Mixing and Mastering Overview

The 2 things that I most commonly see as the weakest links in people’s recordings are room acoustics, and quality mixing. You could have stellar recording quality, but with poor mixing, the song will sound like it was recorded in a basement. The reverse is also true. A basement recording, that’s well mixed and mastered can sound like it was done in a high class studio. This was one of my biggest mistakes when I was starting out. I thought mixing was all about adjusting levels, eq, compression, reverb and making each part sound good. I didn’t even know that there was so much more to it


. Learning how to use eq was a real eye opener for me. And I don’t just mean learning how to adjust bass, mids and treble, but learning how to use it to sculpt each sound to complement the mix. Also learning the power of stereo spreading, and the advantage of high quality compression, such as outboard compressors or really good digital compressors. I learned the value of high quality studio monitors and good room acoustics ... which made it much easier to pinpoint problems and make accurate adjustments, plus lots of little tricks to add energy and life to a song.

Mixing is the process of adjusting and sculpting individual tracks. Let’s say you recorded a song of drums, bass, guitar and vocals. In the mixing process you’ll be adjusting the levels, eq, compression and any other effects on each part. You do r just want the parts to sound good on their own, but to compliment each other creating the overall sound of the song.