It’s essentially all the same.Īs a mastering engineer, I really only care if the peak levels of an unmastered mix hit 0 dBFS (decibels relative to full scale) on a 24-bit mix file. The suggestion for peaks no higher than -6 dB was a safe and general recommendation for good reason back then.ĭigital audio has advanced by leaps and bounds since those days so putting too much thought and effort into peaking at -6 dB or -3 dB in your DAW is more or less of a waste of time. These devices were fairly primitive and didn’t sound good when the input levels were clipped or even when levels reached the very top range of the digital scale. You had to be careful not to clip the input which could easily sound bad. It’s my belief that the suggestion of having your peaks at -3 dB or -6 dB dates back to the early days of digital audio when mixes were captured on a DAT (digital audio tape) or on an Alesis MasterLink two-track recorder, for example.
Don’t allow peak levels to reach 0 dBFS.
While that isn’t incorrect, it’s also a bit arbitrary.įor the most part, following these 2 steps will provide a mix that is ideal for mastering: Then comes the flood of varying responses, but the most common is to see somebody suggesting peaks at -6 or -3 dB. Not a week goes by where I don’t see somebody on a forum or Facebook group asking about how much headroom to leave on a mix for the mastering engineer.