Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
If your master chain starts distorting, it’s not necessarily the plugin(s). Often you just don’t have headroom.
A simple habit that fixes this is turning your master down by around 6 dB before you even start mastering. It’ll sound quieter, but that’s the point.
Headroom is just the space between your loudest peak and 0 dB. If your mix is already hitting close to the ceiling, every plugin you add in mastering has nowhere to go. So the moment you add gain, limiting, or saturation, things start to break.
By leaving that space, you give your mastering chain room to actually work. You can push the track louder later, but in a controlled way instead of everything clipping instantly.
It feels counterintuitive at first, but louder doesn’t mean better at this stage. Clean and controlled does.
Follow for more production tricks like this.
If your master chain starts distorting, it’s not necessarily the plugin(s). Often you just don’t have headroom.
A simple habit that fixes this is turning your master down by around 6 dB before you even start mastering. It’ll sound quieter, but that’s the point.
Headroom is just the space between your loudest peak and 0 dB. If your mix is already hitting close to the ceiling, every plugin you add in mastering has nowhere to go. So the moment you add gain, limiting, or saturation, things start to break.
By leaving that space, you give your mastering chain room to actually work. You can push the track louder later, but in a controlled way instead of everything clipping instantly.
It feels counterintuitive at first, but louder doesn’t mean better at this stage. Clean and controlled does.
Follow for more production tricks like this.
