Mastering The Mix’s Faster Master has made me completely rethink my mastering chain£49, masteringthemix.com
It’s always best to get a fresh set of expert ears to master your precious music. But if you’re strapped for cash or just want a clean-sounding demo, then there’s no shortage of all-in-one mastering tools. There are plugins such as iZotope’s Ozone (recently updated to V12), Cradle’s The God Particle, Plugin Alliance’s bx_masterdesk, and Musik Hack’s Masterplan, through to online mastering tools like LANDR that offer a refined set of controls.
This ever-growing list now has a new entry from Mastering The Mix. Faster Master is an easy-to-use plugin that listens to your audio to generate mastering presets. It is co-created by David Guetta and Nicky Romero and offers an affordable alternative to more expensive options as well as simple controls to get results fast.

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I’m a long-term user of Ozone, but it’s expensive, heavy on CPU, its suite of modules can sometimes feel like overkill, and, occasionally, masters end up sounding over-processed. Faster Master is the opposite of all these things. It aims to deliver pro-quality masters in just a few clicks, and includes only a handful of modules: EQ, Transients, Compression, Stereo-width and Limiting.
Faster Master has 166 presets that cover a wide range of genres and styles, including electronic, house, hip-hop, pop, rock, acoustic, country, dubstep, latin, soul and even soundtrack. To get started, place the plugin last on your output chain, and then click Analyze whilst playing the loudest section of your track. After a few seconds, it will give a warning about how much gain it’s about to apply, which you can click through to switch on the processing. You can then choose from 10 different preset profiles from the list that have been specially selected to best match your track.

The plugin looks at your frequency spread and width, and then uses its EQ and Stereo modules to make adjustments to match the reference profile. The overall loudness is your decision, but it defaults to -6 LUFS every time (this can be changed in the settings). The default compression is always light, and transient adjustment is off. This means you can adjust these things if you think they’re needed, but you may often find that they’re not. By giving you 10 potential presets, you can quickly flick through and hear different options before picking your favourite for further refinement.
Crucially, you can also load in reference tracks, which are then saved as new profiles to choose from. As a nice workflow touch, the loudest part of the track is automatically looped and available to listen to so that you can compare your master with the reference at the click of a button.
The modules are simple and intuitive. The EQ features 11 fixed nodes for fast tonal shaping. These are improved versions of the filters found in MTM’s Mixroom and Bassroom plugins, with minimal phase distortion and transient smearing. There’s also a percentage control so you can scale the amount of EQ applied. I find it incredibly easy to make adjustments by ear to tweak the spread to my liking, although some hover-over frequency read-outs would be appreciated.
Presets. Image: Press
The Transients section has a single control that can be increased or reduced to add extra global punch or tame percussive elements that are poking through too much. If your mix is solid enough, then you probably won’t need to use it, but it has a relatively transparent sound, so a small amount can prove useful in the right situation. The Compress section is also incredibly simple, with a slider that changes from Light, to Dynamic, to Tight (an SSL-style squeeze). The threshold is intelligently set based on the audio peaks, and the other parameters change as you adjust the slider, so all you need to do is use your ears and turn it up. As with everything here, it’s well calibrated so that even the most extreme settings won’t totally destroy your audio. There’s also a switchable sidechain filter at 150 Hz that is used to reduce pumping in bass-heavy tracks.
Next up is the Stereo section that has four fixed bands covering Low End, Low Mids, High Mids and High End. It seems to be using some sort of M/S technique for the widening, which sounds best when used sparingly, but thankfully remains mono-compatible.
This brings us to the main element that makes or breaks any mastering plugin: the limiter. Like it or not, modern music has developed with an emphasis on volume, and even though streaming standards have helped matters, dance music in particular still sounds more powerful with a well-balanced and loud-sounding master. I put Faster Master through extensive stress testing alongside Ozone 11, Sonible’s smart:limit and Musik Hack’s FUEL. Each is pushed to the limit (no pun intended) and beyond just to see how much they can handle, and the results are really surprising.
Transients. Image: Press
All three of these alternatives are excellent (and not cheap) plugins, but Faster Master comes out on top, with the most defined transient punch and the least amount of pumping. Be aware that the intricacies of specific tracks and genres may interact differently with these processors, so it’s not gospel that these results will always be the same, but these are my findings on a range of dance music tracks.
Controls for the Limit section are relatively simple. The track analysis will set the timing parameters in the background, and you simply choose what loudness level (in LUFS) you want to aim for. You have a choice of six slider positions from -10 up to -5. Somewhat confusingly, this is measured in LUFS short-term as opposed to integrated, so it doesn’t totally coincide with values that you might be used to. There’s a white line that moves to show the average volume, but it has a habit of continually moving, which leads me to use a separate metering plugin to get more accurate results. There are also times when I want to select values in between the slider positions, but that’s not currently possible. You can, however, add additional thickness and volume using a Drive slider, set the ceiling output, and change the behaviour to true peak. It would be useful if there was a gain reduction meter, as this would help to make more informed decisions when it comes to refining the mix going into the plugin.
Having David Guetta and Nicky Romero’s names on the plugin will come across as an impressive endorsement to some, and a put-off to others. I would say it’s better to just test the plugin and judge it on its own merits. It turns out though, that both artists were fairly heavily involved in the testing and development stages. Guetta, it seems, came up with the idea of having the whole plugin level-matched so that each move keeps a consistent volume. In practice, this is incredibly useful as you’re constantly focusing on the sonic differences rather than on changes in volume, especially when working with the EQ. Ozone can also do this, but it feels a little smoother here.
Limit. Image: Press
I’m really impressed with Faster Master. I generally prefer plugins that offer more control so that I can fine-tune settings, but the results here speak for themselves. It’s so well set up and calibrated to get fast, great-sounding masters with minimal fuss.
I go through a bunch of tracks and switch out my final Ozone plugin for Faster Master, and as much as I hate to admit it (as I spent a long while tweaking those settings), it sounds cleaner and more refined.
With the exception of the aforementioned shortcomings of the Limit module, I don’t have any complaints; given the quality of the sound, the price is highly competitive. It’s an excellent choice for novices or anyone who’s daunted by complex mastering plugins, and it’s even worth considering for more seasoned professionals. I’ll definitely be using Faster Master in conjunction with other plugins in my mastering chain going forward.

Key features

Mastering plugin with auto preset generation (VST3, AU, AAX)
Co-developed with David Guetta and Nicky Romero
5 modules: EQ, Transients, Compress, Stereo and Limit
166 genre profiles
Import your own reference tracks
Auto volume compensation

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