What is Headroom?
Headroom is the space between the loudest peak of a signal and the maximum level a system can handle, which in digital audio is 0 dBFS. It is the safety margin that keeps audio from clipping.
In a mix, headroom gives your processing room to work. If every channel and the master bus are running close to 0 dBFS, any boost from an EQ or plugin can push the signal into clipping.
When you send a mix to a mastering engineer or a mastering tool, it is common to leave a few decibels of headroom on the master bus and to switch off any limiter you used to make the mix loud. That lets the mastering stage decide how loud and how controlled the final version should be.
On a finished master, the remaining headroom is usually small and is set by the limiter ceiling, for example -1 dBTP.
Put it to work
Run a release check to see the peaks, loudness and headroom of your final file.
Release Ready Check