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I'd like to explain how I see mixing vs mastering and get other's POV. Feel free to comment and contribute. This post thread came about from another thread related to this process about adding luster to a mix. Didn't want to hijack the thread in another direction. I hear people talking about mastering a mix on a single song. I have to pause and contemplate....hummmmmm... what do they really mean? so for me........this. Mixing... the process of taking all the tracks that are a part of the project and placing them at various levels and panned positions in the sound stage. Bringing the fills in and out with automation, applying the FX, mainly including compression, EQ and reverb to the individual tracks first and then to the overall mix. The purpose being to get the mix of unique tracks to sound like a cohesive song and not just a collection of tracks. Also included in the mixing are the production chops. Production such as enveloping the volume and panning to decide and determine what is going where in the time frame of the song. A final step in the mixing of the individual song is the polishing of the song to ensure it sounds the best it can sound. This single aspect can easily be a totally different thread topic in itself. Polishing: where, when, how, and why. This is, I believe what most of us are actually doing. Mixing and polishing a single song. Mastering... the process of taking a collection of songs, headed to a single CD type of project and also using EQ, compression and reverb to get the songs to work together as a whole. This entails levels all being similar so that one track doesn't blow you out of the room while the next track is barely audible. It also entails working with the parameters of EQ, comp, & verb, so that the songs as a whole, sound good on the tiny iPod ear buds to the car stereo, and even on the high dollar top of the line European home audio system. You want the project to sound as if it was recorded by the same studio in the same room, and at the same time. You don't want people thinking that a song in there stands out as being totally different. Back years ago, it was pretty common for an artist to record a new album over a period of many months, and often at different studios and with different engineers. Yet... the finished project, when heard, had a cohesiveness that if you didn't read the album liner notes, you would never have guessed that 3 tracks were recorded in Europe while 2 were recorded in Nashville and another 3 in Colorado with the remainder in LA. It was the mastering, all done in one place by one engineer that made it all sound like it was done in the same place at the same time with the same musicians. So, as I see it.... yeah, we call it mastering, but in reality, unless you are working on a group of songs, it's (small "m") mastering.... or as I prefer to call it "polishing" the song. We do the same thing essentially as mastering, but it's only done to one song at a time to make it acceptably loud and finished sounding. Is it necessary to Master a song? Nope... absolutely not. In fact, most of us don't. Not really. But that doesn't mean we don't do anything to the song. I've heard it said that your mix.... before polishing or mastering, should be really close to being perfect in a sonic sense and that the mastering process should only be the slightest improvement over the unpolished version. I can't say that's entirely true for my tunes, so I guess I have a ways to go yet to get there. Anyway... that's how I see it. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-difference-between-mixing-and-mastering-2460689thoughts and comments?
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 11/05/18 04:32 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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According to the RIAA, approximately 2/3 of recording revenue is from downloads and streams (67%/2014). Most mastering theses days is done per song.
Regards,
Bob
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I see where you are coming from here and think you are mostly correct in your explenation. However I think with the way that the music industry has gone there is a difference between mastering for an album and for a single song. Yes when mastering for an album you want all of your songs to sound like they fit together and be similar in volume. I attempted this last fall with an album that I put out. It was a lot of work especially since I didn't have good mastering plugins at the time to assist me in the process. (Now I use iZotope Ozone 8 and it's a lot simpler.)
However even if you are only putting out a single song for listeners it should still be "mastered" to a specific loudness. I won't go into the specifics of numbers (you can look thouse up online) but a lot of it has to do with where your music will be placed. Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. all have different loudness specifications that they use when posting your music on their sites. No matter what you upload they will use compression to make it hit their target loudness but if you don't take the time to master your song to their specifications it could lead to your song being quieter than others on the site.
Now days with plugging such as Ozone that make it easy for you to quickly master your own song there is no reason you shouldn't do it in my opinion.
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Very interesting topic. So in essence mastering is...- a group of audio items that "mastered" to a specific loudness... considering of course they are mixed well initially?
At the time when I bought my Neutron, I could not pull the trigger on Ozone as I felt that most of things are available in Neutron...
Just curious, outside EQ, Compression and Normalization what are Bread&Butter tools for mastering?
P.S. I just posted a link in this forum topic, a pluginboutique giveaway of Neutron Elements till end of November.
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Mastering has two related meanings. For the industry, it meant exactly what Herb suggested: getting all the songs on an album to fit together cohesively. With artists less focused on albums, the meaning has shifted to getting your song to fit in with other songs on whatever platform you're targeted. But I think most people think of mastering as applying some sort of final "magical sheen" to the mix. Some people ascribe magical powers to various consoles, which companies like Waves exploit when the sell things like "Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain". Unfortunately for people like me who want to believe in the magic of VSTs, the real magic is in the skill of the mastering engineers. But that won't stop me from buying the latest plug-in in hopes that this time, it'll work! 
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The concept of mastering has changed over the years.
I remember getting whole Albums/CDs to master and make cohesive, but I've also been asked to master single songs 'for TV'.
'Mastering' seems to have become somewhat ambiguous in common use.
IMHO
Make your sound your own!
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For what it's worth, my take on it is...
Mixing = comparing the internal elements of a song with one another and adjusting them to get the best mixed sound.
Mastering = comparing a mixed song to external sources (e.g. other productions, CDs, websites, films, etc.) and adjusting the song to accommodate and reflect the source chosen.
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Very interesting topic. So in essence mastering is...- a group of audio items that "mastered" to a specific loudness... considering of course they are mixed well initially?
At the time when I bought my Neutron, I could not pull the trigger on Ozone as I felt that most of things are available in Neutron...
Just curious, outside EQ, Compression and Normalization what are Bread&Butter tools for mastering?
