Recipe: master a track for streaming at home with free tools

What you get: a finished stereo master of one mixed song, at a loudness that sits well on Spotify and other streaming services, using only free plugins. Total: INR 0 (USD 0) and about two hours, or about INR 5,700 ($60) if you later buy a REAPER licence.

What it is not: a substitute for a good mix. Mastering polishes; if the vocal is buried, go back to the mix first. Our home mastering basics explains what the stage can and cannot fix.

The recipe

Prices are as listed on each maker's site on 27 Oct 2026. INR figures use roughly INR 95 to the dollar from X-Rates, before tax; check before paying. Step times are our estimates.

1. Set up a DAW and three free plugins (20 min, INR 0)

Any DAW you already have works. If you have none, REAPER offers a 60-day evaluation with full functionality, and its discounted licence is $60 after that. Then install:

• TDR Nova, which Tokyo Dawn Labs describes as "a parallel dynamic equalizer," free for Windows, macOS and Linux.
• LoudMax, a freeware look-ahead brickwall limiter with true peak limiting and optional inter-sample peak detection.
• The free Youlean Loudness Meter, which the maker says costs $0 and never expires.

2. Bounce the mix and pick a reference (15 min, INR 0)

Export your mix as a 24-bit WAV with a few dB of headroom and no limiter on the master bus. Put it on a new track, and drop a released song you like in the same genre on a second track, turned down to match by ear. You will flip between the two all session.

3. Gentle tonal fixes with TDR Nova (25 min, INR 0)

Load Nova first on the mix track. Fix only what the reference comparison tells you: a little less low-mid mud, a touch more air. Use the dynamic bands for problems that come and go, like a harsh vocal "s" or a boomy bass note, so they only act when the problem shows up. Keep moves to a dB or two. If you need more, the mix needs work, not the master.

4. Limit with LoudMax (20 min, INR 0)

Put LoudMax last. Set its output ceiling to -1 dB with inter-sample detection on, then raise the threshold until the song is close to your reference in loudness. Stop when the drums lose their snap.

5. Measure with Youlean Loudness Meter (15 min, INR 0)

Put Youlean after LoudMax and play the whole song. Spotify's guidance is to aim for -14 dB integrated LUFS and keep true peak below -1 dB; if your master is louder than -14 LUFS, keep true peak below -2 dB to limit distortion when it is converted to lossy formats. Our explainers on LUFS and limiting and true peak cover what those numbers mean.

6. Rest your ears, check, export (30 min, INR 0)

Take a 15-minute break, then listen once on headphones, once on phone speakers and once in a car or on earbuds. Fix only what bothers you on two of the three. Export one high-quality stereo WAV: Spotify says it handles the lossy and lossless versions itself, so you do not need separate files.

What we think

The tools are no longer the bottleneck. A free dynamic EQ, a free true peak limiter and a free meter cover everything a single-song streaming master needs, and the paid upgrades on this list buy convenience, not sound. What actually decides the result is restraint and the reference track. Our view is that most home masters fail by being pushed too loud: since Spotify turns loud masters down to its target anyway, squeezing past about -14 LUFS mostly costs punch and forces you below -2 dB true peak for no gain in playback level. Master to sound good at -14, and spend the money you saved on better headphones or a proper mix check.