What is headroom?
The word "headroom" when used in this context, generally refers to the difference, measured in decibels, between zero (full scale / 0dbFS) and the peak value of the signal itself.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the rule of thumb advising that you should "leave 6dB of headroom for the mastering engineer". This isn’t bad advice but it’s not to be taken too literally. I’m going to break this one down for you as there is a lot of confusion as to why.
First of all, there is no significance to the value of 6 dB.
Technically, the amount of headroom that a mastering engineer needs is zero, as long as it’s not clipping.
For example, if I receive a mix-down for me to master, the very first thing I will do is make a gain movement to where I want it to be prior to processing. I do this by ear as I work in a fixed monitoring setting.
However, what really matters, and what this is massively confused with is…
From the blog How Much Headroom Is Needed For Mastering?
