Online mastering has made high-quality mastering more accessible than ever. You can upload a track, choose your settings, and receive a polished master in minutes. That speed and convenience are powerful, but they also make one thing very clear: the quality of the result depends heavily on the quality of the mix you upload.
Online mastering services like SoundBoost are designed to enhance what’s already there, not to fix fundamental mix problems. They can improve tonal balance, loudness, and translation across playback systems, but they can’t undo arrangement decisions, or magically repair a mix that isn’t ready yet.
This doesn’t mean your mix has to be “perfect.” It does mean it should be finished in the musical sense. The better prepared your mix is, the more effectively the mastering process can do its job.
In this article, we’ll walk through a few practical, no-nonsense steps to help you prepare your mix for online mastering: What to do, what to avoid, and why these details actually matter.
Start With a Finished Mix
One of the most common misunderstandings about mastering (online or otherwise) is thinking of it as a stage where unfinished mix decisions get “fixed.” That’s not how mastering works.
Before you upload anything to SoundBoost, your mix should already feel complete. The balances should make sense, the arrangement should feel intentional, and the emotional impact of the song should already be there. If something feels too loud, too quiet, or distracting in the mix, that’s a mixing decision, not a mastering one!
A good rule of thumb is this: If you feel the urge to say “the mastering will fix that,” it probably won’t.
This doesn’t mean your mix needs to be technically flawless. It means you should be confident about the musical choices you’ve made. Mastering is about refinement, not reconstruction.
Online mastering tools are especially sensitive to this. They respond to what you give them. A well-balanced mix allows the mastering process to focus on translation, clarity, and loudness, rather than fighting underlying issues.
Once your mix feels finished and emotionally right, you’re ready to think about mastering. And that’s where preparation really starts to pay off.
Leave Enough Headroom (And What That Actually Means)
“Leave headroom” is one of the most common pieces of advice in audio and also one of the most misunderstood.
Leaving headroom does not mean your mix has to sound quiet, weak, or unfinished. It simply means avoiding unnecessary clipping and giving the mastering stage enough room to work comfortably.
A good, practical target is this:
– Let your mix peak somewhere around -6 dBFS
– Don’t worry if it’s a bit higher or lower
– Just make sure it’s not clipping
That’s it!
You don’t need to push your mix close to 0 dBFS. In fact, doing so often makes things worse. A mix that’s already hitting the ceiling leaves very little room for tonal shaping, compression, or loudness optimization during mastering.
This is especially important for online mastering. Services like SoundBoost don’t need “hot” mixes. They’re designed to work with clean, unclipped audio and will handle the final loudness decisions for you.
One more important point: If you’re using a limiter on your mix bus only to make the mix louder, that’s usually a sign you should turn it off before exporting. Loudness belongs to the mastering stage. Headroom belongs to the mix.
Clean peaks, no clipping, and a bit of space at the top… That’s all you really need.
Be Careful With Mix Bus Processing
Mix bus processing is one of those areas where there are no absolute rules, but there are consequences.
EQ, compression, saturation, or gentle coloration on the mix bus can be perfectly fine if they’re part of your sound. If you turned them on early in the mix and built your balances into them, they’re likely an intentional part of the result and that’s totally valid.
The problems usually start when mix bus processing is added late, just to make the mix louder or “more finished.”
A few practical guidelines:
– Mix bus EQ or compression: Fine, as long as it’s subtle and intentional.
– Saturation or color plugins: Also fine, if they’re contributing to the tone you want.
– Limiters: This is where you should be careful. If a limiter is only there to increase loudness, it’s usually best to remove it before exporting your mix for mastering.
Heavy limiting at the mix stage reduces dynamics and can make it harder for the mastering process (online or traditional) to do its job effectively.
Online mastering services like SoundBoost are designed to handle loudness optimization in a controlled way. Feeding them an already over-limited mix often leads to results that sound flat, constrained, or overly aggressive.
A simple question to ask yourself: Is this mix bus processor shaping my sound or just making things louder?
If it’s the latter, it probably doesn’t belong in the exported mix.
Don’t Chase Loudness Before Mastering
Loudness is one of the biggest temptations during mixing and one of the easiest ways to compromise your results before mastering even begins.
It’s very common to think: “If my mix is louder, it’ll sound better after mastering.” In reality, the opposite is often true.
Pushing loudness during the mix (usually with aggressive compression or limiting) reduces dynamics and flattens the musical contrast that gives a track impact. Once those dynamics are gone, no mastering process can truly bring them back.
This is especially important in today’s streaming-focused world. Loudness targets (LUFS) are handled at the mastering stage, and platforms will normalize playback anyway. Trying to “win the loudness war” during mixing just means you’re handing over a mix with less life and less flexibility.
Online mastering services like SoundBoost are built to optimize loudness in a controlled, transparent way, while preserving as much musicality as possible. When you leave loudness decisions for mastering, you give the process room to work with dynamics instead of fighting against them.
A good mindset to adopt is this:
– Mix for balance, tone, and emotion
– Master for loudness and translation
If your mix feels exciting and emotionally convincing at a moderate level, you’re on the right track. Loudness can always be added later, but lost dynamics are gone for good.
Export Settings That Make Sense
Once your mix is finished and ready, the final step before uploading to SoundBoost is exporting your file correctly. This part doesn’t need to be complicated, but a few sensible choices can make a real difference.
Here are some simple, safe guidelines:
File format: Export your mix as WAV or AIFF. These are uncompressed formats and preserve the full quality of your audio.
Bit depth: Export at 24-bit if possible. This provides plenty of resolution and headroom for the mastering process.
Sample rate: Use the same sample rate as your session (44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, etc.). There’s no need to upsample or change it at this stage.
Normalization: Turn it off. Let me write it one more time to emphasize it… Turn normalization off! It serves no purpose here and can interfere with the intended headroom of your mix.
Dithering: Also turn it off, unless you have a very specific reason to use it. Dither is typically applied at the final delivery stage, not before mastering.
In short… Export a clean, full-resolution file that reflects your mix exactly as it is. No extra processing, no level manipulation on the way out.
SoundBoost’s mastering process is designed to work with high-quality source files. The cleaner and more straightforward your export is, the more predictable and musical the result will be.
Final Thoughts: Help the Mastering Process Help You
Online mastering works best when it’s treated as what it is: the final refinement stage of an already solid mix. Small preparation choices (leaving headroom, avoiding unnecessary limiting, exporting clean files) can make a surprisingly big difference in the final result.
SoundBoost is designed to enhance balance, clarity, and translation across listening environments. When you upload a well-prepared mix, the mastering process can focus on what really matters instead of compensating for avoidable issues.
None of this is about rigid rules or technical perfection. It’s about intention. If your mix feels finished, musical, and emotionally right, and you give the mastering stage enough room to work, you’re setting yourself up for the best possible outcome.
A little preparation goes a long way and your music deserves it!