Mastering for TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts
On TikTok and Reels your track has three seconds, a phone speaker, and an aggressive codec. Most of what makes a master sound good on studio monitors does not survive that. Here is what does.
· 5 min read
What the platform does to your audio
- Re-encodes to AAC at a modest bitrate. Anything above ~16 kHz is unreliable; harsh top end turns into codec swirl.
- Normalizes loudness to roughly −14 LUFS and applies its own limiting. A −8 LUFS master is turned down and then squashed again.
- Plays through a phone speaker for most viewers. Nothing below ~150 Hz is reproduced; the low-mids are your entire low end.
What to do about it
- Master for the low-mids. A track that is thin between 120 and 350 Hz — which most AI output is, by about 1.6 dB — sounds hollow on a phone. The master should add weight there before anything else.
- Tame the top. AI tracks run 4–5 dB hot above 6 kHz. After AAC encoding that becomes a hissy, swirly sheen. A broad cut around 7–8 kHz survives the codec better than any boost.
- Do not chase loudness. Pick TikTok/Instagram as the release target and let the master land near −14 LUFS with true peaks at −1 dBTP. The platform will not turn it down, and the codec has headroom to work with.
- Front-load the hook. This is an arrangement decision, not a mastering one, but it matters more than any EQ: if the best fifteen seconds are at 1:10, cut a version that starts there.
Check it the way viewers hear it
Play the master on your phone's speaker at the volume you actually use, with the phone on a table. If the kick disappears and the vocal sounds like it is coming through a straw, the low-mids need more. If the hi-hats sting, the top needs less. The MasteringOne A/B player works on a phone browser, so you can do this check with the free preview before deciding anything.
Try it on your own track
Free 60-second preview. No account needed.