Home / Videos / Luca Pretolesi / High-Frequency Limiting & De-Essing in Mastering
Luca Pretolesi

High-Frequency Limiting & De-Essing In Mastering

10 min

High-Frequency Limiting & De-Essing in Mastering. Techniques to control harshness, tame sibilance, and keep the top end smooth without losing brightness and energy.

Videos

High-Frequency Limiting & De-Essing in Mastering
Luca Pretolesi

High-Frequency Limiting & De-Essing In Mastering

10 min

High-Frequency Limiting & De-Essing in Mastering. Techniques to control harshness, tame sibilance, and keep the top end smooth without losing brightness and energy.

About

Luca Pretolesi

Luca Pretolesi

Luca Pretolesi is a world-renowned mixing and mastering engineer with a wealth of professional experience and a reputation as one of the best in the industry. With multiple Grammy nominations and wins, as well as Platinum, Diamond, Billboard, and Golden Melody awards, he has mixed and mastered some of the most streamed songs of all time. He is also the founder and creator of Studio DMI, a state-of-the-art facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. Luca has worked with top artists such as Drake, Skrillex, Diplo, Chiquis, Major Lazer, Alan Walker, Dillon Francis, David Guetta, J Balvin, and many more. Luca’s Grammy nominations include Chiquis “Abeja Reina” for Best Regional Mexican Music Album, Diplo “Diplo” for Best Dance/Electronic Album, Diplo & Miguel “Don’t Forget My Love” for Best Dance/Electronic Single, J Balvin & Willy William’s “Mi Gente” for Record of the Year, Steve Aoki’s “Wonderland” for Best Dance Album, Snoop Lion’s “Reincarnation” for Best Reggae Album.

Related videos

Discover an easy way to make your vocals and synths sit perfectly together in the mix! In this course, you’ll learn how to use Mid-Side EQ and sidechain techniques to create space, add clarity, and make everything sound smooth and balanced without losing energy or vibe.

In this course, we break down advanced mastering techniques specifically tailored for Bass Music and Hip Hop. You’ll learn how to achieve loud, punchy, and clean masters while keeping your low end powerful and controlled.

In this lesson, I’ll show you how to add thickness, warmth, and groove to your Minimal Tech House master. You’ll learn how to bring more energy, movement, and low-end depth to your mix so it feels full and punchy on any sound system without losing clarity or balance.

In this course, you’ll learn how to enhance the impact and character of your mix using parallel saturation. Step by step, you’ll see how to blend clean and saturated signals to add warmth, energy, and vibe without losing clarity or dynamics.

This course walks you through practical, real-world applications of Spiff, showing how to tame harshness, add clarity, and control transients with precision. Whether you're mastering your own tracks or finalizing client projects, this technique will help you maximize Spiff’s potential for cleaner, more musical results.

In this course, we’ll explore how to glue your synths with your vocal bus using FabFilter Saturn 2, Pro-Q 4, and Soothe 2. You’ll learn how to shape tone, control harshness, and blend elements smoothly so your mix feels tight and unified—all with tools that give you precision and vibe.

Learn How To create Brightness in your mixes and masters without creating Harshness. 11x Grammy Nominated Engineer Luca Pretolesi shares his personal tips and tricks for Dynamic EQ, Compression, Stereo Width, and Limiting for you to enhance the high frequency clarity of your songs. Try professional tips and tricks for enhancing your sound without harshness in your mixes using these plugin settings from an award winning engineer.

17 min

Master your tracks like a pro with 100% Ozone 9 Advanced Plugins in the standalone mastering app by iZotope. This tutorial walks you through Reid Stefan’s signature workflow for adding saturation, brightness, width, transients, and limiting to your master chain.

In this course, we break down how to design a punchy, powerful kick drum channel strip using Neutron 5. You’ll learn how to shape transients, control low-end energy, enhance attack, and create clarity and impact with EQ, compression, saturation, and dynamic tools. By the end, you’ll have a streamlined, repeatable workflow for building kicks that cut through the mix and hit hard in any genre.

Learn a lightning fast workflow to split your track, re level elements, and remix on the fly while keeping your master loud, polished, and intact. Perfect for quick revisions, live performance prep, and creative remixes without touching your original session.