What's The Difference Between Mixing And Mastering
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Written by John Rogers
What's the difference between mixing and mastering? A lot of people new to music don't know the answer to this.
In music mixing, you're "mixing together" multiple audio tracks to make a single audio file song. Different tracks like the lead vocal, bass line, guitars, drums, etc. are being combined together.
Then proper effects (like EQ, reverb, delay) are added to each track, along with panning and volume adjustments.In the final step, all tracks are exported simultaneously to create a song in the form of a single stereo interleaved .wav or .aiff file.
In audio mastering (as mentioned in the previous section) the entire song is affected by effects processes, not individual tracks.
At least once a week, someone uploads a song .wav file and says they want it mixed and mastered.Well, you can't mix one file. The word "mixing" is a verb and you need at least twotracks (files) to be able to mix them together.You need at least two of anything to be able to mix it together!
A music DJ is a good example.If he had onlyone record, he wouldn't be doing any mixing.He could throw some scratches in, but that's it. {article 170}[layout]{/article}
The Music Production Secrets Series by John Rogers
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Learning and calibrating your speakers for your DAW in audio mastering is a very important step in the audio mastering process. When I first start out with NEW speakers (though I never change them now), I listen to my favorite hit songs in every genre and style.Songs that I know from my years of experience have X amount of bass, X amount of brightness, etc.I know how these songs are "supposed" to sound.
In this video I do a quick A/B comparison of a few songs. In my audio mastering secrets video series, I get a lot more in-depth into exactly what you are trying to achieve sonically for your genre/style of music.
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Here are the series of audio mastering software processors I've used on the over 30,000 songs I've mastered since 1999. In this video, I use mostly izotope ozone plugins because it's easier to explain using them. In real-life, I do mix in a few hardware pieces, and a waves plugin.
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