dulling the mix.
5. Control Dynamics with Light Compression
Music naturally has dynamics: quiet moments and loud moments. That’s what makes the song emotional. But if the difference between those extremes is too wide, some parts of your song will disappear when played on smaller speakers or at lower volume. On the flip side, if you over-compress, your track will lose life and sound flat. The goal of compression before mastering is to smooth out big jumps without crushing the energy. This gives the mastering device/tool a mix that’s consistent but still dynamic. Now the mastering stage is ready to come and shape it beautifully.
6. Remove Noise, Pops, and Clicks
Mastering brings everything forward — the music you want, and the noises you don’t. A faint hum in the background, a chair squeak during a vocal take, or mouth clicks can all become distracting once the track is louder and more polished. These small imperfections might go unnoticed in mixing, but they stand out in the final master. Cleaning them now means your mastered track will sound clean and professional from start to finish.
- Always check the quiet parts of your mix in headphones.
- Trim silences manually or use noise gates carefully.
7. Avoid Clipping and Over-Limiting
A common beginner mistake is trying to make the mix “radio loud” before mastering. They crank up a limiter on the master bus until the track is at commercial loudness. The problem?
That strips away punch, introduces distortion, and leaves nothing for mastering to do. Once a waveform is clipped, the details are permanently gone. The right move is to keep your mix dynamic and let Remasterify handle loudness in a controlled, professional way.
- Don’t let your master bus peak above 0 dB.
- Skip putting a limiter just to “compete” with commercial songs.
- Trust Remasterify to set professional loudness.
8. Export in the Right Format
The format of your export is like the quality of ingredients in cooking. If you give Remasterify a compressed MP3, it’s like cooking with stale vegetables. The result will never be as good. WAV or AIFF files in 24-bit depth give the mastering engine maximum detail to work with, meaning every nuance of your mix is preserved and polished. This is especially important if you plan to release your music on streaming platforms, where quality differences are noticeable.
- Always export WAV or AIFF (24-bit, 44.1 kHz or higher).
- Never export MP3 for mastering; it already cuts corners (though Remasterify gives you the option to upload MP3).
If you’ve ever searched for tips on how to remaster a track, the first advice you’ll find is to make sure your mix is polished before sending it to mastering.
How to Use Remasterify After Preparing Your Mix
Remasterify lets you remaster audio online AI style, which means you don’t need a studio engineer to achieve a professional master. Now that your mix is polished and ready, the next step is sending it through Remasterify for mastering. The process is designed to be quick and beginner-friendly, even if you’ve never mastered a track before.
Here’s how to do it:
- Upload your track: Choose your exported WAV, MP3, or even MP4 file (the higher the quality, the better).
- Select mastering settings:
- You can choose different AI mastering models depending on the genre, making it simple to let the tool AI remaster audio to your taste.
- Adjust intensity (Low, Medium, High) depending on how strong you want the polish to be.
- Optional: Use stereo widening, noise reduction, or custom EQ for extra shaping.
- Use a reference track (optional): If you want your song to match the sound of a favorite track, you can upload it as a guide.
- Preview your master: Listen to the mastered version and compare it to your original mix.
- Download and finalize: Once satisfied, download the final master and get it ready for streaming or distribution.
Conclusion
Mastering is where you remaster audio into a finished, polished version that’s ready for release, but only if your mix is prepared correctly. By leaving headroom, balancing instruments, cleaning up the lows and highs, and exporting in the right format, you’re giving Remasterify the perfect foundation to work its magic.
Think of it like polishing a diamond: the clearer the stone, the brighter the shine. The same rule applies here: the cleaner your mix, the more professional your master will sound. With your mix prepared and Remasterify handling the final polish, your track is ready to stand tall alongside commercial releases. All that’s left now is to share it with the world.