any tips on mixing and mastering

localspace said:
master your mixing before you master
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That's a good tip! In other words: forget about mastering for now, focus on getting the mixes right - they should be 95% there before hitting the mastering phase anyway. Or actually 100% - I think of mastering as something of a second opinion on the final tonality anyway.
 
krushing said:
That's a good tip! In other words: forget about mastering for now, focus on getting the mixes right - they should be 95% there before hitting the mastering phase anyway. Or actually 100% - I think of mastering as something of a second opinion on the final tonality anyway.
Click to expand...

yup.. the whole point of mastering used to be is to get a second set of (extremely well trained) ears on it and to make sure A SET of songs (eg. a record) sounds balanced and optimal as a whole.
Mastering your own stuff defeats that whole purpose, and while a great engineer can probably fix any kind of problem in your mix (and be happy to do it), it's not really his or her job and a very poor
use of their skills.

While you're learning you definitely don't want to play into a mastering chain, because it'll change the sound. Just get used to the fact it's not as loud while you work.. just crank up the volume ;)
You won't get a good grasp of what you're doing in your mix that way.

If you're learning about compression you'll want to hear exactly how that compressor affects your sound, and not have it buried under a stack of exciters, limiters and whatnot. You also lose the opportunity to eventually use the mastering phase to give your track that extra boost.. because you need it to fix problems with your mix. Once you do get to the point of mastering your stuff (or getting it mastered), having wildly unbalanced mixes will limit the engineers ability to get it loud or add that extra 5% of spice.
 
first read/watch alot about both things, cause they are not nearly the same. then first really get into mixing, forget about mastering for now..
 
If you don't have lots of time on your hands I would forget about mastering until you reach a really professional level... it's better to use your time and resources on building a fan base.

You can worry about mastering when you reach a level of massive distribution where your songs will be listened by millions of people and played on different devices.

If on the other hand you already have a solid fanbase and you're really into mastering then by all means read all the resources that you can about it and practice till you get to the level you want to - there's plenty of info on this forum.
 
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yes if your goal is to get your song(s) to some ideal place through your mix and or master, like mentioned above: practice forever and always.

That said, practice is just your wheels in this metaphor "music production": find a source of inspiration----"passion" is the road you go down here. That will also be the energy that shoves you kicking and screaming through the learning process and keeps you coming back again and again to keep learning; and lord-willin you'll stick with it enough to see: (finding info+applying info)*(passion)*(infinity) = noticeable progress.

Possible sources of info: this site, other sites, youtube, google, books, mags, PEOPLE.

Key here: literally type word for word whatever you're looking for. Find answers to questions, find concepts, detail those concepts, belligerently apply those concepts, throw all learned information out the window and into nearby people/places/things
(ignore that last one if you're of a kind disposition)

Possible sources of inspiration & or passion:
-any bloody thing that makes you freakin glad to be alive (esp art that gets you there)
-lord willin: your projects you're working on
-other people
-YOURSELF

Ya know, just do stuff, make other stuff happen

best

-MadHat
 
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