How to ACTUALLY use Logic's Mastering Assistant (In-Depth Tutorial) 

‼ Download the free 6-Step PRO MIX Checklist here: www.thebandguide.com/logicpromix ‼

This is by far the most useful and clear video about mastering that I've watched. The process always seemed vague and nebulous, which intimidated me. When I saw the Mastering Assistant, I was so happy to just set and forget it, or nudge here and there and find my way to learning mastering. Understanding the concepts as tone, dynamic, and stereo shaping, that I learned from this video, has been immense. Thank you so much!

Please please never stop these videos !! Always so informative !

by far the most useful video I found on this subject -- and the best takeaway -- learn from observing what the Mastering Assistant does, a tip I immediately put to work. thanks!

Great session Colin. Watched it twice already, will watch again, thank you, lots of LUFS.

Thank you 🙏 every video make is really great and helpful! You are good at explaining and choosing nice stuff to make tutorials about! Keep it up!

I’ve been using it a lot too. Really great resource. One thing worth mentioning is that it will master the whole track, OR a highlighted section. I am finding that if I highlight the chorus or otherwise the most dense or loud section that what it suggests gives me a lot more ideas than having it just analyze the whole track.

Great stuff, nice and thorough walk through, cheers dude. subbed.

I've been using mastering assistant for the last week or two, and watched your video to get some tips. Something I've discovered, you may want to consider - I add mastering assistant in at the end of the chain in my previous mastering attempt. Each time I've done it it has brought something to my attention that I was missing. And, in a couple cases, I just left it in because it made my mix better.

in watching this video for the second and third time, I'm learning more about what makes you great at doing this, how your unselfishness in making great records works its magic..no ego..it's what comes out of the speakers. Love that concept, it says volumes about getting it right and challenging yourself to do better..Thanks Colin

Very good explanation. Thank you Colin!

Your video was so helpful. Can'r wait until I get to the mastering stage in the project I am working on to try it out.

Great video, I really love your honesty in the review. I am a novice and have lots to learn. This is a great start.

Great demo. Best I've seen on this plugin yet. Downloaded the guide, Liked, Sub'd and even bought the song on iTunes (yes, some people still do that). Thank you.

Thanks! Great video. There isn't a lot of vids about this topic, since it's so new... I have tested this feature with all four Characters with various settings(custom eq, loudness, etc), Analyze Section vs Analyze All, etc. There is def a good difference between them and I do find (on my mix) that loudness and excite can add that extra goodness to the mix. I have bounced versions for each one and def. feel the difference. One of my biggest issues is forgetting to turn it off when I go back to my mix and tweek it. With it still turn on, I am tweaking the Assistant's Mix and not my mix.. And truthfully, I am haven't decided if that is a good or bad thing.. Anyway.. good stuff. Thanks.

I really like the valve setting….all four are useable! Love the mastering assistant.

Thank you for the info a well done presentation

Thanks for sharing!! I actually came here to learn about what the Character options are doing in the Logic mastering section. I'v noticed "Transparent" or "Clean" has been my go to. It really seems to just be the type of master bus compression on the mix. Transparent is little to no compression, "Valve" puts vocal deep in the mix and punch of course you hear the compressor breathing, Perfect for those heavy dance, house or trap tracks while there is a lot of ducking around the low in. I just wish I could see what it's doing on the back end.

Another great video, cheers

Great learning. Thanks.

I recently bought the new Mac PRO with the highest chip available and that gives me the ability to use "Transparent" on the Mastering Assistant and I LOVE it!!!

Great video--i just subbed..very informative.. We're lucky we have this mastering assistant in Logic pro

Using the Punch setting in the Character section mostly and really gives my project hmmmph 😮 thanks for this by the way

here you go again..making it make sense...you're a great teacher

Yeah I think your original mix had more dynamic life to it. I do like that the mastering plug-in made you aware of the high midrange issue you hadn't heard before. I have a similar fight with my mixes in that frequency range too. Good video, 👍🏻

Hey great teacher you are spot on , using it as a tool. On a Mac Studio max the other options giv you different flavours of learning :)

Always enjoy your easy to follow videos. I'd like to see a more in depth video of your normal mastering process that you brushed over. My Mac is too old to get the new version of Logic & I've tried various mastering options to varying degrees of success. I've used Emastered but it adds far too much "varnish" on mixes for my liking, even when using the reduced options. Way too expensive to continue my subscription(converted to NZD doesn't help)! I'm sure Landr & Emastered will be losing business with this great Logic advancement lol! Cheers

I have been using the mastering assistant A LOT. But I turn it on and off while I’m mixing to get an idea of how the mix is sounding with a semi-accurate master. Then i turn it off and continue the mix. It just kind of gives me an idea of how the song will sound mastered which helps me hear if anything is jumping out.

