Most checks on a release are technical, not musical. A file can hold a great song and still come back with requested changes because of something you can see in the waveform in two minutes: a long silence, a flat-topped peak, a tail cut off in the middle of a note. Check these things before you upload and you'll save yourself a round trip.
Silence and abrupt cut-offs
A second or so of quiet at the start is normal. Several seconds of nothing at the beginning or end looks like an error, and listeners will think the track is broken or skip it. The usual causes are leftover empty space from the project, an export set to the wrong length, or a hidden track tacked onto the end after a long gap.
Watch for these:
- Long silence at the start or end. Trim the file to the real music. If there is a hidden bonus piece after a gap, make it its own track.
- Digital silence in the middle. Absolute zero for a moment is easy to see in the waveform as a flat line. It can be an export glitch or a missing section.
- Abrupt endings. If the last note stops mid-ring, the reverb tail or the final decay was cut. Extend the export so the tail can finish, or add a fade of a few milliseconds.
- Clicks at edits. A click at a cut or a loop point is usually a waveform jumping from one level to another. A very short fade on both sides of the edit removes it.
Clipping and distortion
Clipping happens when a signal is pushed past the highest level a digital file can hold, and the top of the wave is cut flat. It sounds like harsh crackle and fatigue, and it shows up as peaks that are chopped off at the same height again and again.
Two things cause most of it. One is limiting too hard in the final step, so the limiter squashes peaks until they are flat. The other is that the platforms convert your file to a compressed format for streaming, and a file that peaks right at the maximum can distort after that conversion. That's why a little headroom helps. A common safe habit is to keep the true peak a bit under the maximum, for example around -1 dB on a true-peak meter, and to check the settings of your limiter.
Streaming platforms normally adjust playback level anyway, so being louder than the next track doesn't win you anything. A cleaner master survives better than a crushed one.
Noise, hum and hiss
The quiet parts of a track show noise. Listen closely to the intro, the gaps between phrases and the last few seconds on headphones, at normal volume. You are listening for:
- electrical hum from cables or a poor connection
- hiss from a preamp, a cheap microphone or a plugin
- room noise, such as traffic, fans and a computer
- mouth clicks, breaths that are too loud, handling noise
Fix noise at the source if you can. Re-record in a quieter place or move the microphone. If you need noise reduction, use it lightly, because heavy settings make the voice sound underwater.
A WAV that is really an MP3
Converting an MP3 into a WAV doesn't bring back what the MP3 threw away. The file is bigger, but the quality is still that of the MP3. Reviewers and platforms can often tell, and the result sounds thin in the top end.
If you aren't sure about a file, open it in a spectrum analyser. A lossy file often shows a flat ceiling in the high frequencies, with nothing above a certain line. Always export from your project at full quality, and keep your original sessions and stems so you can export again. Don't convert up from a lower sample rate or bit depth either: it adds nothing.
Mono files labelled as stereo
If both channels are identical, the file is dual mono: it plays in stereo but has no stereo information. That is fine if the recording is mono on purpose. But if you built a wide mix and the left and right channels still came out the same, something went wrong in the export.
The opposite problems also happen: sound in only one channel, or channels that cancel each other. Press the mono button on your monitor section or a utility plugin. If instruments disappear or the level drops sharply, you have phase problems. Look at a level meter and confirm that both sides show signal.
Your pre-upload routine
- Export the final WAV from the project, then listen to the exported file, not the session, from start to end on headphones.
- Zoom into the waveform at the start and the end.
- Check the true peak and look for flat-topped peaks.
- Open a spectrum analyser and look for a ceiling in the highs.
- Switch to mono and back to confirm that nothing disappears.
- Make sure the sample rate and bit depth are what you intended, and that the length is right.
If the review team asks for changes, CULT shows them in the portal on the release page, and you can upload a corrected file. It's quicker to catch the problem yourself with ten minutes of listening before you submit.