Mastering: What Plugins Do I Need?

The “dark art of mastering” is a practice that takes years to perfect. Even the most seasoned of mastering engineers are still honing their skills, in what is often regarded to be the final stage of quality control during a song’s conception. If the mastering process isn’t discombobulating enough as it is, there are a torrent of new mastering tools released every week that promise to make the process quicker and easier than ever before.

In this article, we identify some of the core tools you’ll need during the mastering process, suggesting some plugins that might help you on your mastering journey. 

Dynamic Range Compression

While dynamics processors like compressors can be used on individual mix elements like snares and vocals, when it comes to mastering, your mission is to control the dynamics of an entire track. This is often done using a Limiter, as you’ll see below, but bus compressors and multiband compressors play their parts as well.

Dynamic processors each have their own strengths. If, for example, a particular frequency range of a track needs its own dynamic range altering, a multiband compressor is what you need. For applying overall glue to the entire signal, though, a bus compressor is your friend. In this section, we’ll take a look at a few styles of dynamic processing plugin and when each of them is most appropriate.

Three great plugins for dynamic range compression

FabFilter Pro-MB

FabFilter’s multiband dynamics device is a staple plugin in many engineers’ folders, and it’s easy to see why. With up to six bands of compression at your fingertips, limiting and expansion modes and linear and minimum-phase modes, you can’t ask for much more from a multiband dynamic range processor.

SSL Native Bus Compressor 2

You know you’re onto something when there’s a whole style of dynamics processing named after the compressor from an analog console from the 80s. Coming from the original makers of that console, and adding some modern functionality to the classic G-Series bus compressor, this plugin promises to effortlessly add glue and cohesion to your mix.

Pulsar 1178

This software emulation of Urei’s vintage classic (a stereo version of the 1176) should need no introduction. Pulsar promises that its recreation offers all of the transparency and versatility of its hardware FET compressor ancestor, making it ideal for mastering duties. Their version adds modern sidechain options and metering, plus a saturation stage.

Limiting and Maximizing

Achieving a particular level of loudness and dynamics is arguably the most important step of the mastering process. Due to the range of musical styles and playback formats, there is no one-size fits all loudness target, for example a country song intended for streaming should be a different volume to a dance track destined for the club.

While the most important thing is of course the way your master sounds, it’s important that it holds up against other professionally mastered tracks, whether that’s on the radio or the dancefloor. To achieve this, you’ll likely need a limiter. A limiter is essentially a compressor with a ratio of infinity to one, but there are a whole host of other features available in today’s limiting plugins that can improve your workflow and ultimately, your masters.

Three plugins for master limiting and signal maximization

FabFilter Pro-L 2

This feature-packed true peak limiter is often cited as the final word in limiting plugins. On top of the usual great quality and usability you get from FabFilter products, you get eight distinct limiting algorithms, extensive customizable loudness metering, a unity gain mode and so much more.

Softube Weiss Compressor/Limiter

Want to get analogue-style limiting to give your tracks an air of hardware flavour? This powerful and transparent plugin gives you enough range in its ratio control that you can compress or limit depending on your end goal. Weiss Compressor/Limiter keeps its layout simple and streamlined, for quick and easy dynamic processing.

UrsaDSP Boost

Boost brings all the usual functionality you’d expect from a limiter, but it does so by its ‘upward maximizing’ approach, increasing the level of non-peak material rather than decreasing the levels of the peaks themselves. Its Emphasis control increases perceived loudness without altering the peak level. The result should be a transparent but punchy master without artefacts or distortion.

Referencing and Analysis

When mixing and mastering, it’s common to lose your bearings on how your song should sound, particularly when you’ve produced the track yourself. Taking regular breaks can help this, but sometimes it’s good to also have objective reference points to keep you on track. And that’s where referencing and analysis plugins come in.

If you’ve ever struggled to match the loudness, punch and balance of your favourite tracks, we feel your pain. While these three plugins all perform a different task, each of them will provide you with some of the technical insights needed to bring your track up to the level of that new release you can’t stop listening to. Additionally, for those mastering a longer-form project such as an EP or album, these tools can help you to compare each of the compositions on the release, so you can achieve maximum cohesion between tracks.

