Mixing and Mastering....

[Alex semko]

.....2 very different things? or the same thing?

People use the words interchangably yet I've always seen them as 2 very different skills / activities and one that the latter is better left to the pro's. Am I mis-understanding this??...should I be doing it all myself?? or is it just a communication breakdown.

Answers on a postcard!!

[crisp]

i thought mixing was abouth regulating your volume/gain/eq, and mastering ivolved more advanced techniques like compression.

But to be honest, i am allso a bit in the dark here, would love to hear some of the experts on this forum, abouth this subject.

Peace
crisp

[nikaj]

from what i understand, mixing is done during arrangement of a track, getting the balance right and having everything sit together well. mastering is making the mix sound good for cd or vinyl, and making the track sound good for a variety of different speakers. thats how i do anyway.

[skept]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering

[Torque]

mixing is the process of eq, leveling and panning (Maybe compressing certain parts etc...)

mastering is the process of alpying an overall eq that is right for the medium that it's going to be put on (digtal masters and vinyl masters are not the same thing because both of them have different limitations, this is why when you send something to be mastered for vinyl you send it to them raw with no mastering whatsoever. Some people have forgotten this and end up applying limiting and compression before they give it to the person that cuts the plates for their vinyl, this is why alot of modern techno lacks dynamics and ends up being overcompressed.), applying the right compression to those frequencies to give the track more pop and aply limiting to bring the loudness up to the standard that the medium calls for. A good master never happens without a good mixdown. If you take a look at some of the records that are out there you can actually see with the db meter on your dj mixer when something is mastered well or not. A good master should have the meter jumping from -12db to 0db throughout the track. Bad mixes and masters usually have the db meter staying too close to one spot and not moving much. If you turn up the volume and listen to the tracks with bad mixes or mastering the kick drum will be dead and wont have much punch in the mix. A good master will make the speaker move so you can feel it with every sound the track has in it and you will be able to hear every sound in the track at low volume.

Tips:
Always check your mixdown at low volume to make sure you can hear every sound clearly before you render a track.

Use compression in your mix sparingly and only use it on parts that have levels that move around too much in your mix. That's what it's for.

Only use limiting on sounds like bass drums that need to stand out in a mix.

The hardest part to control in a mix is the low end. Make sure that you eq your low end parts to not compete for space in the same eq range as much as you can without losing that pop. This part gives almost eveybody trouble. Most mastering technicians can do a pretty good job at clearing it up but if you have too much bass on a bass synth that is in the same frequency range as a kick drum then when he rolls off the eq on your bass synth he will be rolling off on your kick at the same time and that can kill your kick drum.

On high end make sure that you don't have too many frequencies over 16k. Once a mastering technician get's ahold of it he will have to roll off the highs at 16k because a vinyl can't reproduce frequencies that high and you'll listen to the record and be like "WTF!, how come this sounds so different?"

Another reason not to overcompress is that when you go to a club and play your sh!t they will have a liter on the p.a. to cut off the spikes so you don't blow out the speakers. That means when you turn it up all low end will be washed out and make everything distort and all the dynamics will be gone. People need that kick drum and bassline out there loud and clear in order to dance. Dynamics make the mix....

Make sure that every sound in your mix has it's own space in it's perticular eq range so it does not conflict with other sounds. a speaker can only reproduce one sound per range in your eq. If two sounds are competing for space in it's range then both sounds will sound quieter because the speaker is distorting them in oder to make the sounds. If you have two sounds like this in the same range pan them to different sides so they compete less. You will be able to hear them become louder when you do this.

For your digital master the standard loudness is rms power -10 to -12db. A good master should be able to get to -10 without distorting. If your master is -10 to -12 and distorting that means that you eq needs to be adjusted so it's more flat.

I relise that most people on this board are minimal producers. In general something like minimal should be easier to mix down well because it had less parts. The more parts in the mix the more difficult it becomes. However a good mix should have every frequency filled by something this is why minimal usually sounds better with heavy reverb on certain parts so the reverb can fill the gaps. Doing the kind of stuff i do i rarely run into that problem because i have anywhere from 15 to 30 tracks of parts to fill it up so i need less reverb. So i only need enough reverb to drop parts into an acoustic space in the mix.

everything else is classified....... :twisted:

[TroySilver]

Damn, some good info. Thanks!

[Ronny Pries]

bit meta-level theory...

mastering involves all necessary steps to make a range of tracks equal or likewise in terms of sound for media reproduction / release. thus, it doesn't make much sense to start 'mastering' a track without hearing it in the context of the whole release.

then again mastering happens in 2 stages of which the first one, pre-mastering, is mostly discussed on public forums. the final mastering process results in the master (laquer, mother, cdmaster, whatever) which is used to press/produce the units beeing sold.

[-]

few hints.

like torque advised, when recording a track try to make it sound as good as possible from the mix itself AND keep this recording!

if the track doesn't sound the way you want after recording, do whatever you like until you're satisfied and save it as copy. use this for e.g. your demo cds. otherwise above version.

keep in mind that once you plan to have it released on vinyl someone else (mastering engineer) will work with it again. it is very hard/impossible to restore dynamics and headroom depending on the degree of limiting/compression. last not least you'll most probably like to have at least 2-4 tracks on the same release. the more headroom/dynamic is available the more efficient the music can be mastered.



conclusion.

no label a&r expects musicians to have (pre!-)mastering skills. keep your mix tight and everything is fine. music can be easily wasted during post production, if you're only pleased with the slightly distorted and limited to death version include it as reference for the mastering engineer. they're usually able to make music sound similar whilst keeping dynamics.

final mastering (especially for vinyl) comes close to rocket science and even if you think you're able to really master tracks yourself, it can most likely be improved by someone else with more skills .

damn, gotta work.

ronny

ps:
torque, did you receive my mail from discogs (via r2dj) ?

[Alex semko]

damn, great responses!! thanks