Songs Mixing for $125

mixing and mastering Mastering Tips Introduction - Getting Our Minds Right Before Mixing and Mastering Home Recordings

As with many things, people often start their journey to gain knowledge on a topic with an error in logic, or at least a mistaken assumption. This is certainly true in the case of the mixing and mastering of home recordings. With songs mixing, the initial error that is made, is that many home recording artists strive to duplicate what they are hearing in their favorite releases by their favorite established artists.

The reason this is a mistake to approach songs mixing this way is that what they are listening to on their favorite recordings is not actually a songs mixing. It is in fact, a mix that has been through the mastering process. You see, the sound of a mix and sound of a mastered mix are very different. Trying to copy sound of a mastered song in mixing phase is not only a waste of time, it will damage the quality of recording if and when it is mastered.

Mastering Tips for Better Songs Mixing in Home Recording Studio

Explanation of Tip 2: Your mixing needs to be relatively quiet because it must leave room ("headroom") for the primary goal of the mastering process, which is to raise the overall average volume of a mix. In other words, mastering makes the volume relatively consistent throughout the song. This makes the mastered version of the song "seem" louder and punchier.

The mastering engineer does this by using a variety of compressors. He or she sets "thresholds" to prevent volume spikes and also compresses and sets thresholds on specific frequencies.

Think of these thresholds, created with compression and/or compressed EQ, as a "ceiling," and a "floor," which creates a "container" that volume and frequencies must live in. This container prevents the master recording from peeking over "zero" or dipping too low on the output volume. Therefore, we must provide a "quiet" mix for the mixing and mastering process so there is enough headroom for these tasks. Otherwise, the mix's journey through the mastering phase will risk pinched, choked or distorted sound.

The next few song mixing tips are related. As a group the following three tips represent a real opportunity for home recording artists to remove much of frustration from the song mixing process and will greatly decrease time spent songs mixing.

(Normalization is term for evening out the natural volume differences within a song between its sections.