First 20 Minutes of the Class

 

Mastering Overview

In this workshop, we’ll explore how to master your own music entirely within Ableton Live using its built-in devices, free plugins, Max for Live tools, and a practical, professional mastering workflow.

We’ll cover the complete mastering process, from preparing your mix and setting the proper headroom to applying corrective EQ, tonal shaping, compression, saturation, stereo processing, clipping, limiting, and loudness optimization. You’ll learn what each stage of the mastering chain is designed to accomplish and how to determine which processing your music actually needs.

We’ll also discuss how to evaluate your master critically, compare it against reference tracks, and use metering to make informed decisions. The goal is to create masters that sound polished and competitive while preserving the dynamics, impact, and musicality of the original mix.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll understand how to build your own mastering chain, interpret essential loudness measurements, and confidently prepare your music for release across streaming platforms, headphones, speakers, clubs, and cars.

How to Master Your Music: Learn a complete step-by-step mastering workflow, including mix preparation, headroom, reference tracks, tonal balance, dynamics, stereo imaging, loudness, quality control, and final export.

Ableton’s Built-In Mastering Tools: Explore how devices such as EQ Eight, Glue Compressor, Saturator, Roar, Utility, Multiband Dynamics, Spectrum, and Limiter can be used to create a professional mastering chain without purchasing additional software.

Best Free Mastering Plugins: Discover powerful free tools for mastering EQ, compression, saturation, clipping, limiting, tonal-balance analysis, stereo imaging, loudness measurement, and other essential mastering tasks.

Building Your Own Custom Effect Chain: Learn how to design a flexible mastering chain that fits your music instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all preset. We’ll examine device order, gain staging, parallel processing, oversampling, and when to add, remove, or rearrange processors.

Metering: Understand how to read peak level, true peak, LUFS, RMS, crest factor, dynamic range, frequency balance, stereo width, and phase correlation. You’ll learn how meters can reveal technical problems while still keeping your ears at the center of every decision.

LUFS and Streaming Targets: Learn how loudness normalization works across major streaming platforms, what integrated, short-term, and momentary LUFS mean, and why you should not master every song to a single fixed number. We’ll explore how to balance loudness, punch, clarity, and dynamics while avoiding unnecessary distortion and over-limiting.

This session is beginner-friendly, but the concepts go deep. Whether you produce electronic music, hip-hop, pop, ambient, rock, or experimental music, you’ll leave with a repeatable mastering workflow and a clearer understanding of how to master your tracks with confidence.

 

Ableton Live Mastering Chain Tutorial Project

Included with the session downloads is the Ableton Project that takes you step by step on how to build your own mastering chain.

 

Mastering Visual Guide PDF

This detailed visual guide condenses the complete mastering workflow into clear, easy-to-reference pages covering mix preparation, EQ, compression, saturation, stereo imaging, clipping, limiting, loudness, metering, quality control, and final export.

 

Referencor

This Audio Effect Rack is designed to be used with reference tracks to easily compare specific frequency bands to your own master to quickly locate issues in your mix/master.

 

Beefy Master

This custom Audio Effect Rack Rack is using one Macro to control intensity of multiple parameters like stereo width, multi-band saturation, tube distortion, and M/S maximizing to achieve a fat beefy master. This rack is using the free Live Crusher (Camel Crusher Max for Live Clone)

 

Side Brain's Master Roar

An exclusive preset taken from Side Brain's Roar Preset Pack. This Multi-Band saturation can add detail, bite and high frequency sheen to your masters. Use the Dry/Wet knob to control the effect amount.

 

What's Included with this session

• 2+ hours of Ableton Certified Training Video
• Mastering Chain Tutorial Project
• Side Brain's Visual Guide PDF
• Referencor Audio Effect Rack
• Beefy Master Audio Effect Rack
• Side Brain's Master Roar Preset
• PDF with List of Free Mastering Plugins, Max for Live Devices, Mastering Checklist and Tricks to get more Loudness

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ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Yeuda Ben-Atar, a world renowned Ableton Certified Trainer, hails from Los Angeles, California. Yeuda’s passion for music led him to the United States, where he discovered his true calling with Ableton Live in 2007, embarking on a journey of mastery.

He approaches Ableton in a unique way; producing and performing with video game controllers under the moniker Side Brain.

One of Yeuda’s most remarkable qualities is his exceptional knowledge and speed, combined with his unparalleled ability to explain complex concepts in a simple and engaging manner.

With years of experience as a music production instructor and educator, Yeuda has contributed his expertise to prestigious institutions throughout the United States, including USC, UCLA, UCSD, Colburn Music School, Berkley School of Music, Cal Arts, NAMM, Skywalker Sounds, Bedrock LA, Sonos Studios, Sweetwater Headquarters, 1500 or Nothing studios, Grammy U, Pensado’s Place, Vintage King, Museum of Making Music, Lynda.com (now known as Linkedin Learning), and Perfect Circuit Audio, among many others.

His projects have included working with and teaching artists such as Timbaland, Ludacris, Lavel Kali(Beyonce, Drake) DJ Numark and Jurassic 5, Beck, Skrillex, Flying Lotus, Ed Sheeran, Rick Rubin, Giorgio Moroder, Simi, Bootie Brown (Pharcyde), Dave Pensado, Madison Mcferrin and countless others.