Learn To Master Dubstep

Bass frequencies are notoriously difficult to process effectively, and if you’re not careful they can quickly overpower a mix. But even beyond the mixing stage, there are plenty of ways to get a sweeter sound if you’re a DIY mastering engineer, even in bass-heavy genres like dubstep…

Add Some Air With Ozone

I’ve previously mentioned Izotope’s Ozone as a useful audio mastering plugin, and in this series of videos from Dubspot, Danny Wyatt takes us through using it to apply limiting, MS processing and bass compression to achieve a tighter recording.

Limiting – or loudness maximisation – is perhaps the archetypical mastering tool. Crudely done, it turns a decent recording into an ear-crunching maelstrom of saturated loud; but in the right hands, it can add clarity and punch.

Next up we have Mid/Side Processing, which can add a certain amount of space to a record by comparing the left and right channels, analysing the differences/commonalities between the two, and processing them in different ways…

And of course there is the Dubstep bass which needs some reining in…