I've experimented with automation with this-especially with the spread. Creates some great effects on a more dynamic mix. Close and centered for more intimate moments and big and wide for things like string sections or ending choruses. Great tutorial

I like the vocals on your master better, and the instruments on the Logic master. However, I have found that the Transparent chain handles my vocals better. This tutorial is great! I learned so much. I may never use eMastered again lol. I have been haviing trouble with loudness but after watching this I think I can fix it.

Nice one

i just started using it. But as far as I understand, you don't have to have a mixed down version of the song, you can just paste it on the stereo out of the multitrack session. then you can go back and change things easily.

I've been using eMastered, which is quite good, but what I've been missing is the fine-tuning that's available when you master by hand. This seems like the best of the both worlds!

Best tip I've seen from another RU-vidr is mixing in mono via (Gain stock plug-in in Logic Pro X). Works with monitors and headphones and it produces excellent results across devices. When you're done you turn off the mono setting and you've hopefully got a lush mix! Couldn't hear a big difference from manual and auto mastering in this clip. Guess that's a good review! Appreciate the video :)

I didn’t think there was a lot between your master and the Logic version!

On my M1 iMac so far I like Valve and Transparent most. Which of the two depends on what I'm mastering.

Thanks again, Colin, for covering the LPs new Mastering Assistant. Since I have Apple Silicon, I get all the options of EQ characters. I like the Transparent one and the punchy one.

+1 for using actually using a pleasent music sample.

So far I liked the clean and transparent modes the best. I agree that you have to be careful with the loudness control or you get pumping effects. I have so far been unlucky with the excite button, it ofthen makes the highs harsh sounding.

It would be great to see you run Mastering Assistant against your "already mastered" mix ... instead of turning off all your mastering plugins. IMO those plugins add a lot of character that should be considered part of your pre-master mix.

I've found use for it by using it after I've done a polished mix/master chain. It usually pushes it that little extra step by bringing out more nuance in the final mix.

Is it meant to be the only plugin on the master bus? I would think you'd want some light compression at the least maybe even saturation as well before feeding it to the MA plugin

Addictive song 😊

Transparent and Clean. Rarely use Punch unless the song isn't real hard or percussive, maybe folksy. Never have tried valve, we'll see about that.

Great video! How can I get the 4 options of characters? I only get CLEAN.

I'm trying to master tunes but I'm also a cosmetologist and you have great hair! Thanks for all the tips :)

I have tried the different Character settings and, for me, the Transparent filter seems to sound best.

thanx

When you bounce the song out initially, are you pulling it back in as an audio track to master? Or are you mastering from the original set of tracks?

So with regards to the reference track, you just have to keep turning the mastering the Mastering off and on to A/B your mix?

I wish you could automate certain parameters of this. That does get a little into the weeds, but there could be moments where you want different settings on different parts of a particular song. It would also be nice if we could save different presets that we come up with so that we could apply them to different parts of a particular song or try them on a new song and then manipulate them from there if necessary. I will still do all of my mastering the way I've done it conventionally all along, but this gives an opportunity to add just a tiny bit of sheen to that. I think of it as a final step. One thing I'd rather do prior to this is setting the width using the direction mixer plug-in, which very likely uses the same sort of algorithm as this mastering assistant plug-in. I set a crossover at about 170 Hz and mono everything below that. And then you can play with the width from 1.0 to about 1.3 and get the width you're looking for in the frequencies you're looking for. If I need to manipulate the width a little bit more, I can do that using the mastering assistant plug-in. I'm not convinced MA is all that accurate. It analyzes a snapshot. Tracks have dynamics in the compression envelopes and it likely is not taking those into account. It would probably take a lot more processing power and a real-time analysis on playback to get a really accurate read. That's an option they should consider adding in v11.2.

Hi band do i use this after my personal mix of my track ?

Probably a dumb question, but do you think the Mastering Assistant would be useful at the end of a mix, then bounce, THEN use your regular mastering chain in a different file, effectively mastering the track "twice"? Or would that be too much processing? I wonder because the MA might be good to smooth out some issues in the mix but not quite have the character or clarity that one might find in fancier mastering chains.

Question: Would you export your track as a WAV with the master assistant.

I have an idea about the original being louder than the master when using bypass. I had the same thing happen after, for example, changing an eq setting in the chain before the mastering plugin. I fixed it by reanalyzing the track and it was normalized.

Somehow that button doesn’t show up. Is it because I have a master fade track at the bottom?

Quick question: why are you using the stock EQ and a Tube EQ and the air plugin? Would the stock linear EQ be able to do all of that stuff?

How do you make a mastered track taking all your tracks and putting it into one track?

Can we talk about how dope this song is though? 😍

The transparent selection seems to work best for me. valve would be more for rap, punch works good for rock and pop.

Try exciting before you manually raise it at 3K? Both raising the eq suggestion and exciting it may have produced some of that shrillness. And what happens if you put the Mastering Assistant at the end of your mastering chain?

