What’s the difference between mixing and mastering?
My Music Production Workflow page outlines each of the stages of music production, from your initial writing sessions to marketing and distribution of the finished work.
In this article, we’re delving deeper into the differences between two of the production stages: audio mixing and audio mastering.
Differences Between Mixing and Mastering
The purpose of audio mixing is to balance individual musical elements, and to transform a collection of individual audio tracks into a cohesive musical whole. Audio mastering then takes that cohesive whole, adds final polish, and properly prepares the work for a consistent sound across a variety of distribution media. You can create a mix without mastering it, but you can’t create a master without mixing a song first.
During mixing, you have access to each individual musical element. If you want to hear more kick drum, it’s as simple as reaching for the appropriate track. During mastering, you only have access to the two channel stereo file, and adjusting the balance of an individual musical element is much more difficult.
When mixing, you’re aiming to achieve balance between individual instruments. When mastering, you’re balancing the sound and spectral content of the entire song (or group of songs). Mixing makes instruments sound their best together, mastering makes songs sound their best together.
Mixing works with many audio tracks that contain individual musical elements-sometimes hundreds for a single song! Mastering most often works with just one stereo file per song.
During mixing, you often make very large adjustments to a single track, because those adjustments only affect that one musical element. During mastering, it’s the opposite: you make subtle, broad strokes that affect everything in combination.
Mixing aims to enhance the artists musical vision, and increase the emotional impact of each song. Mastering focuses on improving the overall sound quality of the finished tracks, making sure your music sounds competitive in comparison to other artists work.
What Is Mixing?
Mixing takes place after you’ve finished recording your individual tracks during a recording session. Mixers use many types of tools in the studio: equalizers, compressors, high and low pass filters, reverb, and more. The purpose of mixing is carve out space so each individual musical element can be heard, and ensure the whole mix sounds cohesive and has enhanced emotional impact for the listener.
It’s important to make sure that your mix sounds consistent across a wide range of playback systems, before giving it final approval. Check your finished mixes on several different headphones and speakers: at least 3-5 different systems. Your car can also work great for checking mixes.
What Is Mastering?
The mastering process starts with your finished mixes, and is the final creative step before your music is ready for distribution to the public.
The primary goal of mastering is to polish the mix to its final presentation, and to properly prepare it for distribution on your chosen mediums: internet streaming, CD, vinyl, etc.
Mastering is all about being subtle, and it’s an enhancement process, not a fixing process. If drastic changes are required to your mix to make it sound right during mastering, it’s probably best to go back to the mix stage and look for the root causes there.
Mastering also assembles different tracks together, when working with an album. Subtle volume adjustments are made to improve the flow of the album across songs, songs are placed in the desired order, fades and spacing are added to the beginning and end of each song, and any required labeling (CD Text, ISRC codes, metadata) is added.
One of the biggest values a mastering engineer provides is objectivity: having a fresh set of ears on your songs, someone who hasn’t been mixing the same tracks for weeks or months, can be invaluable. Even if you’re mastering your own music, try to regain your objectivity before you start the mastering process: wait a while between mixing and mastering, maybe a few weeks, to approach your masters with fresher ears.
I’m a mastering engineer! Check out Greg Lloyd Mastering Studio to listen to my portfolio, and my Mastering Minutia series for more information on this audio production specialty.