That is one way to look at it. There can also be minor tweaks in EQ to bring out certain frequencies. Ozone is well worth the investment. I currently lease it an Neutron for around $30 a month from splice. Ozone has many different components to it with a lot of presets to get you started in the right direction. The tools included in Ozone inclue 4 different types of EQ, tape saturation, harmonic exciter, compressor, multiband compressor, spectral shaper, stereo imager, limiter and maximizer. Each has various uses to help sculpt the final sound of your song. I could go on about what other effects mastering has on a song but maybe an example is better. I've been working on a song for a friend today. They wanted me to add some country style instruments to their track which I used BIAB to do. I sent them back the demo unmastered track along with the instrument stems so they can mix it how they like in their studio. Afterwards I decided to have a little fun and throw Ozone on the master out to see what difference it made. Here is the unmastered track. It has a true peak around 0.15db and an average loudness of 9.1LUFS or 14.2PLR... https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvz3w9o55ndm2mv/Ken%20Kong%20-%20Dear%20Lord%20I%20Pray.wav?dl=0Here is the track mastered with Ozone using one of the presets with headroom adjusted to peak at -0.3db. It has an average loudness of 13.4LUFS or 10.5PLR... https://www.dropbox.com/s/y22iuf7i5ifxdih/Ken%20Kong%20-%20Dear%20Lord%20I%20Pray%20-%20Mastered.wav?dl=0Take a listen to both tracks and I'm sure you'll hear the difference.
Last edited by Samuel Davis; 11/05/18 12:51 PM.
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Hopefully everyone can agree the terms "mixing" and "mastering" have evolved over time as the music industry has changed. That is the major reason this topic is so ripe for discussion. Also, the definitions can change somewhat depending if you're referring to audio, video or movie production. I'm assuming this discussion is about audio production.
I understand any project to have four stages; pre-production, production, post production and mastering.
Pre-production is taking all steps needed to prepare for creating audio. Writing lyrics, instrument selection, rehearsal are all examples of things that might be done in pre-production.
Production is the creation of all the audio needed for a project; this includes converting MIDI performances into audio.
Post production includes mixing. Mixing is doing everything needed to create a pleasing audio performance from previously recorded audio.
Mastering is the last step in the project creation process. Mastering prepares a mixed audio performance for distribution.
Mixing and mastering are distinct but also dependent.
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Being old skool, I tend to stick to the defined roles for mixing, mastering, and polishing.
However, as has been pointed out, the lines are definitely being blurred as technology advances.
So as a result, I start right from square one working on the mastering and polishing of the project.
WYHIWYG.... what you hear is what you get.... so Ozone goes in the master buss right at the start and that way, everything moves forward with full knowledge that what I hear is what is going to be on the end of the project. No having to readjust the EQ on a guitar later to have it sound good with the final EQ, for example.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Very interesting topic. So in essence mastering is...- a group of audio items that "mastered" to a specific loudness... considering of course they are mixed well initially?
At the time when I bought my Neutron, I could not pull the trigger on Ozone as I felt that most of things are available in Neutron...
Just curious, outside EQ, Compression and Normalization what are Bread&Butter tools for mastering?
EQ, compression, and reverb are the main 3 things used in the mastering process. Limiting is also used mostly in conjunction with the compression process. Normalization isn't really one of them. Lots of folks use it to bump the final levels a bit more..... but..... if the mastering/polishing process is done correctly, there should be nothing left to normalize. Normalization is simply raising the overall volume of the entire track to a certain preset point. That can be done with the other mastering tools just as easily. I have felt the other way around about the iZotope software. I have Ozone and feel that it does practically everything the other stuff does.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Samuel, first of all, cool song! Yes, sure I can feel the difference between the two  But I think I am more with David (dcuny) on this. Not trying to diminish the power of some plugins, but it all comes to art I guess. I know that Ozone has some effects that are not present in Neutron or Nectar but many of their inserts are very similar. Just this morning, I got an email from Christopher from Izotope. I asked him if it would be possible to interchange effects between Neutron and new Nectar 3. He said not, but he agreed that it was a good idea, and promised to pass it along the chain. It would be nice if they made 1 VST platform for all tasks of song making including mixing and mastering sort of like Kontakt. I think they are heading this way BTW. I was pleasantly surprised that Nectar 3 now has "Auto Level" which rides volume in very similar manner of Vocal Rider. Still can not decide on it as I have Nectar 2.
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Most often the more you have to master (other than limiting) to "get it right" the more you need to go back and work on the mix.
With our productions mastering typically comes down to noting but a 50hz low end shelf, occasional light mulit-band compression and very light limiting via Ozone 8 advanced's maximizer.
The vast majority of my plug-ins and time spent with them consists of working to get each track to cooperate with its neighbors.
FWIW, IMHO, ole fart's two cents, etc., etc.
Bud
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I was going to save up for Nectar 2 but glad I waited. Now I can just lease Nectar 3.
Personally I think leaving Nectar, Neutron and Ozone as separate platforms is smart. Each has a certain purpose and especially for someone just learning music production it is good to know what purpose each one is meant for. I usually use Neutron on each instrumental track, and sometimes on vocals (although that may change with Nectar). Lately I've also been using it on my mix bus before sending it to Ozone on the Master out.
I'll probably be pulling the trigger on Nectar 3 tonight. Looks like there are a lot of really good things going on there. The auto level looks cool and someone mentioned in another forum it also comes with Melodyne. It's got pretty much everything you need for vocals all in one.
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Interesting idea, Herb. I'll keep that in mind if I get Ozone or something like it.
2b
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Most often the more you have to master (other than limiting) to "get it right" the more you need to go back and work on the mix.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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