Can you share your method for achieving a cohesive sound across an entire album during the mastering stage?

EDM & Dance engineer here!

To achieve a cohesive sound across an entire album during the mastering stage, one simple yet effective tip is to aim for consistency in your mastering chain across the tracks. Since your album shares songs that are in the same style and mix, it’s helpful to use a similar approach for each track's processing.

That doesn't mean you should apply the exact same presets to every song, but rather aim to keep the core settings—like EQ balance, compression, and limiting—within a similar range for the first few tracks. This helps maintain a unified feel without compromising the unique character of each song.

Of course, the real foundation for a cohesive album lies in the mixing stage. A well-balanced mix will naturally give you more flexibility and control when it comes to mastering, ensuring everything gels together nicely.

I believe the key to a cohesive album is making sure the songs flow well from one to the next. The vocals or drums don't need to sound the same on every track, but the album should feel like a journey, with a natural flow. For example, the last three songs on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper are very different, but the flow between them works perfectly. It’s mainly about balancing levels across the tracks and getting the rhythmic elements to work together to create that smooth transition.

Achieving a cohesive sound across an album is all about making sure each track feels like it belongs in the same world. I start by listening to the whole project and noting the overall vibe—energy, tonal balance, and dynamics. Then, during mastering, I use reference tracks from the album itself, adjusting EQ, compression, and loudness to keep things consistent. It’s like leveling up the tracks individually, but with the big picture in mind. And a good bit of ear-resting helps too—sometimes you need fresh ears to spot any rogue elements! But in the end - it's all about your experience. 

I appreciate the use of "cohesive" rather than "consistent" in the question. This distinction is important, as there's a common misconception that all songs in an album should have equal loudness. The key is ensuring that relative levels feel appropriate and cohesive. That said, the approach to album cohesion varies significantly depending on the album type. For instance, a "best of" compilation may not require the same level of cohesion as a live album recorded by the same musicians in one room. Therefore, there's no one-size-fits-all method. However, here are the general aspects I focus on:

• Consistency of lead vocals across tracks
• Consistency of loudness in peak sections like choruses and bridges
• Smooth transitions between songs, especially when there's high contrast (e.g., a soft acoustic intro following a full-blown arrangement)
• Coherence in tonal balance and dynamic range across tracks

My process typically involves skipping between similar sections of different songs (e.g., loud vs. loud, intro vs. intro), checking the above points, then confirming by listening to the entire album in one session.

For the final listen, I often use my earbuds while taking a walk at the end of the day. I find this to be fairly representative of a typical user's listening experience.

Apart from having solid mixes to begin with,

1. Reference Tracks: Use similar-sounding tracks as benchmarks for tonal balance and loudness. Mastering the mix has some great plugins for this.

2. Consistent Listening Environment: Work in a well-treated room with reliable monitors or headphones for accurate decision-making.

3. Gain Staging and Loudness Matching: Normalize the loudness of all tracks before processing to ensure consistency.

As we run mixes through our analog hardware there is a certain sense of cohesion that is naturally present from track to track due to the colour in the modules. Other techniques for creating a cohesive album can be as simple as creating appropriate export regions and fades, and level matching the perceived loudness from track to track.

This can be blown out of proportion - we all have mixed playlists on spotify and we rarely ever notice the overall sound change, despite it is completely different bands and sounds in reality. 

So basically listen to the songs back to back and see if anything sticks out - loudness-wise, frequency balance-wise, instrument balance wise and decide if it needs fixing or not. IF so, go back to the mix to fix it. 

To achieve a cohesive sound for an entire album, mastering alone is not sufficient. It starts with the recording phase and continues through mixing. Ideally, you should record all tracks using the same equipment and with the same recording engineer, and have the mixing done by the same mixing engineer. During mastering, you can make subtle adjustments to the overall equalization and ensure that the loudness of each track is matched. However, a consistent album sound cannot be achieved only through mastering.