Get to know Mixing and Mastering

A recording studio is a place where musicians do sound recording, audio production, mixing, and other things related to the world of music. But apparently not only musicians, in a music recording process there are generally engineers, producers, mixers and Pre Masters. Their roles are different from each other.

If the song project you are working on is a project where you are a musician, arranger, or mixing engineer, even concurrently a producer, leave this mastering process to the online mixing and mastering Engineer as much as possible.

The engineer’s job is to provide the equipment needed in the recording studio, the producer is in charge of assessing whether the recording is in accordance with the wishes, a mixer plays the role of taking the recorded tracks by combining the tracks well, while the mastering role is to provide the final touch.

But in the process, sometimes many people are confused whether mixing and mastering are the same two activities or are there differences between the two?

What is the difference between Mixing and Mastering?

Mixing is a multitrack balancing process. When we record songs, we will use many tracks to record these musical instruments. So that the sound becomes balanced then we do the mixing process.

Unlike mixing, in the mastering process, you only use 1 stereo file. 1 stereo file consists of 2 tracks, namely left and right. So the file sent for mastering is your final mix, not multi-tracks or raw recorded files.

Mastering is the final stage in the musical process. Mastering a simple language can be said as the process of polishing music. Just like polished furniture to shine, you need to make your music shine. The trick is sent to the mastering process.

Mixing Process

As the name implies, mixing is mixing audio tracks that you want to combine. In other words, mixing is a multitrack balancing process. There are many tracks that can be combined starting from vocal tracks, guitar tracks, drum tracks, bass tracks, and other tracks. So what activities occur in the mixing process?

Balancing

Balancing or balancing aims to balance the volume of each track, so that the volume of the entire track can later be heard properly and as desired. For example, the sound of vocals, guitar, drums, and bass has the right sound harmony so that it is pleasant and comfortable to listen to.

Equalizing

Often abbreviated as EQ, and served to cut or increase the frequency as desired. For example, vocals sound too rumbling, EQ is in charge of polishing the sound to make it more comfortable to hear. This EQ process can also give the audio character the sound you want.

Compressing

Is an audio leveling process whose dynamic range is too high. For example, the dynamic range of vocal audio that goes up and down when singing high or low notes, in the compressing process this problem can be overcome.

Effect

The last process is the process of giving effects, such as chorus, reverb, delay, and other effects as needed.

Mastering Process

Mastering is a process that occurs after the mixing process. Basically, this one process is just a process of perfecting mixing. So it can be said that the mastering process is only to polish the music if something is not right. However, the mastering process has its own benefits, including the final recording will feel more balanced, dense, professional, and the sound quality is more beautiful and pleasant to hear.