All you need to know about Mixing and Mastering Vs Production.
Here is the real difference explained about “What is Mixing and Mastering”? And how is it different from Music Production? This article will help you develop a better understanding of How the Sound Engineers do the Song Mixing and Mastering. Also, you will understand “What is Music Production”?
What is Mixing and Mastering?
Mixing and Mastering are the most important aspects of developing a song. It can actually make the song sound better or worse. These are the final and the last steps after the song get completely recorded and edited.
Keep reading till the end to understand Mixing and mastering.
Here, firstly we need to understand the basic steps involved in the complete process of making a song. The steps are as follows:
Creating a Scratch (Rough Song)
The first step involved is to create a scratch of the song. A scratch is the basic and rough outline of the song. Many people record the scratch even on a cell phone so that the tune or the idea can be recorded and cannot be forgotten later.
Recording the song Or Music Piece
The second step is to record the song/idea in a nice and clean way. This process involves making various tracks and recording Instruments and vocals. This can take a little time as the sound engineers will adjust the recording environment and place the microphones according to the instrument selection.
Monitoring Recorded Tracks
The third step needs a smart ear which can identify the flaws in a recording by listening to the tracks closely. Each track can be heard separately and if there are any flaws or mistakes or noises (while recording), it can be corrected or re-recorded.
Trackling (Categorizing Tracks)
This process involves arranging and organizing the tracks in a sorted way. The tracks can be numbered/colored/grouped together as per their category. For example, All the drum tracks can be grouped/colored/numbered together, so that it’s easy to find the drum group while Mixing. The tracks that have all the drum sounds like, snare, tom, high-hat, kick, etc. can be grouped together.
Once the trackling is done, it’s time to start with mixing the song.
What is Mixing in Music? Or How to mix a song?
As the term says, mixing is taking various things and combining them together to make it better. In Song Mixing or Music Mixing, the sound engineers do the same thing. They combine various tracks and make them sound better and better. This needs detailed knowledge about “How sound behaves” and how it can sound good for the human ear.
Steps involved in Mixing
Mixing is a very subjective and creative process. It involves a lot of experimenting with sounds, knowledge of tools, and Experience. A seasoned mixing engineer can easily find out what tool/plug-in/hardware is to be used to get a certain effect. However, for beginners, it may take time to identify the real good sounds.
Though the Mixing process is subjective, yet I am mentioning a few pointers that may help to get the sound right.
Use the appropriate Software/DAW (Digital Audio workstation):
There are various DAWs available to make your work easy in accordance with the type of project. Some popular DAWs are ProTools, Logic-Pro (Mac/MacBook), Cubase, Ableton Live, etc. You can use these DAWs as per their features. For example, you can use Protools for Film sound, or you can use Logic-Pro/Cubase for a song or music piece
Import the Tracks:
If you have recorded the tracks in a different DAW, you can always import it into the DAW in which you want to mix. Or else if you are mixing in the same DAW in which you recorded, then it’s not required to import the tracks.
Start with Adjusting Levels:
Adjusting levels means that you have to listen and control the levels of each track. At times some part of a particular track may be too loud or too low, which needs to be controlled.
Once you have done the rough Level Adjustments, you can move to the next step.
Make Buses
Just like the bus carries many people, here a bus would carry many tracks and deliver a standard effect to all those tracks. You can make buses as per the effect you want for the tracks.
Compression
Compression is a technique to maintain the required sound level as desired. If the track is too loud or too low at a few places, the compressor will adjust it automatically. There are many good compression Plugins and hardware available to give you sound and awesome output. Always play the track while you connect a compressor so that you can adjust the attack and release of the compressor accordingly.
EQ (Equalizer)
An equalizer lets you adjust the frequencies in a given track. It can be adjusted in terms of highs, mids, and lows. Also, there are frequency bands in the Equalizers, that puts the frequencies into a certain limit. For example, 0-100 Hz, 100-500 Hz, 500-1000 Hz, 1000-300 Hz, etc.
