Ableton Forum

Hi folks.


Im Just finishing work on a few tracks that I have been working on. On to the mastering process.

I'm not an expert in any way, but i have a good ear.

After watching a number of YouTube tutorials on this I have noticed that a lot of people bounce their work to a wave file BEFORE mastering it. Is this the best way to master tracks? Why do people do this instead of mastering it and THEN exporting it?

As I said, I'm very new so any help/advice is appreciated.

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Mastering a wav and mastering in the project itself is the same thing,as a wav is a lossless file. Only reason why I ever bounced to audio was because I was running low on cpu.

Mirthan wrote:Mastering a wav and mastering in the project itself is the same thing

Not necessarily as a project can potentially have variables each time it is played in real time.

Also if you're doing an EP or album, then you'd bounce down each track and place them in the same project as it makes comparing levels and equalization easier.

sinkysaurus wrote:After watching a number of YouTube tutorials on this I have noticed that a lot of people bounce their work to a wave file BEFORE mastering it. Is this the best way to master tracks? Why do people do this instead of mastering it and THEN exporting it?

Two reasons for this usually:

- Mastering plug ins typically are pretty CPU intensive, so a lot of times people don't have enuogh CPU left to master in the same project.

- Mental barrier. A way of saying "I'm done with mixing, not going to think about that any more, just going to focus on mastering".


That said, I know plenty of people who work both ways, there's no right way to do it. Typically if you're just starting off, I recommend seperating the mastering process to avoid endless tweaking the mix if you think you're done.