Mastering

01 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

First define the master you need to deliver

Mastering starts with a description of the result. For a video project this might be the final stereo mix, a separate audio file, several language versions or a set of stems. Record what belongs in each version, where the programme starts and finishes, and which channels and files the recipient expects.

Choose the loudness target from the actual delivery specification. A platform name, a Resolve preset and the client brief are related pieces of information; none is a substitute for checking the others. Establish the measurement standard, Integrated target, tolerance and maximum true peak, then the format and file structure. Lab values are exercise settings and are not recommendations for every project.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range · Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Loudness and monitoring

02 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Make the mix clear before adding overall gain

First listen as a viewer: are the important words clear, does music pull attention away, and do the significant sound events read? Constant gain applied to the whole mix preserves the relationships between its components. It raises quiet dialogue and over-loud music together.

Address the cause at the appropriate level. Inspect a single intrusive syllable on its clip; use automation for a musical rise beneath a line; review a group bus for a repeated problem across that group. Master-bus processing affects all of its contributors, so compare every change in the full mix at a comparable listening level.

03 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Select the bus you intend to deliver

A bus meter shows the sum of the sources routed to that bus. Make a short map: dialogue, music and effects → required groups → final bus. Check sends, returns, Mute/Solo and alternative paths. If a source reaches the final sum twice, an overall fader move may hide excess level without correcting the routing.

The upper monitoring menu selects the signal for listening and the compound meters, including Loudness. Deliver selects the file source separately through Output Track. Match these assignments explicitly. Control Room serves the listening path; changing speaker level should not be used as a way to change the delivered programme.

1. Name the final bus

   Record its name and channel format. Confirm that all required groups and returns reach it and that no temporary Solo remains.

2. Measure that signal

   Select the bus for monitoring, establish the measurement point and play a recognizable passage.

3. Repeat the choice in Deliver

   Check Output Track, channel count and any unwanted additional outputs. Selecting a monitoring bus does not complete this step.

DaVinci Resolve · original captureClick to enlarge ↗

Mixer and the active Bus 1 strip

620 × 1100

Fit100%150%200%

×

Tracks and the final bus appear in the same context. The name Bus 1 alone does not confirm that this bus is selected in Deliver: check the Output Track assignment separately.

Open original ↗

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Loudness and monitoring · Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range

04 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Check gain before and after processing

Map the actual path through EQ, Dynamics, inserts, faders and busses. The level entering a compressor affects its behavior: adding gain before the detector and adding the same gain after processing are different operations. Test changes of order or level on the same passage with context.

For final checks, measure after all stages that will form part of the delivered mix. If additional gain follows a meter, or normalization is enabled on export, the earlier reading does not describe the finished file. Equalization, summing and subsequent processing can also alter peaks.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range · Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Loudness and monitoring

05 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Measure the full programme, not a favorable excerpt

Before a formal pass, select the appropriate standard and bus, clear the accumulated analysis with Reset and start measurement over the agreed full range. Integrated describes the material included in that pass. A looped chorus, a short excerpt or a different bus does not replace the final measurement.

Loudness History helps locate problem moments on Main 1; the Resolve 21 reference limits history support to that bus. Analyze Audio Level is available from a timeline file’s context menu and can check imported or bounced material. An analysis of a source clip does not by itself establish the loudness of the complete sum with bus processing.

Loudness and true peak answer different questions. For Integrated color coding, the manual describes blue as below tolerance, yellow as within tolerance and red as above tolerance. Color depends on the selected mode and does not replace checking numbers, units and the duration of the pass.

DaVinci Resolve · original captureClick to enlarge ↗

Bus 1, Control Room and Loudness

620 × 520

Fit100%150%200%

×

Retained example of active monitoring. Its numbers belong to this capture and are not delivery targets. Establish the selected bus, scale and measurement range in your own project.

Open original ↗

DaVinci Resolve · original captureClick to enlarge ↗

The same block without populated readings

620 × 520

Fit100%150%200%

×

This original capture shows dashes. It records one interface state and does not prove that every transport stop resets accumulated Integrated loudness. Check Reset and the measurement controls.

Open original ↗

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Loudness and monitoring

06 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Calculate how much linear gain the peaks allow

For a planning estimate, take Integrated loudness and maximum true peak from the same programme version. Target LUFS minus measured LUFS gives the required gain. Ceiling dBTP minus measured dBTP gives the maximum constant gain permitted by the peak ceiling. A negative value means attenuation is needed.

In the authored example, raising −22 LUFS to −16 LUFS requires +6 dB. But a measured true peak of −4 dBTP and a −1 dBTP ceiling allow only +3 dB. Choosing +3 dB predicts −19 LUFS and −1 dBTP. A shortfall of 3 LU remains: constant gain cannot satisfy both requirements at once.

Shifting Integrated by the gain is an estimate that assumes the final set of blocks included after both gates remains unchanged. The relative threshold shifts by the gain only while the set passing the absolute gate remains unchanged; if that set changes, the relative threshold is recalculated from the new set and may shift by a different amount. The absolute threshold itself stays fixed. Measure Integrated again after an actual level change.

