Chords for What is the difference between mixing and mastering?

What is the difference between mixing and mastering?
Well in this video, we're gonna talk about that.
Let's go. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] Hi, my name is Pete and this is Studio [G] Live Today
where I help you create, record,
[G#] and release your best music.
And if you're just getting into music
or perhaps you've been doing [F] it for a while,
you would have heard the terms mixing and mastering
and they mean different things,
but sometimes it can get quite confusing
as to what we're actually talking about.
So in this video, I'm gonna take you through the process
from recording a song, what mixing actually does,
and then [B] what the mastering process is all [E] about.
So let's jump in and talk about [N] that now.
So let's start by talking about the processes
leading up to the mixing and mastering phase
and that is your recording.
So when you have a new song,
you're gonna write your song,
you're going to record your song,
and you're going to get to the point
where you have all of your recorded tracks,
all of your multi-tracks ready to mix.
Now what I do and what a lot of folks do
is actually mix on the way in.
So you're gonna have done some of the mixing process
before you even get to the mixing phase, so to speak.
So that means that you've done some level balancing
of your tracks, maybe you've added some effects even,
maybe you've done some compression, some basic EQ,
and you've got yourself a bit of a static mix
and it's at this point that we dive in
and we will start mixing our song.
So what does the mixing process involve?
Well, it means taking all of those multi-tracks
and doing a few things.
Number one is getting a static mix
and that means that you get all of the levels
of your tracks at approximately the right volume
so that everything is sitting together in the mix
and that your song is sounding cohesive.
You'll then move on to other stages of mixing
which may include adding in effects such as reverb,
adjusting your EQ, which is your volume
at all of your different frequencies,
and there's videos about all of these topics
which will be linked down in the description as well.
And you can also go in and do other things
like compression and all of the other
sort of flavor type effects.
So you might wanna add in a flanger
or you might wanna add some chorus.
So that's all part of the mixing process
and what you're going to end up with once you've done
all of these processes is a final mix
and this is where we jump from the mixing
into the mastering phase of our recording process.
Now when you're starting out
and even if you've been recording for a while,
you may not have ever actually mastered a song
but you're probably doing some of these things
without even thinking about it
because what mastering is all about
is about giving those final touches to your song.
In fact, the mastering app I use here on my iPad
is called Final Touch and what that's about
is using some things like multiband compression,
using EQ again and the particular thing
that's almost always done in mastering
is what's called limiting and that means
that pulling up the volume so that it's competitive
with other tracks.
So what you wanna do is get your volume up near zero dB.
Now in music we use zero dB as the maximum volume
so you don't want it to be clipping,
you don't want it to be distorting, going over that maximum
but if you have it down at minus six or minus 12
and you release that song,
it's not gonna be competitive with other mastered tracks.
You want it to be up around that zero dB
so that it can be competitive when you're playing it.
So if someone's playing it in a Spotify playlist
or an Apple Music playlist or listening on iTunes,
if people still buy songs on iTunes,
then it's actually going to be at a similar volume
to all those others.
So you may do that in your final mix
but what is a better idea is to keep your final mix
a little bit lower and then to actually use mastering
to bring that up to limit that final mix
and then your final master
is going to be at the right volume.
So that is the key difference is that mixing
is about getting your final mix
of all of your different tracks.
Now the one other thing to keep in mind
is that when you're mastering,
you're usually mastering a stereo file.
So you're usually exporting your final mix
as just two tracks, just your left and your right track
and then you'll master that.
Now you can master in your DAW of choice,
your digital audio workstation.
So I've mastered in GarageBand
and there's videos up there and down below about that
or you can use a specific mastering app or mastering suite
and I talked about Final Touch on iPad
or you can use a bunch of others
to actually master your songs.
There'll be some examples of those
down in the description as well.
So there you go.
I hope that gave you a bit of an idea.
If you've been wondering about this mixing, mastering,
what they [Gm] mean, what the difference is,
hopefully this helps you out
and it's helped you understand a little bit more
about the [Em] mixing and mastering process.
Hey, thanks for sticking [Bm] around.
Now my question to you is, do you master your songs?
And if you do, what do you use to master your songs?
Do you send them to a mastering engineer?
Do you do it [F#] yourself?
[Em] Let me know down in the comments.
There's two videos also [Am] linked right down below
that you can [Bm] check out.
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