There’s still quite a bit of mystery around mastering, even for experienced musicians and engineers. Most know that they’re supposed to master their music—even if they don’t necessarily understand what mastering is really all about. To put it simply, mastering is technically just the process of making a “master copy” of a release, from which all other duplicates are created. So, if you export a song from your digital audio workstation (DAW) and upload that file to streaming services, then congratulations! The file you’ve uploaded is considered the master file. But today, when people talk about “mastering”, that’s not usually what the they mean. They are usually referring to the final pass of audio sweetening and quality control that a specialized mastering engineer may do at the very end of the production process, in order to enhance the tonal balance of the music, to get get the songs to the appropriate level, to make sure they flow well from one to the other, and to generally make the final mixes sound even better than they were. Whether you choose to create masters yourself or get someone else to do it for you, there are some essential questions you need to ask yourself. Below, we’ll run you through seven important questions to consider before mastering your music. 1. Are There Still Any Issues In The Mix? Perhaps the biggest misconception about mastering is that it’s going to drastically change the quality of your song. While a good mastering engineer may be able to correct certain mix issues, provide general enhancement, and make your mix sound even better all around, it’s just no substitute for getting the best mix you can. If your mix is underwhelming or contains specific problems that you know about, then the master you receive will be lackluster as well. The question to ask yourself first is whether there is anything specific that is still “bugging” you about your mix. If there is, then have you really tried everything you can to address the issue, or are you hoping the mastering engineer can save you? If it’s the latter, consider revisiting your mix for one more pass until you are certain that there are no more issues that you may be able to address. 2. Have You Reached The Limit of Your Abilities? Everyone has a limit to their mixing abilities—though some mixers’ boundaries may extend further than others. Ultimately, there’s no such thing as a “perfect mix”, because art is subjective. You can obsess over a mix for an eternity, changing it day in and day out. So what you need to ask yourself is whether your mix is “good enough” for the purposes at hand. What exactly does “good enough” mean? To me, “good enough” means I’m content with my mix, that spending more time on it won’t improve it substantially, and that further time spent on the mix isn’t going to help sell more records. In any business, time is money, and turnaround times do matter. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have standards. Of course you should. It just means that once you reach the standard that you know yourself to be capable of, you should start getting ready to call it a day. Pushing your boundaries is good, but at a certain point, further mixing just ends up making a track sounding different—not necessarily better or worse. 3. Have You Checked Your Mix on Multiple Monitors? Mastering engineers listen to your mix in rooms with a near-flat frequency response, making it easier for them to tell how your mix will translate across a variety of systems and adjust accordingly. But the better you can get it before they even touch it, the better the end results will be. If you don’t have access to a studio like a mastering engineer might work in, you can check the playback compatibility of your song by listening to the mix across different systems. This will help give you an idea of how your mix will translate to other systems. It can also help to get outside of your room to hear your work. In the beginning, as you learn the quirks of your mixing environment, the more systems you can test your mix on the better. It’s also good to think about where your mixes are going to be listened to by most people. Typical consumer playback devices include earbuds, laptop speakers and car stereo systems. It’s important that you make sure your mixes translate to consumer speakers, because not everyone has thousand dollar studio monitors. Knowing the general frequency response of any monitors you’re listening on can be helpful as well. For example, if you know that the cheap consumer monitors you test your mixes on are heavy in the midrange, you don’t necessarily need to be concerned that your vocals feel more present than on other monitors. However, if the vocals feel sharp or harsh in a way that is out of character for that system, then it is something you want to make adjustments on. But what you’re really looking for are issues that are common across multiple playback systems. 4. Should You Hire a Mixing Engineer First? If you’re still new to mixing, you may rarely get to the point where you’re happy with your mixes. Everyone who tries their hand at mixing goes through this period of frustration, and those that stick with it long enough can generally make it out to the other side. But in the meantime, being stuck in mixing limbo can be quite a confidence killer. And whether you’re an artist or a recording engineer, you may have projects you want to release that deserve a better mix job than you can do yourself right now. If you have mix issues that you can’t deal with yourself—or standards that are higher than your current abilities—consider hiring a mixing engineer. If you’re really intent on mixing it yourself, but need some extra help, you can call up a local studio and book a session with a more experienced engineer there to help you work out the kinks in your almost-finished project. The most important thing in hiring a good mixer is that you find one who understands your aesthetics and has a track record for putting out finished work that sounds good to you. Often, producers already have a general idea of how they want their track mixed, and it can be disheartening if a mixing engineer takes your project in a direction that’s way out in left field relative to where you want to be. Finding an engineer who will allow you to attend a mixing session can be incredibly beneficial, both for making sure the track ends up where you want it to, and for learning some techniques you can take into your own work. You can help guide them in the direction you want, while they can offer up the technical abilities and experience to make your vision a reality. |
