How Much Headroom For Mastering Do I Need?

+3dbs to +6dbs of headroom is the standard recommended amount, but many times a song with more or a little less headroom can still be mastered with no problems.

But, it really makes no sense to give a mastering engineer a mix with 0dbs of headroom and risk the chance that it’s slightly distorted. There’s no reason to do it because overall song volume is done in the mastering process, not in mixing.

Note – It doesn’t matter what DAW software you use FL Studio, Pro Tools, Logic, Reason, Cubase, Sonar or Ableton, the headroom examples and instructions apply to all of them.