Difference between Mixing/Mastering

[Alexbt]

Could someone define for me exactly what the difference between Mixing and Mastering is?

I have a vague idea, but the way I understand, most things can be done in mixing that apply to mastering.

Also, if I were to mix an album, and then send it out somewhere to be mastered, what is it I would be sending (in detail...).

Thanks,

Alex

[LRosario]

Different equipment, areas of expertise and approaches are what set them apart.


A mastering engineer usually specializes on mastering while a recording/mixing engineer is more studio involved. More of a middle man between the band and the final master.


Mastering is just a fine tunning of whatever was mixed.

It's kina like you say, "Hey Bill, I painted this car, now polish it for me"

[chessrock]

Mixing is the process of processing, fine-tuning and combining all of the individual elements of a mix together. It is the second step in the recording process after tracking.

Mastering is the thrid step, and happens after the mixing phase.

It basically involves taking the final mix and fiddling around with it by way of EQ, compression, etc. to put that final bit of "polish" on it or whatever.

[Cloneboy Studio]

There are generally three distinct phases of recording: tracking, mixing and mastering.

TRACKING: the process of getting the sounds ON TAPE (or whatever). Probably the most crucial area of recording happens hear because if you record crap, chances are the best mixers and mastering guru's can't help you. Maybe they can polish that turd, but it still won't be great.

Tracking is a delicate art--part science, part artwork, part guesswork (you have to visualize the final composition and how it will sound together). The science is knowing how to set gain levels, getting a clear and clean signal to tape; the creative part is doing non-regulation weird stuff or choosing how you mic something--like should I have one overhead pointing at the snare, or should I have an XY over the drummer's head, or how about adding some 414's on omni to capture the room?

MIXING: once you have everything recorded to its own seperate track the next step is to MIX them together. Mixing is where you take those 1000 things recorded all fighting for the same space in the mix and give them their own space. You also decide how much (LOUD) and the stereo placement of each item. Mixing is built on two things: COMPRESSION and EQ.

Believe it or not compression is the most vital and contributes more than anything else to a professional sound (when used right) than anything else in the mixing stage other than your basic levels. EQ can change the tone/timbre of a track and also to carve out niches so the listener can hear what's going on in the song without it turning into mud.

After compression and EQ comes reverb--probably the third most important effect during the mixing process. By using this you can accentuate your stereo image and give the illusion that certain elements are further away--creating depth to your mix. Reverb also smooths out things like cymbals and vocals. The key to remember about reverb is a little bit goes a long way and don't put it on everything. For the drums usually the overheads are enough to get you going, the vocals to smooth/thicken them (but keep them sounding close by) and maybe 5-6% on stuff like synths or guitars should be good.

Once you have levels set, your stereo panorama staged, things are EQ'd and sounding crisp and purposeful, and you've applied any special effects like reverb... you combine all those elements into a 2 channel stereo MIX (2 channels--one for right, one for left).

Mixing can be a lot of fun and is my favorite part of the recording game--provided you were given decent tracks to work with. Nothing is more irritating than to be told that YOU have to fix the band's sloppy timing errors and so forth. You can usually do it, depending on the mistake, but the best bet is to provide the mixer with as perfect a recording as possible to work on.

"Fix it in the mix" is a nice way of saying "polish that turd later."

MASTERING: now that the mix is done it's time to master. Mastering is the process where you put the final finishing touches on a recording. Not all mastering has to do directly with sound, which is why a lot of people find mastering to be a bit confusing.

The best way to understand mastering is too look at not a single recording or song but a *collection* of them (as an example, all the songs for an album). The mastering engineer's job is to make these songs all sound similar to one another as far as overall frequency spectrum and volume--imagine if you had an album where one song is 6db quieter than the others, and another song had three times as much bass, and another one tons of mids... and so forth--it would make for a really annoying album to listen to because you'd constantly be adjusting your stereo.

The mastering engineer will make sure that the songs play together as a collection of songs well. They will also check how the songs perform on other types of speakers such as portable radios, car stereos and try to reach a compromise where the different formats sound very similar and good.

Mastering houses will also fix whatever problems that occured in the mix as best they are able--such as if the mix has just too much high end or not enough bass. Unfortunately if you need to take down a single instrument it is often impossible to do so at the stage; your best bet is to remix. Mastering is powerful but it can't work miracles. Phase issues between stereo sides will get rectified here in case the mixer missed that.

"Fix it in the master" is another way of saying "polish that turd later."

During mastering you also choose a SONG ORDER that determines which track goes first, what's second, last song... and so forth. They will place the CD locator points for those songs and any silences (or lack thereof) that the artist requests.

Also, a good mastering engineer will attempt to make a high quality, redbook master CD for duplication--insuring that the recordings meet the technical requirements of mass production. This is a critical step for artists that are reproducing their audio for sale.

[masteringhouse]

Just a note. The lines between mixing and mastering are sometimes a bit blurred. Recently I've had 3 projects where the engineer brought me stems (submixes) for mastering. On one the submixes consisted of (all in stereo pairs):

- drums
- guitars
- vocals
- bass

By separating out these elements I was able to provide EQ and individual dynamics processing for each. Also there wasn't an issue with creating vocal up or down mixes since I could control any part of the above if needed.

