There are few places more inspiring to talk about mastering than Abbey Road Studios. Surrounded by decades of musical history, I sat down with one of our favourite mastering engineers, Stefan Brown, to tackle the questions we all ask, whether we’re just starting out or deep into our careers.
What came out of this wasn’t just technical advice. It was something far more important, clarity. Confidence. And a reminder that mastering is far less about rules, and far more about intent.
Is Analogue Gear Essential for Mastering?
Short answer, no.
Stefan’s perspective is refreshing. Gear only matters if it helps you get where you want to go faster. That’s it. He regularly works fully in the box, as well as in hybrid setups, and sees no hierarchy between the two.
There’s a tendency to assume racks of expensive analogue gear equal better results. However, that simply isn’t true. Plenty of great records are mastered entirely with plugins.
What matters is understanding what you want to hear, and choosing tools that get you there.
Takeaway: Confidence in your ears will always beat confidence in your gear.
Is There a “Correct” Headroom for Mastering?
This is one of the biggest myths in audio.
Stefan couldn’t be clearer, he doesn’t care.
Whether your mix peaks at 0 dB and is clipped, or sits at -20 dB, it makes no difference. In modern 32-bit and 64-bit DAWs, gain staging is completely flexible. He can turn things up or down instantly without degrading the signal.
What he does care about is this:
Send the mix you love.
If you start second-guessing levels to “please the mastering engineer,” you’ve already stepped out of the creative mindset. And that’s the worst place to be.
Takeaway: Don’t mix for mastering. Mix for the music.
What Is the Real Goal of Mastering?
This is where things get powerful.
For Stefan, mastering has nothing to do with loudness targets or technical perfection. It’s about emotion.
The goal is to enhance whatever makes the song special and ensure that translates to every listener, on every system.
Years from now, nobody remembers LUFS values. They remember how a song made them feel.
Takeaway: Mastering is emotional translation, not technical correction.
How Do You Know What to Enhance?
There’s no preset for this.
Sometimes it’s a vocal nuance. Sometimes it’s a bass tone. Sometimes it’s the way a chorus lifts emotionally.
And sometimes it’s subtle, almost intangible.
This is where experience comes in. The more you listen, the more you start to feel what matters in a track.
Takeaway: If you can feel it, you can enhance it.
Can You Master on Headphones?
Absolutely.
Stefan actually prefers it a lot of the time. High-quality headphones offer a level of intimacy and detail that can be incredibly useful, especially for stereo imaging and fine detail work.
However, you need to understand how headphones differ from speakers, particularly in how they present space and width.
He personally avoids crossfeed and room emulation, instead relying on familiarity and translation.
Takeaway: Headphones are not a compromise. They’re a different perspective.
Do You Need Expensive Plugins to Master?
Not at all.
Stock plugins in DAWs like Ableton Live, Pro Tools, and REAPER are more than capable of delivering professional results.
Specialist plugins come into play when you hit a limitation and need a specific sound or function.
However, mastering is not defined by EQs, compressors, or limiters. Those are just tools.
The real requirements are:
- Accurate monitoring
- Trained ears
- Confidence in your decisions
Takeaway: Tools don’t make masters. Decisions do.
Do You Automate in Mastering?
All the time.
Sometimes it’s incredibly subtle, a 0.1 dB lift in a chorus. Other times it’s dramatic, pulling sections down by several dB to create contrast and impact.
Mastering isn’t static. It’s dynamic shaping of the entire song’s emotional arc.
Takeaway: Tiny moves can create massive impact.
What Happens with Loud or Clipped Mixes?
Nothing dramatic.
Stefan simply turns them down.
Modern DAWs give you effectively infinite headroom internally, so clipped or heavily limited mixes aren’t a problem. If the distortion or limiting is part of the sound, he keeps it.
The key point here is crucial:
If you like how it sounds, leave it.
Don’t “fix” something just because you think mastering requires it.
Takeaway: Commit to your sound. Don’t second-guess it.
When Do You Add Colour vs Stay Transparent?
This is entirely contextual.
- If the mix already communicates clearly, small, transparent moves might be enough
- If it needs more weight, grit, or character, that’s when colour comes in
It also depends on the client and the genre.
There’s no fixed rule. Only intention.
Takeaway: Let the music tell you what it needs.
Should You Aim for a Specific LUFS Target?
No.
Stefan works at a fixed monitoring level and judges everything by how it feels, not by numbers.
Interestingly, a track can measure louder in LUFS and still feel softer, depending on its dynamics and content.
For example:
- Dense, transient-heavy tracks may read louder but feel controlled
- Sparse acoustic tracks may read quieter but feel more immediate
Chasing numbers often leads to worse results.
Takeaway: Perceived loudness beats measured loudness.
Should You Gain Match Plugins?
If you’re learning, yes.
Gain matching helps you understand what a plugin is actually doing without being fooled by volume differences.
However, once experienced, Stefan doesn’t worry about it. He’s listening to how processes interact and drive into each other, especially in a mastering chain.
Sometimes that interaction is exactly where the magic happens.
Takeaway: Learn with discipline. Work with instinct.
Final Thoughts
What I love about this conversation with Stefan Brown is how it strips away the noise.
No rigid rules. No obsession with numbers. No gear snobbery.
Just a clear focus on what actually matters:
Does it sound great? Does it feel right? Does it move you?
If the answer is yes, you’re doing it right.