MIXING & MASTERING
Mixing & Mastering
Mixing
The final mix
A song’s mix is basically adjusting all the tracks at the right level and on the right sides to make room for all of the instruments used during the recording. As simple as it sounds, mixing a song is an art in itself. A good mix could make or break the success of a song. It is really that serious.
In terms of what it really consists of, it is simple, but just like any other instrument, being good at it isn’t easy. Making a song sound good on a variety of speakers requires knowledge, understanding, and experience. There are new speakers available every day, including car sound systems, where most people listen to music.
In order to give you a sense of how much experience mixing engineers have in this field, some started their careers back in the 1980s.
There are a lot of steps that are involved in mixing the levels in order for the entire song to sound good. Mixing levels isn’t just as easy as it seems. A song may sound good on some speakers, but it might sound a bit different on a car system or headphones. And that’s where experience comes in.
Mixing a song involves more than just adjusting the levels of each track. Most tracks require trimming and cleaning out every bit of audio, adding reverbs or delays to make space for other tracks, compressors, equalizers and sometimes other plugins.
Having a good understanding and experience of how mixing works is essential to being successful in music. If you are going to be involved or be present in the mixing of your music, you need to fully grasp what happens.
During the mixing step, there are some things you might want to change, adjust, or re-record if some of the ideas, after they are mixed, end up changing from the original plan.
Mastering
Mastering a song
Even though it may seem simpler than mixing, it has just as much importance as mixing. It is in the mastering process that you will hear a song go from being okay to being the quality of the ones you hear on the radio.
Mastering a song is the last step before it is ready for public release. It is basically a process of improving the mix and boosting the volume in order to make it sound better and louder on all platforms, from mobile devices all the way up to car stereos and speakers at concerts and clubs.
Also, that ensures that the overall sound of the album is consistent across all of the tracks that are included within it.
Mastering usually involves a number of steps such as stereo optimization, audio editing, equalizing, compression, dynamic range, sampling conversions, and a few other steps.
The mastering studio or room is also designed to be acoustically different from the recording studio in terms of acoustics. However, some studios are designed and equipped to mix and master in the same room.
Mixing and mastering are one of the most exciting fields when it comes to music production. However, just like the well-known and very dangerous theory trap, getting too deep into these steps also has its own consequences. Therefore, a basic understanding of these steps is enough for what we are trying to achieve.