In general though, mastering is dealing with production at a higher level, i.e. mixed tracks, along with shaping the sound for the entire CD.

[Soundbyte]

Tom
I've heard about stem mastering and I think the concept of it sounds great. I am curious though, are the stems provided to you at levels that are ready for summing? Or are you required to do the summing and the final ballance of the stems?

Dwain

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by Soundbyte

Tom
I've heard about stem mastering and I think the concept of it sounds great. I am curious though, are the stems provided to you at levels that are ready for summing? Or are you required to do the summing and the final ballance of the stems?

Dwain

Dwain -

The stems (at least in these cases) were delivered at the same levels used for the final mix. This gave me the opportunity to hear the final mix by just summing them together. Since separate EQ and dynamics will change the overall volume of the stems however, I still have to change the final balance between them to either match the original intent, or change according to client requests.

Hope this answers your question?

[ryanlikestorock]

If recording audio were photography, mixing would involve arranging the people for the photograph, making sure they're smiling, maybe changing their clothing if it's not going to photograph well, focusing the camera and taking the picture. Mastering would be correcting the colour of the photograph, cropping, framing the photograph, and deciding where to put it on the wall.

[mojovoodoo]

excuse me, cloneboy studio, i am sure you might have been asked many times, but when you talk about in mixing, the compression having a big part, could you please elaborate on that a little bit? i would really appreciate it. like, what tracks would you consider needing most compression in a mix? and with limited compressors(especially in a digital pro tools format) how would i best utilize them? thanks

[kylen]

Originally Posted by masteringhouse

Just a note. The lines between mixing and mastering are sometimes a bit blurred. Recently I've had 3 projects where the engineer brought me stems (submixes) for mastering. On one the submixes consisted of (all in stereo pairs):

- drums
- guitars
- vocals
- bass

By separating out these elements I was able to provide EQ and individual dynamics processing for each. Also there wasn't an issue with creating vocal up or down mixes since I could control any part of the above if needed.

In general though, mastering is dealing with production at a higher level, i.e. mixed tracks, along with shaping the sound for the entire CD.

I've been thinking a lot about this recently especially in the home mixing/mastering realm.

Basically the idea is that if my home mixing associates don't have adequate enough monitoring and tools to provide a well balanced mix in the first place then they might as well just slam all the tracks together to approximate the mix they're looking for (as an example) and either provide me tracks or stems to do a quasi mix/master. It's a lot easier and the results are a lot better on this end.

A perfect example is the bass guitar/kick drum interaction an balance in your typical rock combo. How many home recording folks can get that right sittin in a bedroom or [worse] in a basement ? Instead of me trying to reach down into a full mix to balance that it's much better reaching into a stem or just doing a full remix.

So I guess I'd dream up a new title for that 'Stem Finalizer'

[darnold]

Hmm ive never thought about giving my Mastering Engineers stem files. Thats not a bad idea at all. Thanks for the thought.

Its amazing what good mastering engineers can do with work you give them. In some cases they really can polish a turd. But its even better if you give them a really good mix in the first place.

Its especially been helpful for me when i do bands (specifically jazz combos) that do everything live and in different sessions. Most of the time the sessions turn out quite a bit different from each other and the mastering engineers really help smooth it out.

I just sent in some tracks to Rick Fisher, the Mastering Engineer for Pearl Jam and such. I havnt gotten the mastered tracks back from the artist but when i do i can try and post a before and after of the tracks (with the artists permission).

We came to a close call on the last 2 tracks. The last session and somehow halfway through someone bumped a stereo mic away from the guitar cab without causing any noticable change in the sound. I thought something was funny but i was just thinking that was the sound we were getting that night. Turns out when the ME checked those last two tracks the two guitar tracks were like 160 degrees out of phase from each other. Good thing he checked in mono, something i was stupid enough not to check when i heard something funny. I had to overnight the tracks to him. Guess its just a lesson to everyone to check for phasing like that in mono. AND IT HAS TO BE REAL MONO.

Danny

[Cloneboy Studio]

Personally if I were a mastering guru I'd be mad if the mixer wanted me to do all the dirty work of *actually* mixing their song. Then again, provided they paid me for the time it took to do so on top of the mastering I probably wouldn't complain.

I can see the logic if your monitoring environment is suspect.

In the *PRO* world I'd be hopping mad though.

[masteringhouse]

Originally Posted by Cloneboy Studio

Personally if I were a mastering guru I'd be mad if the mixer wanted me to do all the dirty work of *actually* mixing their song.

It's not mixing so much as adjusting the balance between stereo tracks and potentially processing differently.

It's less work dealing with stems, than trying to raise or lower a vocal out of a two track mix or trying to master separate vocal up and a vocal down mixes.

[darnold]

I dont think the idea would be to actually remix anything. You send the stereo stems in already mix format. It will just allow more flexibility to master EQ. What if everything is a little dull but the drums are to bright. If you tried to brighten up the whole mix it could make the drums sound like shit. With the stems you can do master EQ on only the stems that are needed without really changing the mix. But if the mix does need to be changed a little then he has the flexibility to change it.

