Mixing vs. Mastering - What's the Difference?
A short article I wrote on the difference between mixing and mastering. I've been seeing a lot of posts in forums where people mix the 2 up, or think they're the same thing. Attempting to clear the confusion up a bit.
Id appreciate any feedback or suggestions for revising it. I'm sure you guys can find something that can be changed or added.
If you don't want to read the whole thing the main differences between mastering and mixing are these:
Mixing deals with all the individual tracks inside a project/song and mixes them into one stereo file or sometimes several "stem" files which are groups of similar instruments condensed down into the same track.
Mastering takes the mixed down file/files and preps them for distribution.
Changes a audio engineer makes when mixing can be on individual tracks within the project, where changes a mastering engineer makes are typically to the entire song/project and must be more subtle or atleast more carefully applied, since even a slight change can be detrimental.
Mixing involves numerous processing effects and adjustments such as time based effects (reverb, delay, etc), automation, volume, panning, and many more, which are applied to the individual tracks inside of a song/project.
Mastering typically involves less drastic and more precise EQ changes and various forms of dynamic range compression applied to the entire mixed down stereo file or stem files.
Only Similarities: Both are music production processes that use equalization and compression.
A short article I wrote on the difference between mixing and mastering. I've been seeing a lot of posts in forums where people mix the 2 up, or think they're the same thing. Attempting to clear the confusion up a bit.
Id appreciate any feedback or suggestions for revising it. I'm sure you guys can find something that can be changed or added.
If you don't want to read the whole thing the main differences between mastering and mixing are these:
Mixing deals with all the individual tracks inside a project/song and mixes them into one stereo file or sometimes several "stem" files which are groups of similar instruments condensed down into the same track.
Mastering takes the mixed down file/files and preps them for distribution.
Changes a audio engineer makes when mixing can be on individual tracks within the project, where changes a mastering engineer makes are typically to the entire song/project and must be more subtle or atleast more carefully applied, since even a slight change can be detrimental.
Mixing involves numerous processing effects and adjustments such as time based effects (reverb, delay, etc), automation, volume, panning, and many more, which are applied to the individual tracks inside of a song/project.
Mastering typically involves less drastic and more precise EQ changes and various forms of dynamic range compression applied to the entire mixed down stereo file or stem files.
Only Similarities: Both are music production processes that use equalization and compression.