Mixing & Mastering

Set levels before you reach for plugins. We anchor the kick at a fixed level with plenty of headroom, then mix in Order of Importance: kick, bass, the primary sound, then the supporting and decorative layers around it.

Get the Low End Agreement right early, meaning your kick and bass lock together in pitch and timing, and every later decision gets easier. Keep a reference track from your genre loaded the whole time so you can check each step against a finished record.

Usually too many sounds are stacked in the low mids, roughly 120 to 500 Hz, where bass, chords, pads and vocals all carry energy. Decide which sound matters most in each section and carve space for it with gentle, wide EQ cuts on whatever competes with it.

Low cut anything that doesn't need real low end, and go easy on reverb and saturation down there, since both add to the buildup. If it still sounds cloudy, the fix is often in the arrangement: fewer parts playing in the same register at the same time.

You need a master, and you shouldn't have to outsource it. Mastering is a learnable skill, so there's no reason to wait on someone else, or pay them, to finish your record.

It's a full module of the Hyperbits Masterclass, which takes you from a finished mix to a release-ready master on your own.

Loud enough to compete with the records you love, without flattening your dynamics. Streaming turns everything down anyway, so crushing a master buys you nothing and costs you punch.

Getting a master competitive and loud while it keeps its dynamic range is exactly what we show in the Masterclass.

Because your studio is only one test. The car, your phone, earbuds and a club system are tests too, and a finished mix has to hold up on every one of them.

Start by learning your room. Then use reference tracks and reference plugins to match your EQ balance, compression, stereo image and loudness to the best records in your genre, because a mix that holds up against those translates everywhere.