The Ultimate Guide to Mastering with FASTER MASTER

Mastering is the final step that makes a track sound polished, balanced, and ready to shine on any speaker or streaming platform. It can make or break your track. But let’s be honest, most mastering tools either feel too complicated, take forever to dial in, or give you generic, underwhelming results.

Enter FASTER MASTER, the revolutionary plugin developed in collaboration with DJ legends David Guetta and Nicky Romero. Whether you’re a beginner, an intermediate producer, or an experienced pro looking to save time, FASTER MASTER delivers world-class mastering results in minutes while keeping you in control.

This guide will show you exactly how to analyze your track, choose the best preset, tweak key modules, and get a polished, release-ready master. You’ll walk away with the confidence to get the best results from FASTER MASTER, and be blown away by the results.

Step 1: Load Your Track & Analyze the Loudest Section

Load FASTER MASTER as the final plugin in your mastering chain.
Play the loudest section of your track.
Click "Analyze" and let FASTER MASTER work its magic.

Faster_Master_Analyze_loudest_section

Step 2: Preview Your Smart Presets

FASTER MASTER's Smart Presets intelligently select the 10 best presets based on your track’s unique characteristics.

Click "Let’s Hear It" to preview the recommended preset.
Use the preset arrow buttons to switch between options.
Explore different styles or import reference tracks.

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Step 3: Import Your Own Reference Tracks

Click the file + icon and drag & drop your reference tracks.
FASTER MASTER will analyze them and create a custom sonic profile.
When you set a reference track as your sonic target, FASTER MASTER intelligently adjusts the EQ and stereo width of your song to closely match the reference's tonal balance and spatial depth.
Click the play button to compare your track to the reference.

Faster Master Import_Reference_Tracks

How to Choose the Best Reference Track

Pick a high-quality track that sounds incredible.
Match your genre & vibe.
Use a WAV/AIFF file, not MP3 where possible.

Step 4: Fine-Tune Your Master With FASTER MASTER’s Modules

EQ: Sculpt the Perfect Tonal Balance

FASTER MASTER’s 11-band EQ is designed for mastering, offering precise tonal control while preserving clarity. With pristine, phase-coherent filters, it minimizes distortion and transient smearing.

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Browse through 10 smart presets to quickly preview different EQ styles.
Select a preset, then fine-tune it to match your vision.
Loudness is automatically matched in real-time when adjusting EQ, compression, or stereo settings. No matter what changes you make, the output loudness remains exactly as you set it for a consistent and accurate comparison.
Adjust the mix percentage by dragging the “100%” readout.

Transients: Enhance Punch & Clarity

The Transients module helps you fine-tune the attack and impact of your track, ensuring a polished, professional sound. Unlike many transient designers that trick your ears by mostly just increasing loudness, FASTER MASTER keeps the volume consistent, so you hear the true effect of your adjustments, not just a louder signal.

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Increase punch: Drag up to emphasize transients, making drums and percussive elements hit harder.
Smooth out harshness: Drag down to reduce transient attack, softening sharp peaks for a more controlled sound.
Real-time level matching: Changes are automatically level-matched, ensuring you hear the actual tonal difference without being fooled by a volume boost.
Easy refinement: Shape transients with precision, keeping your track dynamic and impactful without artificial loudness tricks.

Compression: Control Your Dynamics

Compression balances your mix, ensuring clarity and cohesion. FASTER MASTER’s intelligent compression applies professional-grade processing while keeping control simple.

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Effortless control: Adjust the amount slider, FASTER MASTER automatically sets the threshold and parameters.
Smart compression modes: Choose from Off, Light, Dynamic, or Tight to suit your track’s needs.
No unnatural pumping: The low-cut sidechain filter removes frequencies below 250Hz to prevent kick and bass from over-triggering the compressor.
Real-time level matching: Ensures consistent loudness so you hear the actual impact of compression.

Pro Tip: When to Use More vs. Less Compression

More compression (Dynamic/Tight) for punchy pop, electronic, and hip-hop masters that need tight, controlled dynamics.
Less compression (Light) for acoustic, jazz, or orchestral tracks to maintain natural dynamics.

Stereo: Create a Wide, Balanced Master

Stereo width enhances depth and clarity, making your track feel wider and more immersive. FASTER MASTER’s clean, phase-coherent processing ensures width adjustments improve your mix without introducing phase issues.

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Frequency-based control: Adjust width across low, low-mid, high-mid, and high-end bands.
In the presets, the low-end and low-mid range nodes are set to cut only (or remain at 0 if the preset technically called for a boost) because boosting these frequencies can sound unnatural, so boosting is disabled by default through the presets, but you can still adjust them manually if needed.
Expand the highs: Widen the high-mid and high-end for a spacious, airy mix.
Simple adjustments: Drag inward to narrow or outward to widen stereo spread, with real-time visual feedback.

With FASTER MASTER, your mix stays balanced, immersive, and phase-accurate at any width.

Limit: Get Industry-Standard Loudness

The limiter is the final and most critical step in mastering, it determines your track’s loudness while preserving clarity and impact. FASTER MASTER’s intelligent limiter optimizes settings automatically, so all you need to do is set your desired loudness.

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Selectable loudness nodes: Choose from Streaming (-10, -9, -8 LUFS) for dynamic masters or Loud (-7, -6, -5 LUFS) for club-ready punch. You can choose your own default in settings.
Click -0.1 and enter your ceiling/output level. You toggle between true peak or peak limiting to suit your preference. True Peak Limiting prevents inter-sample peaks for distortion-free playback across all systems but applies more limiting, which can slightly reduce punch. Peak Limiting controls only digital peak levels within the DAW, preserving more transients but risking overshoots.
Use the Drive slider to introduce subtle harmonic distortion, boosting perceived loudness without over-compression.
The small white LUFS meter line shows your track’s short-term loudness, keeping levels in check.
The refresh button (next to the limit bypass button) recalculates loudness while keeping all other settings intact, perfect for adjusting levels if you’ve added plugins earlier in your mastering chain.

With FASTER MASTER, you get competitive loudness while keeping your master clean, punchy, and distortion-free.

Lock Feature: Maintain Your Preferred Settings

FASTER MASTER allows you to lock individual modules to prevent them from changing when switching between presets. This is perfect when you’ve dialed in a setting you love and don’t want it altered.

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Click the lock icon on any module (EQ, Transients, Compression, or Stereo).
The locked module will remain unchanged when selecting different presets.
Unlock it anytime to continue adjusting.

Step 5: Compare & Finalize Your Master

Bypass with Level Matching

FASTER MASTER automatically level-matches the bypassed signal across the entire master and within each individual module, ensuring accurate, unbiased comparisons at every stage of your processing.

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