Danny

[Cloneboy Studio]

Originally Posted by mojovoodoo

excuse me, cloneboy studio, i am sure you might have been asked many times, but when you talk about in mixing, the compression having a big part, could you please elaborate on that a little bit? i would really appreciate it. like, what tracks would you consider needing most compression in a mix? and with limited compressors(especially in a digital pro tools format) how would i best utilize them? thanks

Keep in mind BEFORE you compress you should set a volume only mix to see what needs compression (and to what amount) in order to hit the sustained volume levels you need. By seeing what sticks out and what doesn't you can actually get a game plan for compression.

I compress EVERYTHING in a mix to some degree. However, I tend to use fairly light compression... 4:1 ratio being about as hard as I go. This is a rough guide to what I see as my 'starting off' points:

(ratio/thresh/attack/release)

Kick - 4:1/-16/45ms/120ms
Snare - 3:1/-20/55ms/100ms
Overheads - 2:1/-18/6ms/180ms (stereo linked RMS detector)
High Hat - 2:1/-24/6ms/200ms
Bass Guitar - 4:1 (8:1 if the bassist sucks)/-20/25ms/100ms
Electric Guitar - 2:1/-16/12ms/80ms
Acoustic Guitar - 2:1/-18/6ms/100ms
Vocals - 3:1/-14ms/12ms/150ms

I will usually have some makeup gain of 2-6db on each compressor depending on what I can get away with and the final mix levels I need to hit.

Note that my settings are appropriate for the types of mixes that I aim to get--which is a big natural sound. Also I usually get most of my tone for the drums from the overheads; the aim of overheads for me is total kit capture not just the cymbals. I also use 3 overhead mics (L, R and center); the center mic is *always* different than the L and R mics so I can get a less colored overhead sound.

After I set the compression I listen to everything again and slightly adjust volume levels to see if everything is perfect. If volume levels are where they need to be I move on to stereo panning and then finally equalization.

[mojovoodoo]

woah, thak you so much! most people get annoyed when asking such sophmoric questions. i just need some serious help and have no money to afford all that is needed. if you have any more random advice , please feel free to throw it out there. i need all i can get(esp. about eq'ing, compression and mixing) thanks again

[Purge]

Cloneboy--thanks for an awesome post. It's good to have some jumping off points for compression.

I know for an absolute fact on my band's album, we will therefore compress the bass at 8:1.

[kylen]

Originally Posted by Purge

Cloneboy--thanks for an awesome post. It's good to have some jumping off points for compression.

I know for an absolute fact on my band's album, we will therefore compress the bass at 8:1.

Hey Purge...how's your bassist ? ' Oh just so-so, he's an 8:1'

[Cloneboy Studio]

Bass is a pretty weird instrument to record actually. It's not hard, you just got to find your own way. A lot of bassists play too hard and just kill you with explosive transients, or their action hasn't been setup in a few years so you get fret buzz or whatever else... all of which equals to having to compress them more and more.

Awesome bassists--like session guys--can play really evenly and cleanly so you don't have to compress them as much, which lets the warm tones really flow.

However, most of the people that I run into nowadays want that antiseptic, bright bass tone that is done to death. I think I can achieve that sound in my sleep... I actually got it on a Peavey TKO75 amp and direct signal the other day, which shocked me because that amp is so crappy for studio recording.

[chessrock]

Cloneboy . . . interestingly slow attack settings on the kick/snare. Seems like you'd get more of a gating effect that way (mostly attack). Not knocking it or anything -- just different/interesting.

Love the new nick for sucky bassists. "He's an 8:1'er."

[APP]

Originally Posted by darnold

AND IT HAS TO BE REAL MONO.

Danny

hi danny,

can you please explain the difference between real mono and fake mono. when i throw a stereo pair's pan pots on my mixer to the middle, is that real mono?

thx.

---

[Cloneboy Studio]

Originally Posted by chessrock

Cloneboy . . . interestingly slow attack settings on the kick/snare. Seems like you'd get more of a gating effect that way (mostly attack). Not knocking it or anything -- just different/interesting.

45ms isn't that slow... now 100ms would be pretty slow. I like some good front end transients on the kick so it sticks out. I need to get a Drawmer Powergate something fierce... or the Transient Designer.

[kylen]

Originally Posted by masteringhouse

It's not mixing so much as adjusting the balance between stereo tracks and potentially processing differently.

It's less work dealing with stems, than trying to raise or lower a vocal out of a two track mix or trying to master separate vocal up and a vocal down mixes.

Well I finally got Adobe Audition to co-operate (it does busses a bit different) and have been running a seperate rhythm stem (drums, bass, rhythm guitar) out thru a buss that has a Mastering Limiter on it (Elephant - Voxengo). I'm starting to hear & see (in the spectrum analyzer) the sonic fingerprint on some of my fave commercial CD references. The ryhthm section sounds more cohesive like they're playing to gether on a stage IMO...still early yet but I think there's somethin to this. Like the way we used to bounce tracks back in the 4/8-track tape days...maybe I have the missing link here to end my digital nightmare - very interesting