In our songs, as soon as we try to add even the slightest bit of extra Loudness, we start to hear crackling (high-frequency distortion). Any ideas as to why that is happening ? Thanks in advance.

side note: I love the melody of the song! lol

My favorite is Transparent

Is it possible that the Loudness Compensation only works if you've run the entire song through so that the Mastering Assistant can get an Integrated reading of the LUFS ?

Is there any way we can make LUFS around -6.5 ~ -7.0 using Mastering Assistant only? Loudness level +1.0 in dynamics knob usually gave me too much noise compared to your another method in a different video clip :(

Turn exciter in mastering plugin off and put Logic standalone exciter in for larger exciter control. 🌞

Great sounding track although I wasn't really hearing much bottom end on your masters ? great song all the same. if you compare the low end on that track to the low end on the track you play on your outro you'll know what i mean. Were all your mastering decisions made using your monitors, headphones or both ? How do you know if your tweaks are correct unless you have flattened headphones or something like sound Id from sonar works ? Personally i feel most mixing and mastering is largely just guess work without having a monitoring system that doesn't lie to you. I use sonar works in a very well treated room with very expensive speakers and still cant trust what i hear. i have just purchased Slate VSX headphones and i hope to get closer to being able to pull a great mix without the dreaded trips to the car. I also use ozone 11 with random results. like you, I wish i could access the other characters in logic but i'm stuck with CLEAN cause i'm also on intel. shame they couldn't accomodate us with the other character presets. Appreciate your video.

I don't know, it looks like a very detailed EQ curve that isn't dynamic. I mean, if it sounds good, sure. But I'd be less inclined to put that over an entire mix. I would at least want multiple curves depending on the section of the song. Or I would want a smoothing feature so the EQ is not so granular. I feel like these AI assistants are best used as guides for your own mastering session. It's nice to know, though, that it gives a pleasing result.

dumb question, but what exactly does "bypass" do?

No comparison that your master sounds so much better.

Loudness Compensation works fine on Apple silicon machines. Looks like they haven’t debugged it properly in the intel version. Tells you everything you need to know about their attitude to Intel Mac’s unfortunately.

actually transparent mode makes things better compressed 🙌🏻

1. Why are you bypassing all the plug-ins? 2. By "Track" do you mean a Project Alternative? In other words, are you mastering a song rather than an individual track within a song?

your mix is way better.. i was very excited about this assistant but I'm not massively impressed so far.. when you get silicon I find the transparent setting the best for my music.. the clear often completely distorts things.. but the most annoying thing is just turning the assistant on add a latency into the entire track which i can't get rid of so it's impossible to add any extra layers in once you have touched that button.. i'm trying to find a way to remove the assistant completely..

Put the other tracks thru outputs 3-4

I just got around to trying it with an M1 chip. The clean to me sounds way worse than the other options and it sounds far more distorted using the exciter. Just my opinion. It defaults to transparent on mine. I think clean is just for non-M1 chips.

Yours sounds better. But yeah, its also louder.

Why does it always boost around 50 so extreme. I've been fooling with this and over and over even if I boost those frequencies with the bass, kick or something it still always boosts in that area.

I don’t like the excite button at all, it just adds too many artefacts to the sound. Other than that this mastering assistant is a great tool.

Just make sure that you are done and happy with all the tracking before you use this feature. It causes latency that doesn't go away, even if you remove it.

Just leave it alone big dawg it sounds just fine how the mastering assistant did it

I did an amazing provisional master with this tool recently. That said, not a fan of excite button.

This is crazy how far ai has come

You say that you need a good mix to wind up with a good master, but then you turned off all your mix effects. Shouldn't you leave them on and then master?

I use an actual producer and my music sounds great lol

Here's a neat trick: Analyze your reference track using MA. If it was created in a million-dollar facility by a pro mastering engineer like Owsinski or Kramer, then YOUR COMPUTER will tell you what THEY, got WRONG! Really? Come on. That's what MA is showing me about legendary recordings. And I'll bet every penny not one reference track will show a reasonably flat EQ trace, or that the MA will leave the compression completely alone. It's just the subjective opinion of a computer app, written by propellerheads, with maybe not much guidance from folks like Owsinski or Kramer. But what this does is shows simply how the opinion your computer is expressing is just one more opinion among many, and then maybe you won't take its opinion too seriously. In the end, all that counts is your own opinion. It's just a tool. And a good one. The trick is learning how to use it correctly. Don't reach for a crosscut saw when what you really need is a coping saw.

How can you give an honest opinion without the proper tools to do the job?

Uh oh... 404 likes. Need to fix that.

Yours is more harsh.. to me

Very poor comment , you need to learn Mastering little more

You talk too fast. Slow down. Explain things more in detail.

Im here to try to find out where in the mastering chain it should go Haven’t seen any answers guess I’ll just have to play around with it