Saturday, July 6, 2013

Elements Involved In A Mix And Mastering Service

By Stacey Massey


Mixing and mastering form part of the essential components that are necessary for professional producing. Musicians who have their own home studios and record their own sounds usually look through these on their own to create awesome tracks. However, there are also those that choose to avail of a mix and mastering service offered by professional producers.

To master and mix sounds are two different things. There are many people who commit the error of interchanging these two terms. Sometimes, they also are taken collectively as though they mean the same. Mixing is actually the process of placing multiple audio layers all together for the creation of final tracks. This can also refer to the process of modifying existing tracks.

Raw sounds recorded, whether piano, drums or guitar, straight from condenser microphones usually sound rather flat and undynamic. What producers will do first is layering of the tracks, changing the volumes to, perhaps, make the guitar or drum sounds come out at specific moments. They might also remove unwanted clicks or extra noises from the clips. This is the mixing process.

Mastering, on the other hand, is different. It is the process where final tracks are optimized with the use of several different elements, which may range from stereo enhancement, equalization, or compression. Usually, this process will require not just technical skills from producers but also extensive knowledge on techniques and a good sense of hearing.

To master may mean bringing the sounds to life. This is the process which will bring spice in to your recorded sounds for these to sound better. You can have your drum beats sounding much more dynamic or your guitars sounding less sharp. You can also tone down your piano rhythm or have your bass frequency increased. Effects integration may be considered as well.

There are a number of elements that are involved in mastering. Compression comes as first. Even though compression is a common element, it is still often used by musicians incorrectly. Dynamic audios are most commonly compressed. This is so the audio will be prevented from clipping. Compressing ultimately ensures that an audio will not be made to exceed decibel limits, hence avoiding allowing them to come too loud.

Equalization is the procedure that involves boosting of sound frequencies. This element can be easy to understand. Usually, producers do not want the recorded tracks to come with thin bass drums. What they do then is have the bass frequencies increased through equalization. EQ makes it possible for sound engineers to achieve perfect instrumental sounds.

Other than compression and equalization, there are several more effects that producers add in to sounds in order to spice up the tracks. These effects allow them to make the most out of recorded sounds. Two of the most commonly applied effects are stereo enhancement and reverb.

A mix and mastering service is centered on composition, instrumentation and notation of special subjects for producing music. As with notating and composing, this requires knowledge and enough experience. Although tracks may actually already sound good right after they have been recorded, there can still be several more improvements that can be introduced to get the best out of them.




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