Death Metal Mastering with weight and clarity.
Death metal mastering is the stage that gives palm-mutes real weight, keeps blast beats and fast double-kick readable, and makes growls cut through the guitar wall on every playback system. At Polished every death metal master starts with a written audio audit of your mix, so the low end and loudness are decided by measurement, not by guesswork. From €79 per track, mastered personally by Tim Borchert.
What death metal needs from a master
Death metal is dense by design: down-tuned guitars, fast double-kick, low growls and often bass playing in the same register as the guitars. Loudness is expected, but every dB of limiting costs transient definition. A good death metal master finds the point where the record hits hard without the drums turning into mush.
Old-school death metal
Organic, saturated, sometimes murky by intent. The master adds punch and translation while keeping the cavernous character.
Technical & progressive
Every note matters. The master protects articulation in fast runs and keeps bass lines audible under the guitars.
Brutal & slam
Maximum weight in the low mids. The audit watches the 100–300 Hz region closely so slams hit instead of booming.
Melodic death metal
Leads and harmonies need presence without harshness. The master balances aggression with melodic clarity.
What the audit typically finds in death metal mixes
- Low-mid buildup (150–400 Hz) from guitars, bass and toms stacking up, which makes the mix sound big but undefined.
- Double-kick that blurs at high tempos, either too clicky after limiting or lost under the bass.
- Growls fighting the guitars in the same frequency range, so lyrics and rhythm get lost.
- Snare losing crack when the master is pushed, because the limiter catches every hit first.
- Pre-limited mixes where the mix bus is already clipped hard, leaving little room for a clean, loud master.
Each issue is documented with the measured value and the planned fix. If the cleanest solution is a change in the mix, the report says so instead of hiding it behind more processing.
How a death metal master comes together
- Premaster in: 24/32-bit WAV or AIFF at session sample rate, 3–6 dB headroom, no master-bus limiter, plus one or two reference tracks.
- Written audio audit: frequency spectrum, dynamics and loudness, stereo image and phase, and a sonic assessment against your subgenre and references.
- Mastering plan: every move is listed with the reason behind it before anything is processed.
- Master + exports: 24-bit WAV, 16-bit AIFF, 320 kbps MP3, platform-specific versions for streaming and Bandcamp.
- Revisions: unlimited, until it matches what you hear in your head.
Death metal is usually mastered louder than streaming normalization targets, which is fine as long as the transients survive. True peak is kept low enough to avoid distortion after lossy encoding. Details in the metal mastering loudness guide.
Death Metal Mastering pricing
One track, full audio audit, streaming + Bandcamp exports, 48–72h.
Up to 6 stems for maximum control per element, 48–72h.
Save €46 vs. 5 singles. Audit per track, consistent loudness across the release, 5–7 days.
Save €161 vs. 10 singles. Per-track + album audit, tonal consistency, vinyl master on request, 7–14 days.
Death Metal Mastering FAQ
How do you keep blast beats from turning into mush?
How loud should a death metal master be?
Do you master deathcore and technical death metal too?
Is stem mastering worth it for death metal?
Low end before the master: tools for bands
Most death metal mixes live or die in the lowest octave. The free Kick/Bass Scope shows whether kick and bass add up or cancel each other, and Crucible saturates a bass in three separate bands, so the mids grind while the bottom stays clean. Both are made by Tim under the label Code Chaos Audio.
Other genres
Send your death metal mix.
Send your premaster and a reference track. You get a written audio audit and a mastering plan before anything is processed.