How to Prepare Your Tracks for Mastering

Mastering is the final stage of audio post-production - and what you hand off at that stage has a direct impact on what's possible. A well-prepared export gives the mastering engineer room to work. A poorly prepared one creates problems that may not be fixable.

Here's exactly what to do before you send.

Remove the Limiter from Your Master Bus

This is the most important step. If you have a limiter, maximizer, or any loudness-processing plugin on your master bus, bypass it before exporting. The mastering engineer needs to hear and work with the true dynamic range of your mix. If you've already crushed the transients and clipped the peaks before sending, there's nothing left to work with.

The only exception is if your limiter is part of a specific sound you've deliberately created and want preserved - but even then, discuss it with your mastering engineer first.

Leave Headroom

Your mix should peak somewhere between -3 dBFS and -6 dBFS on the master bus output. Not louder. The mastering stage adds the loudness. If your export is peaking at 0 dBFS or clipping, the master will be compromised from the start.

If you've been mixing at high levels, simply lower the master fader until your peaks are in the right range - don't just reduce the export level in the bounce dialogue. The mix itself should have the headroom built in.

Export Settings

• Format: WAV or AIFF - not MP3 or any lossy format
• Bit depth: 24-bit is standard; 32-bit float is also fine if your DAW supports it
• Sample rate: use whatever your session is set to - do not convert the sample rate at the export stage
• Dither: do not apply dither when exporting for mastering - the mastering engineer will apply appropriate dither at the final output stage
• Stereo interleaved file: export as a single stereo file unless you're going for stem mastering

Stem Mastering

If you've been quoted for stem mastering, the approach is different. Rather than a single stereo mix, you'll export a small number of grouped stems - typically drums, bass, instruments, vocals, and FX - each starting from bar 1 and all exactly the same length.

The same rules apply: no limiting on the stem buses, healthy headroom, 24-bit WAV. The stems should sum together cleanly to recreate your full mix.

Check for Errors Before Sending

Listen to your export from start to finish before sending it. It sounds obvious - but catching a dropout, a wrong plug-in setting, or a session recall issue at this stage saves a round trip.

• Listen for clicks, pops, or dropouts
• Check the start and end of the file - make sure it begins cleanly and has enough tail at the end
• Confirm the export is the correct version of the mix
• Check the file opens correctly in a fresh DAW session or media player

Include Notes

A few lines of context go a long way. Mention:

• The genre and intended release format (streaming, vinyl, CD)
• Target loudness if you have a specific requirement
• Any reference tracks that capture the tonal balance or loudness you're aiming for
• Anything unusual about the mix that the mastering engineer should know - deliberate distortion, an unusual arrangement, a section that intentionally goes quiet

The mastering engineer isn't there to second-guess your creative decisions. But context helps them serve those decisions better.

JNP's Mastering Checklist

When clients book mastering with JNP, we send through a short prep checklist covering everything above before we accept the files. It takes five minutes to check through and it consistently prevents the most common issues - mixes arriving with a limiter baked in, exports at the wrong bit depth, or files that peak at 0 dBFS with no headroom left to work with.

We also ask for notes and reference tracks with every mastering project. Context matters. Knowing whether a record is going to vinyl, streaming only, or both changes the decisions made at the mastering stage. If you're getting a project ready to master, get in touch and we'll send through the prep sheet.