There can be 2, 4, 6, or more band settings in an EQ. You can always do experiments with the EQ settings to get the best sound of your choice.
Panning
Panning is moving the sound left or right. Panning turns out to be an awesome effect on listeners. Many times you must have heard of a sound that appears to be moving in some direction. This effect lets the listeners get involved in the song or music piece. Also, its 3D movements give a more realistic output. When we watch movies in theatres, we often observe that the sound is moving with the visuals on screen. For example A horse running from left to right, so the sound of the horse also moves along with that. Good engineers always create awesome effects while playing around with panning.
Reverb/Delay
Most mixing engineers apply reverb or delay or both to their tracks. The amount of effects used is totally based on the choice of mixing engineers. The genre of music also matters a lot in deciding how much effect is to be used. It’s not a mandate to use reverb or delay, but most mixing engineers use these effects wisely to make their project good.
Automation
Most DAWs have this feature. Automation lets you automate the effects as and when required. It can be used on almost every effect. For example, you want the level of a certain track to be low at some point, and you want a sudden increase in the level just after that. All this is possible with automation.
Master Track
Once the mixing process is completed, a master track has to be finalized. The master track is the ultimate track with all the effects and mixing process clubbed together. Most mixing engineers bounce a master track after the mixing and save it to perform mastering on it.
Limiter
A limiter is a tool that puts a limit on the distortion of the track. It is mostly used on the master track. Its main purpose is to give a high level of the track during output. You may say, it’s generally used to make the song louder (without making it distort).
What is Mastering?
Mastering is the final step of completing a song or a music piece. It involves giving a final texture/color to the song. Also, a mastered song should sound good on all kinds of devices. So, the mastering engineer always listens to the song or music piece on various devices to understand the flaws. For example, the song should sound good on Laptop, headphones, cell phones, theatre, TV, car speakers, etc.
What does Mastering include?
Mastering includes the overall checking of all the frequencies. Any particular frequency should not cut the other frequencies. It also includes maintaining the overall frequency of the song or the music piece. For example, if the song should have more Highs (high frequency) or Mids (mid-frequency). The mastering engineer will accommodate the frequencies accordingly.
How to give the song a COLOR?
It is very subjective to pick up a color for the song. But to make it easy, we must understand that what is the genre of the song and where it will be released. For example, many songs are for radio, some are for youtube, some are for films. Hence, it makes it easy for the mixing engineer to pick up a color accordingly.
Here, the style of sound is termed as the color of the song.
Few colors of the songs are Bass Boost, Rich vocals, Acoustic, crisp highs, club mixed, etc.
These are very common colors, however, mastering engineers can make their own color too based on the mentioned factors.
It is always advisable for the mixing and mastering engineers to take proper breaks while working. It makes the ears monotonous and the engineers tend to experiment less, as they keep listening to the same track hundreds of times. It is said that if we listen to a particular music piece or a song, we will eventually like it.
Mixing and mastering engineers generally listen to a song for over 50 times while processing. They must always have a fresh ear to beautify the tracks. So, keep taking your breaks while being on the job.
What is Music Production?
I will try and keep this very easy to understand.
Music production is the process of producing Music. Music producers are the people who are in-charge or take responsibility for producing the entire song or music piece.
Let’s produce some music now.
What does a Music Producer do?
Well, Music Producers can do everything, but it depends on his choice that if he wants to include more people in the project and assign various responsibilities to them. A music producer can do the following things.
- Writing a song
- Composing Tune
- Recording the song
- Programming
- Arranging
- Mixing and Mastering
However, all these things can be assigned to various artists/engineers. And Music Producer can only monitor the process.
Terms like Music Producer, Music Programmer, Sound Engineer, Mixing, and Mastering Engineer can refer to one person. All of these terms need common basic knowledge. Some Musicians also possess this technical knowledge, hence they produce their own compositions and giving them a creative perspective.
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