Reference Mastering Online — Match Your Track to a Reference

• Upload your track — WAV, FLAC or MP3 straight in the browser, nothing to install.
• Attach a reference — a finished release whose sound you like.
• We measure both files — spectral profile across seven bands, integrated loudness and the Side/Mid ratio.
• The chain pulls your track towards the reference profile and returns a finished master.

• Tonal balance — seven bands: sub 25–60 Hz, bass 60–180 Hz, low mids 180–600 Hz, mids 600–1600 Hz, upper mids 1.6–3.5 kHz, presence 3.5–7 kHz, air 7–16 kHz.
• Loudness — the target LUFS is taken from the reference, within a working range of −16 to −7.
• Stereo width — from the Side/Mid energy difference, with the multiplier capped to 0.7–1.3.
• What does NOT transfer: arrangement, instrument timbres and mix decisions. Mastering works on the finished mix as a whole, not on individual tracks.

• Same genre, similar instrumentation — comparing a dense electronic track with an acoustic ballad is pointless: the corrections come out large and destructive.
• A finished release, not a demo — the reference should already be mastered, otherwise you inherit someone else's unfinished work.
• One reference, not five — averaging several examples yields a blurred profile with no character.
• Be honest about the distance — if your mix is far from the reference, mastering will show it, but it won't replace a re-mix.

• You have a specific target — «I want it like this track» is more precise than picking a genre preset blind.
• You're preparing an album — one reference across all tracks levels them against each other.
• Genre in between — when no preset describes your material.
• A disagreement with a client — a reference turns «make it punchier» into a measurable task.

A genre preset is an averaged idea of how a genre sounds: it knows nothing about your particular mix. A reference works differently — it measures the difference between your track and the chosen example and corrects exactly that. If your mix is already close, the corrections are tiny; if it's far, they are noticeable but still bounded by a safe ceiling.

A practical rule: use a preset when you want «make it good for this genre», and a reference when you have a concrete target and can say what you like about it. The second is more precise, but it demands a sensible choice of example — a bad reference will pull the master off course just as reliably as a good one guides it.

• The reference is 6 dB louder and that reads as «better». Louder almost always sounds better — that's how hearing works, not a sign of quality. Compare at matched loudness, or you'll simply pick the louder track.
• Using a reference from another genre. A dense club master as a target for an acoustic recording pushes corrections to the limit and destroys the naturalness of the take.
• Expecting «vocals like theirs». Mastering processes the whole mix. If the reference has the voice higher in the balance, that's a mix decision and can only be reproduced in the mix.
• Taking the reference from a streaming service. A file downloaded from a platform is already codec-compressed and normalised. Use the original release file where possible.