Reference: ITU-R BS.1770-5 — Programme loudness and true-peak algorithms

07 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Lab: a target, a ceiling and an explicit shortfall

Change the measured Integrated, maximum true peak, target and ceiling independently. With the constraint enabled, the example selects the smaller of the two gains. Disable it: loudness reaches the authored target while predicted true peak reveals any ceiling excess. The model does not clip the peaks.

Compare three scenarios: a conflict, sufficient headroom and a level reduction. Original measurements temporarily applies zero gain while keeping the settings. LUFS, dBTP and Gain buttons highlight parts of the diagram without changing the calculation. Values beyond a drawing scale remain in the numeric readouts.

Reference: ITU-R BS.1770-5 — Programme loudness and true-peak algorithms

08 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Carry the intended mix from Fairlight into Deliver

Quick Export is useful with a prepared preset. Deliver provides separate Video, Audio and File settings, making the exact delivery structure easier to inspect. For an audio file, use a suitable audio-only setup or disable Export Video while retaining Export Audio. A preset supplies an initial configuration; compare its values with the brief.

In the Audio Panel, choose the required Format and Codec, then Output Track. This selector determines the bus to render; additional outputs can be added as separate rows. Inspect the name and channel count of every row. All Timeline Tracks creates output tracks from the timeline tracks and does not mean the finished master-bus sum.

1. Render mode

   Check Single Clip for a continuous finished film or programme. Individual Clips produces separate clip files and uses a different interpretation of the selected range.

2. File contents

   Verify Export Audio, any required video and the bus in every Output Track row. Match each one to the intended measured mix.

3. Queued job

   Set the filename and folder, inspect the range, then add the job to the Render Queue. After changing settings, confirm that the current job is the one being rendered.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range

09 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Verify the range and channel order

Choose Entire Timeline or explicitly set In/Out and inspect the duration. The check should include the start of the programme, the final sound and its decay. If a short In/Out selection remains from editing, even a correctly configured bus can produce an incomplete file.

Channel count and order belong to the delivery brief. A stereo file, two separate mono channels and a multichannel container can represent different structures despite similar playback. In the Audio Panel, Render one track per channel and Render as discrete audio tracks control channel packaging; the manual specifically notes the lack of positioning information for discrete tracks. Do not choose solely by a familiar option name.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range

10 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Specify the format and choose normalization explicitly

The project processing rate and the output file’s Sample Rate are separate settings. Under Project Settings, the reference describes Audio Sample Rate as a choice made before creating the first timeline; the Deliver Audio Panel chooses the output rate. Increasing the output number alone cannot recover detail absent from the source. PCM bit depth, compressed-audio bitrate and sample rate are different parameters.

Deliver Audio Normalization applies to selected outputs. The manual describes Normalize to Standard as scaling with regard to whichever loudness or peak threshold is reached first; Optimize to Standard is intended to bring both loudness and peaks into the chosen standard. That description does not disclose the complete processing algorithm. Do not describe both modes as a single constant gain or apply the lab equations to their behavior.

If you have already prepared the required level, check whether additional export normalization is needed for this job. When using it, record the mode, standard, target values and enabled outputs, then measure the result. Different export settings can produce different final measurements from the same mix.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range · iZotope — Ozone 8 Help · Dithering Tips

11 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Separate a working bounce from the delivery package

Bouncing helps create intermediate processed material, consolidate work and prepare a file for another analysis. A working bounce and a final deliverable serve different purposes: delivery still requires checks of range, format, channels and the intended mix version. The linked topic explains Cache and the individual Bounce commands in detail.

For stems, agree the contents in advance, such as Dialogue, Music and Effects, and use matching time boundaries. State which processing is included in each file and which bus produced it. Do not normalize stems independently unless required: doing so can change their relative balance when they are recombined.

A sum of separate stems need not match a finished master that passed through a shared compressor, limiter or other nonlinear processing. That process responds to the combined signal. For a verifiable reconstruction, agree the capture point, common processing and summing procedure; prevent that processing from being applied a second time after import.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range · Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Loudness and monitoring

12 / UNDERSTAND & APPLY

Verify the finished file and retain the result

First render a short representative passage if you are still checking channel assignments, format or the processing chain. This can expose a problem before the full render. After correcting it, export the complete programme: that full file becomes the object of the final Integrated, maximum true-peak, duration and content checks.

Import the file to a clean verification track or open it in a separate environment. Confirm that this checking path does not reapply the previous processing, automation or normalization. Then listen through the whole programme in the agreed monitoring format and measure the complete delivery range. A successful Render Queue job confirms file creation, not the creative or technical suitability of its contents.

1. Inspect the structure

   Check the version name, duration, channel count and order, Sample Rate, codec and required bit depth.

2. Measure again

   Reset accumulations and make a complete pass under the same specification. Record the actual Integrated and maximum true peak together with the measurement mode.

3. Listen to the content

   Check dialogue, transitions, loud attacks, tails, missing material and sync. Compare the required monitoring versions without changing the delivered file.

4. Keep a reviewable record

   Record the date, edit version, route, range, export settings, measured values and any problems found and corrected.

Reference: Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Deliver audio and render range · Blackmagic Design — DaVinci Resolve 21 Reference Manual · Loudness and monitoring

FAQ / BEFORE THE NEXT MOVE

Questions that matter in practice