Headroom
The space left between your loudest peak and clipping.
Leave roughly 3 to 6 dB before the mastering stage. Too little headroom forces the mastering engineer to fight your limiter instead of improving the track.
Use this in your own career
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More studio terms
- Remix vs. rework
A remix uses the original stems; a rework rebuilds parts around it.
- Stems
Grouped audio exports of a track: drums, bass, synths, vocals.
- Mixing
Balancing the elements of a track into one coherent whole.
- Mastering
The final polish that prepares a track for distribution.
- LUFS
The loudness unit used by streaming platforms.
- Ghost production
Producing a track that is released under someone else's name.