Mixing vs Mastering

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digmudvayne4lif

digmudvayne4lif

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What's the difference between mixing and mastering? ie what do you do in each stage? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
 
Multitrack audio production is generally broken down into three engineering phases:

TRACKING - A fancy word for recording. The tracking phase is the first phase where all recording is done.

MIXING - This is the middle stage where all the individual instruemt tracks and takes are edited together, sonically refined and summed - or mixed together - into a stereo (or surround sound, if that's your game) version. This version is usually called the "mixdown".

MASTERING - This is where the mixdown gets it's final sonic "polish" and where it is combined with other polished mixdowns into an album of material and made into a CD.

Technically the polishing part is called "premastering", and the assembly of a final master CD is the "mastering". But in home recording cases where there may be no CD compilation, and/or where everything is done on a basic level on a home computer by a single person, the whole process after mixdown is just referred to simply as "mastering".

G.
 
Unless you're doing hip-hop, where "sequencing" is called "producing" and everything else is called "mastering." :eek: :D
 

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Massive Master said:
Unless you're doing hip-hop, where "sequencing" is called "producing" and everything else is called "mastering." :eek: :D
Click to expand...

LOL...thats true! :cool:
 
Massive Master said:
Unless you're doing hip-hop, where "sequencing" is called "producing" and everything else is called "mastering." :eek: :D
Click to expand...
....And where "scratching" something is actually a good thing ;).
 
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