espite often being thought of as a DAW ‘just’
for composition and mixing, Cubase has
been equipped with all the tools necessary
for mastering for some time – indeed, within
the latest version you get everything you
need to achieve a decent, ‘pro’ sound.
Firstly, though, I thought it would be worth recapping
the basics of setting up a project suitable for mastering
within Cubase. If you’re working in v7 of the software
there is a preset for mastering on the opening fl ash
screen that can be found under the Mastering tab. 1
Having a preset is all well and good in some
circumstances, but it doesn’t really give us the
complete fl exibility needed for mastering because no
two projects will be the same. So, start by loading an
empty project from under the Other tab. When this has
opened we need to add a track either via Project>Add
Track>Audio and selecting a stereo track (unless you
happen to be working in surround or on a retro project in
mono) or by dragging-and-dropping a fi le into the
Arrange window.
A slightly neater way around this is to import the
audio properly. Click on File>Import>Audio File and
select the track you want to load into the Arrange
window. 2 At this point you get some options regarding
the fi le. I always copy the fi le to the working directory as
it keeps everything together. It’s best not to split a
stereo fi le as the processes you place on the fi le for
mastering will have to be repeated for each channel, so
you could end up with mismatched channels. 3