How to Prepare Your Mix for Mastering

You’ve written the song, tracked the parts and spent hours shaping the mix. It sounds solid in your studio and holds up in the car. Nothing jumps out to your ears as sounding wrong. You know you’re close.

Now it’s time for mastering. Time to prepare for the final step before your track goes out into the world. Whether you’re using an online mastering engine like Maastr or sending it to a studio engineer, prepping your mix the right way is important. It gives your track the best shot at sounding polished, powerful and ready for release.

Need a refresher on what mastering actually does? Read our What Is Mastering? post first then come back here with fresh ears.

1. Finish your creative decisions

Before bouncing your mix, make sure everything is locked. That means tones, edits, vocal rides, effects and automation are right where you want them. Don't print a version while you’re still debating the delay time on your chorus vocals. Settle the details now.

Take a break if you need to. Come back, listen again and commit. A confident, final mix gives mastering a strong foundation to work from.

2. Leave enough headroom

Avoid pushing the master fader into the red. If your mix sounds quiet, that’s okay. Loudness comes later.

The best mix settings for mastering usually land around -6 to -7 dBFS peak level on your stereo output. This gives space in the mastering process to apply EQ, limiting and compression without distorting the track or flattening your mix.

Skip the limiter or clipper. You’re not mastering yet.

3. Clean up the stereo bus

If you’ve been mixing into a chain with stereo wideners, finalizers or mastering-style plugins, now’s the time to pull them off. These tools are meant for the mastering stage, not the mix. Leaving them on can limit what mastering can do and introduce phase or tonal problems.

Still love your bus chain? That’s fine. Bounce two versions: one with your stereo bus processing and one clean. Maastr makes it easy for you to compare both versions side by side, then choose the winner.

4. Export full-quality audio

Do not send MP3s. They kill transients and shave off detail. Export in the highest resolution possible based on your recording session.

When you're ready to bounce your mix for mastering, export a 24-bit WAV or AIFF at a minimum of 44.1kHz. Use stereo interleaved files only.

Also, skip dither or sample rate conversion unless you’re 100% sure what you’re doing. The mastering process will take care of that.

This step is simple, but it matters.

5. Check your mix in mono

Phase issues don’t always show up in stereo. That wide doubled guitar part or roomy snare verb might disappear when summed to mono.This can hurt your mix when it hits phones, club systems or mono broadcast environments. 

Flip your session to mono and listen closely. If any elements drop in level or vanish, adjust panning or fix phase alignment between layers. Drum and room microphones are common places where phase issues will show up. 

This is a critical part of your final mix checklist before mastering.

6. Organize and label your files

A clear file name saves time and prevents mistakes. Use something like: Band_SongTitle_MixFinal_24bit.wav

Avoid “Mix4_master_FINAL2_REAL.wav” or filenames with random caps and extra words. They make it easy to get lost in your hard drive, causing you to send the wrong file by accident.

If you’re sharing tempo, key or mix notes with your engineer, keep them in a text file instead of baked into the filename.

7. Pick one version and commit

Choosing a mix should be the last decision before mastering, not something you leave open. Pick your best version and move forward.

Still unsure your mix is ready? That’s the beauty of online mastering. Maastr lets you bounce your mix, master it and hear results instantly. You can upload a version, get feedback, make a tweak and run it again all in one session. We’ve built our project view to allow for multiple versions of each track so you can stay organized while exploring your options.

It’s one of the easiest ways to learn what’s working in your mix and what still needs work. No waiting. No guesswork.

8. Trust the process

Once your mix is prepped and uploaded, let the mastering engine (or engineer) do what it’s built to do. Maastr is tuned to handle aggressive genres but can adapt to any situation. It enhances clarity, controls dynamics and brings up loudness while preserving the feel of the mix. You’re in control, and you can preview the results as many times as you need.

If you’re working with a mastering engineer odds are that you picked that person because of work they’ve done that you respect. Provide some direction on your vision and let them work their magic.

Final thoughts

The mastering process starts with a clean, confident mix. When you prep it right,  lock your creative decisions, leave proper headroom, export high-quality files and keeping things organized, you’re setting up everything in a way that should lead you to the perfect master.

Want to hear how your mix responds to mastering immediately? Maastr makes it easy to experiment, improve and dial things in fast. No submissions. No schedules. No friction.