How to Master Type Beats Before You Lease Them
Published · by Loopin
Make two masters of every beat: a loud one for the YouTube preview that sells it, and a cleaner one for the file the artist records over. One master can’t do both jobs well.
Master the preview for the platform, not the artist
Your YouTube upload competes in a sidebar next to every other type beat, and YouTube turns anything louder than about −14 LUFS down. So the preview doesn’t need to be brutal; it needs to feel dense and confident after normalisation. Around −11 to −10 LUFS with a −1 dBTP ceiling is the sweet spot for trap, drill and hard hip-hop.
In Loopin’s free beat mastering, that’s Punchy (about −11 LUFS) or Club (about −10 LUFS). Push past that with your own limiter and the 808 starts to fold into the kick; the beat sounds loud in your DAW and flatter on YouTube once it’s turned down.
Give the lease file room for a vocal
The artist who leases the beat will put a vocal on top and their engineer will master the whole song. If your WAV is already slammed to −9 LUFS, there’s nowhere for the vocal to go, and the final song ends up distorted or the vocal gets buried. Deliver the lease WAV at around −14 LUFS with a −1 dBTP ceiling, or as an unmastered bounce peaking at −3 dBFS if your licence includes track-outs.
Carve the space before you master: cut 1.5–3 dB between 1 and 4 kHz on the lead melody, since that’s where a rap vocal’s words live. It sounds slightly hollow on its own and perfect with a voice on it.
Make the 808 survive a phone speaker
Most people first hear your beat on a phone, which reproduces almost nothing below 100 Hz. Solo the 808 and add a little saturation so it has harmonics at 100–300 Hz; that’s what lets a listener “hear” the bass on a small speaker. Keep everything below about 120 Hz in mono.
Check the 808 against the kick on the loudest bar. If the master pumps or the kick disappears when the 808 hits, sidechain the 808 to the kick by 2–4 dB in the mix. A masterer can’t separate two sounds fighting for the same 50 Hz.
Keep the tag out of the lease file and quieter than you think
Tag the preview every 20–30 seconds and set the tag at least 6 dB below the beat’s peaks, or it’ll trigger the limiter and duck the whole beat each time it plays. Render the tag as its own track so the untagged lease WAV is a one-click export.
Then master the tagged and untagged versions with the same feel, so the file a buyer downloads sounds like the preview they paid for. If the lease file sounds noticeably different, that’s a refund request waiting to happen.
Run both versions through the masterer in five minutes
Bounce the beat as a 24-bit WAV peaking around −3 dBFS. Master the beat free online twice: once on Punchy or Club for the preview, once on the default feel for the lease WAV. Use the loudness-matched A/B on both to make sure the louder one hasn’t lost its hi-hat detail or 808 attack.
No account and no credits means you can do this for every beat in your catalogue, including old ones. For the genre-specific side, see how to master trap, and for the licence side, leased vs exclusive beats.
Frequently asked questions
How loud should a type beat be?
For the YouTube preview, around -11 to -10 LUFS with a -1 dBTP ceiling. For the lease WAV an artist will record over, around -14 LUFS, or an unmastered bounce peaking at -3 dBFS if you sell track-outs.
Should I master beats before selling them?
Master the preview so it competes on YouTube and beat stores, and give the lease file a lighter master with room for a vocal. The artist's engineer will master the finished song.
Why does my beat sound quieter on YouTube?
YouTube turns audio louder than about -14 LUFS down. A beat slammed to -8 LUFS gets turned down further and loses punch compared with one mastered around -10 to -11 LUFS.
How loud should a producer tag be?
At least 6 dB below the beat's peaks, every 20-30 seconds. A louder tag hits the limiter and ducks the whole beat each time it plays.
Do I send leased beats as WAV or MP3?
Send a 16-bit WAV for anything a buyer will record and release on. An MP3 is fine as a basic-lease or preview file, but it adds encoding artefacts to the final song.
Should the 808 be mono?
Yes, keep everything below about 120 Hz in mono. Wide sub bass cancels on mono speakers and makes the limiter work harder.