Mixing with Mastering in Mind 1 (BY BOBBY OWSINSKI)

Regardless of whether you master your final mixes yourself or take them to a mastering engineer, things will go a lot faster if you prepare for mastering ahead of time. Nothing is as exasperating to all involved as not knowing which mix is the correct one or forgetting the file name. Here are some tips to get you ‘‘mastering ready.’’ 

■ Don’t over-EQ when mixing. It’s better to be a bit dull during mixing and let your mastering engineer brighten things up. In general, mastering engineers can do a better job for you if your mix is on the dull side rather than too bright or too big.

■ Don’t over-compress when mixing. You might as well not even master if you’ve
squashed it too much already. Hyper-compression (see Chapter 10) deprives the
mastering engineer of one of his major abilities to help your project. Squash it for
your friends. Squash it for your clients. But leave some dynamics for your mastering
engineer. In general, it’s best to compress and control levels on an individual-track
basis and not that much on the stereo buss except to prevent digital overs.

■ Having the levels match between songs is not important. Just make your mixes sound
great; matching levels between songs is one of the reasons you master your mixes.

■ Getting hot mix levels is not important. You still have plenty of headroom even if
you print your mix with peaks reaching –10 dB or so. Leave it to the mastering
engineer to get those hot levels. It’s another reason why you do it.

(The Audio Mastering Handnook by Bobby Owsinki )