A question you may have asked yourself is: what exactly is mixing and mastering? Well, mixing and mastering are the final stages in music production and in the overall music-making process, which includes everything from songwriting to final production. Each has distinct functions and requires a unique set of skills and tools but together, they transform a raw, unprofessional recording into a polished track ready to be shared with the world.
So let’s take a look at what exactly they involve, their key role, and the detailed process behind them.
1. What is the mixing process?
The mixing process is a separate process from the recording stage and the overall goal is for everything to sound good.
Let’s illustrate the idea of mixing by taking the example of a song that involves drums, a bassist, two guitarists, a keyboardist, a small brass section, and a singer. We record them separately and we now have separate tracks with different instruments. The mixing engineer has to create a rich stereo image by distributing all this information between two speakers. If it helps, you can visualize a three-dimensional space between the left and right speakers and, in simple terms, mixing consists of placing the different sounds in this space. During mixing, the engineer works to highlight the core elements of the track and the key musical ideas that form the foundation of the song.
2. The mixing stage.
What makes a good mix? At the start of a mix, all the tracks are in the middle and the different frequencies are intermingled or superimposed. A good habit is to first create tracks and then name the different tracks like “guitar”, and “bass drum”… and group them into categories.
The first thing that mixing engineers often do is to clean up the tracks, which involves eliminating all unwanted noise. This might be clicks on instrumental tracks, or unwanted background noise, or breath notes on vocal tracks.
Next, the sound engineer can modify the volume of each instrument to place them where he or she wishes and move them forward or backward. The initial volume levels are set using the faders on the mixing console. The aim is to find a rough balance where each track is audible and nothing overwhelms the rest. That said, for many commercial songs, whether pop, dance, or hip-hop, the emphasis is on the vocals, which are placed in front of the rest of the music. In other musical genres, vocals are not as important in the final mix.
Next comes panning, which places sounds in the stereo field (left, center, right) to create space in the mix and give the impression of a three-dimensional soundscape. Placing sounds in the center means that they come out as loud from the left speaker as they do from the right. And if, when recording, the keyboard was on the left of the room and the brass section on the right, the sound engineer can decide to place them accordingly.
The sound engineer can then place the various instruments on the vertical axis according to the frequency range.
Then come creative effects, such as reverb and delay. In simple terms, reverb simulates the sound of a larger or smaller space and delay creates echoes. There are also chorus, flanger, and phaser effects that can add movement and texture to a track, as well as some virtual instruments that can be added.
3. Why is mixing important in music production?
All these steps explain why mixing is such an important stage in the audio production process: it ensures that the published track is of professional quality, and it does this by sorting out all the technical problems and well as combining all the individual tracks into a cohesive ensemble. It can, in a way, save a bad recording but that doesn’t mean that corners should be cut during the recording stages of music production.
So simply put, a balanced mix ensures high audio quality, making the music enjoyable and clear for listeners. But another key role of the mixing stage is to ensure that the artist’s artistic vision is realized.
In fact, the question the sound engineer must ask him or herself is: “What do I have to do to ensure that as many people as possible receive the artist’s intention when they press the ‘play’ button on this song? If you want to draw a comparison with a stage director who has to make sure that everything on the stage serves the story, it’s the same for the sound engineer mixing a song, as he or she is responsible for creating an emotional response by highlighting the key elements that convey the intended message or feel of the music. It’s in a way, the arrangement stage of the creative process as it deals with sound design, and this is why many people consider mixing to be a musical instrument and even an art form in its own right.
The mixing engineer must therefore think about the song’s message and the artist’s intention because the aim of a mix is to convey the emotional information that the artist/ music producer is trying to get across.
4. What is mastering?
Once the mix is complete, we move on to the mastering stage, which is the final stage and the step between what happens in the studio and what is heard by listeners- aka the mastered song. It is a separate process from mixing and essentially, it involves preparing the track for distribution.
A good way of understanding the importance of mastering a track is to see what would happen to a track that didn’t go through this stage. Basically, what was recorded in the studio would sound great in the studio, but as soon as it was played elsewhere, such as in a car or on headphones, it would fall apart and all the work done during the mixing stage would not be perceptible.
And that’s the best-case scenario. At worst, you could end up with a track full of unwanted distortion, pops, clicks, glitches, and simply not up to commercial expectations, because such a song simply wouldn’t stand up to similar music. Mastering is the solution to this and ensures that the long hours spent working on the song, recording and mixing it, really pay off and it’s also a great way to get an objective perspective of the song and mix (that’s why mastering engineers tend to have a lot of musical ideas).
5. The mastering stage.
There are a lot of technical aspects to mastering and it requires a lot of technical knowledge. Once the stereo file is in the DAW, the first thing the sound engineer will do is make sure that the stereo mix level isn’t too high and that it doesn’t go into the red, because then it will sound crushed. If this is the case, the track must be reduced until it is at a decent level and there is still enough headroom for the engineer to work on it.
The rule to remember in mastering is that a very small change makes a big difference, so it’s a case of making small adjustments here and there. As far as equalization is concerned, the mastering engineer makes very subtle adjustments to the overall tonal balance of the track and does things such as removing unwanted frequencies, adding warmth to the low frequencies of the track, or lightening the high frequencies. All this, again, to ensure that the final track sounds good on different playback systems.
Once that’s done and the track sounds a little warmer in the bass and bigger overall, the engineer needs to think about limiting. Limiting is the main element of mastering and allows the track to reach a competitive sound level and sound as loud and clear as possible without being distorted.
In effect, a limiter allows you to increase the volume of the track so that it is at the same level as the tracks heard on the radio, but without exceeding the maximum level that would give the track a distorted, crushed sound.
Once the track has been properly mastered, the final mastered track is exported in different formats as required, such as WAV for high quality and MP3 for digital distribution.
6. Why is mastering important in music production?
Mastering is the final step of the creative stage and the first step in distribution. It’s like a bridge in a sense and it ensures that the song reaches its full potential on release. Because like it or not, consistency is the key to commercial success and you want to make sure that the overall sound of your multiple tracks sounds great. For that, you need mastering because it enables the track to be brought to a level of sound that stands out from other tracks on the market and is therefore crucial for ensuring that a track meets the standards of the music industry and stands out in a competitive market.
So there you have it, a breakdown of mixing and mastering, the final stages of music production. Both of these require essential skills and as you can see, these are crucial steps to ensure the sound quality of your entire mix and final piece, as well as the authenticity of your artist’s vision.
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