Three go-to plugins for referencing and analysis

Mastering the Mix Reference 2

Now on its second iteration, this do-it-all referencing plugin has some marked improvements on its predecessor. You can set loops in up to 12 tracks, allowing you to reference specific sections against your own master. Plus, the instant loudness-matching feature ensures that you make accurate mastering decisions that are based on sound rather than volume.

Excite Audio Vision 4X

This comprehensive referencing plugin was made in collaboration with Noisia, and features four bespoke visual analysis tools which interpret the inner workings of your master in an intuitive visual way. With a resizable Spectrogram, Bar Graph, Waveform and Phase Correlation Meter, you can truly analyze every facet of your output.

sonible Metering Bundle

This metering bundle reinforces Sonible’s reputation as one of the leading developers in AI-powered plugins. true:balance lets you compare your masters’ tonal balance and phase correlation, while true:level compares loudness and dynamics. Both plugins give you a choice of genre profiles, or you can import up to eight reference tracks for more bespoke referencing.

EQ/Tonal Balance

When it comes to achieving a polished mix and master, equalization and tonal enhancement plugins are fundamental tools at an engineer’s disposal. Some plugins lend themselves to a more clinical or corrective style of EQing, commonly associated with the mixing stage. Other plugins are designed to have more inherent character and color, and are primarily designed for applying broader EQ strokes during the mastering process.

In this section, we’ll highlight three EQ plugins that cover both of these applications of equalization, identifying the features that are most appropriate for the mastering stage of the music production process.

Three plugins for controlling your tracks’ overall tonal balance

Softube Chandler Limited Zener-Bender

This plugin’s crown jewel is its colorful Curve Bender mastering equalizer, based on the analog consoles historically used in Abbey Road studios. The comprehensively modelled plugin lends itself to musical tonal alterations, and the Zener Limiter emulation adds another string to its bow.

FabFilter Pro-Q3

The prominence of FabFilter products on this list speaks for the quality of their products, and their flagship plugin is no exception. Create up to 24 EQ bands, each of which can be mid/side or left/right, plus there’s dynamic mode on a per-band basis. An adjustable flat tilt correction curve and gain scale functionality mean you can quickly alter the overall tone of your master.

iZotope Tonal Balance Control 2

If you’re an owner of iZotope’s Neutron or Ozone, you also get Tonal Balance Control 2, which helps you compare your frequency spectrum and low-end dynamics to a host of commercial references. Also, the bundled Audiolens plugin lets you create a portfolio of reference profiles, which you can quickly compare against your master at any time for ultimate referencing capabilities.

Colouring (Saturation/Tape/Distortion)

There’s no question that the unstoppable evolution of digital technology continues to make music production more practical and accessible, but there are some traditional pieces of equipment that possess such desirable sonic qualities that we’re now trying to emulate them in software format. Examples include the saturation that is intrinsic in old tape machines, or equipment that processes a signal with tubes or valves.

The saturation caused by these styles of analog outboard equipment is often described as warm or colourful, but certain types of saturation and distortion can also help to control dynamics too. Like the EQs mentioned in the section above, every colouration plugin has its own pièce de résistance, and some offer the ability to emulate a variety of saturation styles.

Three plugins for adding colour and character to your master

Arturia Dist TUBE-CULTURE

Achieve authentic, analog warmth with this versatile valve style saturation plugin. With four modes of tube configuration and two modes of “presence”, this characterful emulation of a vintage classic can deliver anything from subtle colour to all-out crunch, and everything in between.

Universal Audio A800 Tape Recorder

This firm favourite amongst mixing and mastering engineers has recently become available to those without any UAD hardware. The hardware on which it is based is known for its ability to add body and warmth to a signal, particularly in the low end. This plugin version does all that and more.

FabFilter Saturn 2

With 28 distortion styles to choose from, Saturn 2 truly leaves no stone unturned when it comes to colouring your signal. Six bands of multiband processing, mid/side mode, oversampling and a number of modulation options make this a stellar choice for mastering duties.